By now the trip was reaching it’s fag end.

Going back home as I saw the landscape changing from Goa to Karnataka , passing through each village, it still fascinated me. Still made me smile for home was not yet there..

You can still make the most of it, still enjoy those moments, enjoy the pauses.

Spread your arms wide with a smile as you stop in the middle of nowhere to take a small break and stretch your legs.

I realized late but nevertheless that vacation is what YOU make it to be. It need not be an exotic country, region, place always.

That ‘Boink’ moment  happened when we stopped and I took a breath of fresh air.

Having almost 15 years of traveling solo, with a significant other to friends, the journeys were not just the destination. It was the company you had too, those counted a lot.

The conversations, laughs, eating binges, silences and loads of craziness all that make a great vacation when in other’s company.

Traveling solo meant I could do what I want and at the same time be cautious and careful because as a woman traveling on your own meant you are totally responsible for yourself.

I was reflecting all those years and thanked myself as to how far I had come, from being quite an introverted woman in my 20’s to this present one.

Life along with travels taught me a lot, made me learn, unlearn, surviving a major accident while on vacation and here I am still going and moving.

As we stopped at a Dhaba near Belgaum, we recognized it as the same one we stopped at the last time we did a road trip with my cousins way back in 2012.

I remembered the entire family, an old Bai, her son running the dhaba with the entire joint family. Delicious and I mean Delicious clean fresh food.

Nothing changed after 5 years except that now that Dhaba had a name, expanded from a small seating to other spaces in the midst of lush greenery and fields behind.

I remembered the last time, there was a kid of 2 years and my eyes were on him all the time. He was not able to walk properly nor talk. When I spoke to his mother, she said he was almost 5 and yes he hadn’t spoken a single word since he was born.

That memory came flooding back and the first thing I did was ask the guy as to how his nephew was. He shrugged with the weariness that usually exists on most of us who carry the burden of responsibilities we have taken, saying nothing’s changed… He hasn’t spoken yet but he started walking. They are still trying their best to get him treated.

I went to the Old Bai and asked her if there was a wash room and she quietly took me out there in the fields and waited and stood guard. She was quite protective and didn’t even allow Srini to come behind the Dhaba.

As I saw the lush fields and their house with the goats and cows, I was welling up. Why? I don’t know…

The simplicity of it all overwhelms you, Kindness kills you more than cruelty.

We got used to a world of rudeness, selfishness, greed  so much that one nice gesture can move you.

It reminded me of the kindness of people I am surrounded with..

I was on a journey heading back home and continuing my own journey in life..