Travel and Personal

To What End Travel?

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ June 18, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

On ne voyage pas pour se garnir d’exotisme et d’anecdotes comme un sapin de Nöel, mais pour que la route vous plume, vous rince, vous essore, vous rende comme ces serviettes…

A few weeks ago I met a guy at a bar. Such a meeting of strangers, brought together through a series of acquantiances, is common to Geneva. As we talked of where we had been, he noted, ‘how such a life can get addictive.’

He brought forth a point that has been on my mind too, lately. To what purpose this travel?

I left India to work and study. Well, after 5 years outside my country I have done both. Why then am I not contemplating a swift return? I must be honest to myself. I find it hard to be ready to ’settle down’. And there lies the contradiction between what we started, and what we have become.

Richard Feynman, a member of the Manhattan Project and Nobel prize winning physicst, recalled in his writings how he started making the bomb for a good reason. But long after the reason was gone and Germany had been defeated, he and others continued working, and did not stop to think of what they were doing.

So, now my original reason for traveling is gone. I need a new one. If not, as Nicolas Bouvier would say:

“Un voyage se passe de motifs. Il ne tarde pas à prouver qu’il se suffit lui-même. On croit qu’on va faire un voyage, mais bientôt c’est le voyage qui vous fait ou vous défait.”