What is it about trips & journeys that makes your heart beat faster? The anticipation and excitement of experiencing something different? from the mundane lives that we lead?

Is it the expectation that something extraordinary is going to happen in our ordinary lives?

The thrill of planning a trip, packing, booking tickets, the feeling that nothing can pull us down !As Freddie Mercury from the band Queen sings in his mercurial operatic voice, ‘Don’t stop me now’ !

But this trip, this really short trip I took was spontaneous but also with an intention.

It all started with me making grand plans for a long road trip to Goa for 10 days!

Booking hotels, researching on what all places I want to eat, hang around, I basically covered North to South Goa in my head! I felt it was too good to be true and it was.

It goes without saying that when you plan, life happens.

It happened to me in the form of sickness. Down with a severe throat infection and cold, I saw my plans completely fading away. I was in no condition to get up from bed forget travel.

As I sat languishing in bed, taking antibiotics by the dozen and waiting for the damn sickness to leave my body, a thought came into my head.. That if I would get a little better, just a little, I would still go ahead on a road trip, no matter how short or where it was.

And in a week’s time, I was all set to get the hell out of my city with my still persistent but better sounding cough 🙂

The only short yet awesome trip I thought I could make was to Beautiful Bangalore.

Words fail me when I want to describe this lovely city which has so many beautiful memories for me.. I could go on and on about it but today is definitely NOT about Bangalore, I will reserve that for another day.

After a couple of days in the city with amazing memories made again thanks to my wonderful friends, I set out to the middle of Nowhere….

Why do I call it Middle of Nowhere? Because sometimes a place does not require a name, not literally. Sometimes it’s best to call it just that.A place where you can let go, a place where you can truly be yourself..

As I reached a place  that is in a remote landscape, I felt myself slowing down, as everything seemed like slow motion.

The rawness and harshness of the landscape just encapsulates you and yet it makes you calm, makes you just want to stand still.

There is no judgement, no criticism, not caring about what others think. It’s just You, You and only You…

The red mud beckons you with it’s beautiful colours, the almost mountainous kind of terrain in the hills makes you gasp and warm all at one time and the wildness of nature takes you in with open arms just like a mother.

With the landscape also comes the people living there. The initial wariness but slowly melting through the barriers if they see you as you see them, transparent..

The initial curiosity gives way to a slight sense of comfort as you slowly make that small baby steps to trusting each other.

A Bonfire at night, a walk through the terrain, renewing friendships with the four legged kind, welcoming the arrival of a new life, cooking and sharing it with the people and in the process knowing more about them, this was an experience that I feel I still cannot express as much as I want to.

Here the people, nature and animals co-existed, respecting each others spaces, sometimes over stepping once a while but again finding their way back to harmony.

As I left that beautiful space after a short stay, I wondered how little it takes for a person to be happy. Just so little, just so simple.

I do not believe in an Utopian paradise.. but yes I do believe it’s all in our hands.. To make it simpler, to make it joyful..

As someone very special said to me, ‘There’s only one person who is responsible for your happiness’ Isn’t that so true? It’s always oneself.

As I came back from the trip, I realized that I can make my own happiness, because in the end, there is no one showing you the light, no messiah coming and giving you pearls of wisdom or no shortcuts to the path of eternal paradise.

It’s just YOU.

So sometimes if you feel you are in the middle of Nowhere… Just look around and you might realize you are exactly in the place you wanted to be.