What Travelling With A Book Taught Me About Myself
By Kanchan Balani
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The world zipped by outside my bus window as I ploughed through the book in my hands. With every page that I turned, the world outside changed a dozen shades.
The bus was filled with a cacophony of voices and my mind was whirling with thoughts about my decision to volunteer in the quaint village of Bhabra in Madhya Pradesh. Upon reaching, the village, with its verdant grasslands and ceaselessly fleeting sky welcomed me. However, I had a stinging uneasiness about me. I was slowly realizing that I didn’t know anyone in this village. I was already starting to doubt my decision of coming here. But then I did find solace and much-needed encouragement in something that helped me stay strong throughout this period. That something was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.
The gut-wrenching tale of the Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, spoke to me in a profound way. It told me how the human spirit is capable of enduring mountains of pain. In that particular moment, my problems seemed trivial. They looked nothing in comparison to what those women had gone through. Now that I think about it, I wonder if my volunteering experience would have been so successful without this book by my side.
Books have always helped me find meaning in the midst of chaos. May it be my stay in Bhabra or my study trip to Paris, characters like Mariam and Laila, and the life of Hemingway in Paris have inspired me and helped enhance my travel experiences. A couple of journeys with books taught me what no mentor could and changed my perceptions about certain places, brought comfort in arduous times, and most importantly, gave me hope when my mind was beset with doubts.
When I ponder about this, an image instantly forms in my mind — that of Cheryl Strayed, the writer of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, reading the lines from Adrienne Rich’s poem, Power, loud to herself:
I can picture the reckless and gritty Strayed reading those lines on her Pacific Crest Trail on a black inky night, contemplating her own life in the midst of the wilderness. Strayed’s Wild is one of the most unflinching and emotionally investing books that I have ever come across. She mentions how reading books during her trail played such an immense role.
“I’d loved books in my regular-PCT life, but on the trail, they’d taken on even greater meaning… They were the world I could lose myself in when the one I was actually in became too lonely or harsh or difficult to bear.”
This, indeed, is what books can bring to your travel. If you have itchy feet the next time you embark on a journey, carry a book along with you and experience the magic that comes with it. Trust me, a good book can give wings to your wanderlust.
Wondering which books can serve as the best travel companions? Here are a few:
