Wanderlust

wan·der·lust (wŏn'dər-lŭst') noun: A very strong or irresistible impulse to travel.

[German : wandern, to wander (from Middle High German) + Lust, desire (from Middle High German, from Old High German).]

When I was 17 I met this American guy in Calcutta airport. I was doing a part time job for the Ministry of Tourism, the job being to fill up a questionnaire about tourism experiences of foreign tourists in India. This 20 something guy was sitting on a suitcase when I approached him and when I asked him what his permanent address was he patted his suitcase and said this is it. He had left home at the age of 17 and for the last 10 odd years he has been travelling around the world, working his way through one country to another, staying for as long as he liked and then moving on. He had come to Calcutta hoping to do some work with Mother Teresa and hopefully to roam the rest of India. I went home and after eating food my mother prepared and keeping the unwashed plates in the sink for the maid, I went to my room, turned on Floyd and thought 'what a life this guy has! how lucky he is that he can afford to do this'..

I met a similar guy in Bangkok..this guy was an electrician in Denver and he takes 6 months off every 3 years and roams the world. I met him when he was on his fifth month, when he had reached Thailand after staying in Japan and Australia. Again i went green with envy, wishing I had the dollar power to be able to live such a life.

Wanderlust is common among bengalis. Any tourist place you go to in India will be full of the bong traveller, unmistakeable in his monkey cap, cardiganned wife and shawled mother. I asked a shopkeeper in Kumaon (last month when I went there) what the tourist season was like. He answered that usually its March to October, except for bengali tourists who come in the winters as well. But even these guys are not the true travellers. When I was a kid I had heard so many stories of bengali globe-trotters, who had left home in their teens and had worked their way across the world and came back home after 25-30 years.

I salute these guys. These were the guys that prove to couch dreamers like me that you dont need dollars or a permissible society to pursue your dreams.