When the travel bug bites, look at the positive side-effects

Did you know that in 2007 Indians made close to 350 million trips to destinations across the country? Add to that the 5 million foreign tourists visiting India, and the 7.5 million Indians travelling abroad, and you get a pretty large travel and tourism industry. Most of these people travel on leisure or business, apart from a smattering of trips to meet friends and family. Indeed, travelling during holidays has become a growing phenomenon in India in the last 5- 7 years. While increasing incomes and greater awareness are the key reasons behind this uptrend, I suspect it has also got a lot to do with people discovering the joys of traveling.

To most of us who remember the holiday outings and trips to relatives during summer vacations, the joys of traveling are obvious and have been evident for a long time. However, of no less importance is the association of travel with learning and discovery of the self and others. This factor in itself can be as satisfying as the escape from our routine life and as enlightening as what we learn at school or at work. Let me, therefore, share some thoughts on this aspect of travel. These are primarily drawn from experiences of my own, and those of friends and acquaintances around me. But I imagine some day this may be yours as well, if this has not been already.

The biggest benefit of travel is that it opens your mind. Usually we are brought up in an environment that provides us only limited exposure to the outside world. More importantly, we are more often than not used to a specific way of thinking, a particular approach to solving problems and our familiar ways of responding to new situations. Travelling to new places and exposing ourselves to different social and cultural environments helps us to understand that the life that we know of may not be the be all and end all of existence. It teaches us that social and cultural mores that we know may only be a particular way, among many others, of looking at life. It makes us aware that there are people who look different from us and there are cultures that look at social conventions in ways other than we do. For example, the “thumbs up” gesture, which is considered a sign of approval and agreement in most Western cultures, is considered rude or even offensive in some Asian cultures. Calling older people by first names is considered unacceptable in many parts of Asia, including India, but is perfectly acceptable in most Western countries, especially the US. Closer home, an example that we can all identify with is the difference in eating habits of people in one part of the country from another. It takes only a bit of interaction with people outside our immediate circle to realize that food habits have evolved according to availability of plants or animals, or from the climate or landforms of a state or region. Travel, therefore, teaches us to be more accepting of diversity and makes us more open to new or unknown things. This, in turn, helps us better understand people from states or countries that are different from ours and leads to a more efficient and enriching interaction, whatever be the context – social or professional.

The second benefit – at first glance a contradiction of the first – is the realization that in spite of the differences, we are all similar in certain aspects. In Italy and some other Mediterranean countries, for example, it is perfectly acceptable for grown-up single men or women to live with their parents well into their thirties. Very similar to India, and perfectly normal, did you say? Then again, we were given a very motherly treatment, hugs and kisses included, by a lady in a small Egyptian desert town where we had stopped for lunch. The lady apparently did not see any difference between us and her own offspring. So what does this tell us? There are certain values and emotions that are universal and transcend boundaries. It is up to us to tap into these at appropriate times in our lives. Sometimes, this will help us deal with unfamiliar situations; in some others, it will simply contribute to a more fulfilling exchange with other people.

Travel can also make our school and college education system more complete. While this is true for almost all the subjects that we get to learn, I would pick out history and geography as particularly relevant in this case. Reading about the Ajanta and Ellora paintings and sculptures is one thing, but seeing them with your own eyes makes for a completely different experience. And is the study of the Mughal Empire at all complete without getting a glimpse of the magnificent Taj Mahal? Do not tell me it requires expensive travel to far-off lands. We all study different types of soil, but how many of us take any interest in examining the difference in the soil of your hometown and a place four hour’s bus ride away? Or bother about undertaking a short trip to see for ourselves formations such as river deltas or levees? It is one thing to memorize text and graphics and regurgitate in the examination, and another to actually see for ourselves how things are.

A related, and often overlooked, benefit of travel is that it brings us closer to the real world. Several of us lead cocooned, comfortable lives where physical or mental walls, sometimes self-imposed, separate us from the world outside. The student who knows only the home, school bus and school, or the busy executive who knows only the “cold chain” from home to office with the weekend cinema or clubbing or eating out thrown in – both suffer from this malady. Travel at times helps one shake off these barriers and enables us to know things the way they are. No, you do not need to sign up for the latest war-zone holiday package to Afghanistan or Sudan, as I am told some tour companies are offering! I am referring more to the knowledge of how the “rest of the world” lives. Reading that most Indians survive on less than Rs100 a day do not mean a thing unless you see for yourself how they actually live. A trip to the film sets of Mumbai opens our eyes to the labour and hard work that goes behind shooting a Bollywood blockbuster – not obvious when the drama, the music and the popcorn conspire to transport us to a different world for three hours.

Finally travel can help us discover ourselves better, and bring out skills that are either suppressed or we never knew about, if not both. Like this article, which after a long time, gives me the joy of writing which I had almost forgotten. Or it may give you enough raw materials to capture endless shots of nature and human life, if photography is your passion.

So next time you have some spare time, make sure you set off for some other place – near or far. It may be a long flight across continents to an unknown land, or a day-trip to a place outside your city limits. It need not be in a group – sometimes the best travel experience is when the only company is your own. Trust me – that extra couple of hours of holiday slumber or the latest movie or live cricket telecast can wait. It is indeed no match for the thrills of the unknown, the unseen and the unheard.