Is it possible for my mother to be right? Are there no other Indian people being Vagabonders out there like I plan to be? I go on a quest for the truth.
I decided to go on a journey of long-term travel a few weeks ago. Looking through my life and how dreary it had become, I decided I had to leave before I began to hate myself. When I told my mother that I am going, she looked at me horrified, and said, ‘ Indian people do not do things like these.’
Implying, that only people of a certain color are subject to these kind of mad urges to leave everything behind and go travel. That made me wonder, if that is true. Are there no people from India or of Indian descent going on these adventures. Are we so far away from these adventures in our mindset? The conservative, save-money, and be a conformist attitude of Asians dictates that we wouldn’t succumb to the lure of long-term travel.
“You know how our culture is. We are all about working and saving for the future, at which point, we give all of our savings to our children, who can then repeat the cycle.” My friend from India, Shelly, reminded me of this fact. I agreed with the statement, but I believed in my heart, that there are more Indian people like me out there, who are interested in breaking free of the mould and doing their own thing.
I went out there to the world wide web, and decided to look through the various travel blogs, to find just one Indian person who had done or was doing what I was about to do. I looked for one and I found many. There are Indian people of all shapes and sizes doing what I am doing.
Some married, some single, just eager to experiment and do their own thing.
I showed the evidence to my mother, who looked at the blogs in astonishment. She still could not believe it.
” They must not be true Indians, if they behave like that.” And that was the end of that argument.
photo by psoup216 on Flickr
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