A Girl Who Grows Up On Trails of Solo Travel
People who have never been anywhere alone describe their solo traveling as a life changing moment as it offers a platform to indulge yourself fully. I feel solo travelling has the power to bring about a complete change. It helps in raising questions inside me and sometimes when I do not get any answer, I consider no answer is the real answer. Solo travelling gives me the confidence to judge myself and identify who I am. To me solo travelling is transformative and eternally enriching.
Counting My Blessings!!!! |
A child never craves for a sibling or materialistic things rather he/she longs for being loved. Loving someone and the feeling of being loved have a very fundamental difference which unfortunately is still misunderstood by many. When you are constantly being judged and questioned by your own, it gives a huge opportunity to others to do the same and you remain nothing but a victim. Years passed by and I was happily living the unhappy life.
The year 2015 seems to be a very kind uncle to me who walked for the first six months to find me and on the way, in the mid of the year held my hand and took me to a different world and asked me to live my life. I began enjoying the small little things that I witnessed. I started loving colours, laughing on my own, found myself smiling all the time, breathing freely, and loved reading for hours, days and months.
The year 2018 was filled with divine spirits as it offered me wings to fly high in the clouds. By the time I already had my Secret God who was a guiding source to me. I had developed a keen interest in reading spiritual books, enjoying my company and many other things which added happiness in my small, yet beautiful world. I took up my first solo trip that year without having a single idea of what solo travel means. There was some inquisitiveness in my mind which always insisted me on visiting Velankanni once. Velankanni is a popular pilgrimage destination among Christians but I chose the place not out of my religious and pious nature but something beyond.
Somewhere my first solo trip happened to be a life changing moment for me. Earlier, I had never travelled alone. I had travelled but for purposes like attending conferences, visiting my home town but now the travelling had started for a spiritual purpose. The five days solo trip managed to change me entirely as I had lost control of myself and had surrendered myself to time and space and it was just magical.
Soon trip after trip started. In these years I actually realized that a woman must be entirely independent and travelling alone is inevitable for her to become a better being. It is as indispensable as breathing. Here I have shared a few of my learnings about my solo travelling and its need in a woman’s life.
Men might take you as granted: A woman is always taken as granted and is considered always available in the patriarchal society. Travelling teaches you to be strong and let others know that a woman can never be easily available but easily approachable. A single woman is often considered as weak and as someone looking for a company on whom she can put her shoulder to cry upon. I remember from a few of my trips where I came across guys travelling solo but all the more getting crazy after meeting a girl. I consider such human beings as vultures having no life and soul of their own. Travelling makes you strong, builds your will power and lets you prove yourself not only to you but to the world that a girl is self-sufficient and can never accept being taken as granted.
Confidence: The moment one becomes responsible, answerable to her own self, lives a life on her own terms, starts loving herself and is ready to survive on her own, she becomes confident in her life. Travelling boosts your confidence level. It lets you face the world and accept the situation no matter how the circumstances are. Travelling builds your will power and later you use the learning in your personal life and your life blooms.
People or parents start judging you: Though we are living in 21st century, the issue of gender equality is an engrossing subject with Ted speakers citing their examples, politicians scoring points, activists getting publicity in local newspaper, professors deliberately giving lectures on the monotonous talk on feminism but unfortunately still the country lives in the 18th century mindset. My personal experience throws light on the stark and cruel gender discrimination that I go through not in the outside world because judgement never starts from the outside world but from the atmosphere and surrounding you are living in. “Ladki Ho, Udo Mat”, “Kaun sa beta ho tum jo acchhe din dikhaogi”, “duniya kya bolega ki tum ghumti ho”, “ladki ho, kisi ke haath me tumhe saup dena hai meri jimmedari khatam”, “ladki ho kar career ka kya sochna” are the most common and frequent phrases that I come across. A girl is always judged and is not allowed to fulfil her dreams. To her dreams are meant to be only passing thoughts because her final destination should be settling in the bloody institution of marriage and siring babies and further struggling to save her marital life. Learning and exploring new things are not meant for her even in an educated family like mine.
You learn to stand on your own: The moment a girl is responsible, accountable and free, loves herself, celebrates her existence and becomes confident, she learns to fight back. She can stand on her own as she is self-sufficient and is not required to justify herself. She is not meant to take any shit from others. The fight between her and society would be a gradual process but ultimately it will bring peace in her life.
Go to places, get a life: Travelling does not end at the moment you step in your door after visiting places with a heavy bag rather it is a process of endless learning. It might slow down but it never stops. Travelling makes you capable enough of living a life which you always dreamt of. Of course one must be capable enough to meet her expenses, from her day to day essentials to visiting different places and travelling prepares you to be financially independent. Travelling makes you rich, enables you to count your blessings, teaches you to purify your soul, guides you to spread love and positivity by painting a colourful life and lets you feel your every breath and celebrate your existence. By now, you are fully transformed where you enter the spiritual world and celebrate humanity.
I can travel me to sonamarg
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ReplyDeleteBrave of you to travel solo. Very inspiring I must say
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