Healing the hole in my heart
June 18, 2006: It’s a peculiar phenomenon. More than two decades ago, I travelled rough quite a bit in Gujarat and Maharashtra. I’d tell my parents cryptically that I’d be “in coastal South Gujarat” or “Saurashtra” or “around Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani-Pune”, and then I’d disappear for a week with maybe Rs 500 or 800. Equipped mainly with a road-map, I’d roam around, hiking all night sometimes and sleeping under trees off highways, or in nearby tea-stalls, shop-fronts, beaches, park benches, fishermen’s homes, as well as dirt-cheap, bedbug-infested lodges and dharamshalas . I enjoyed that. I travelled alone, and I liked my own company. I liked the silence and the introspection. I liked climbing into an ST bus on a moment’s whim, just because I liked the sound of the place where it was going, and because it was about to leave in two minutes. I liked not knowing where I would wake up the next day. However, no matter how beautiful the beaches and the mountains and the gurgli...