Some day in 2018, February.
Around 7 pm.
Phone rings.
“Yea, Hi! Tell me”
“Hey Amit, can you send me those 7 pictures from your phone? I need to upload them!”
“Eh, you’re such a jerk. Can’t even wait for a day. Wait, I will mail you the pics. Give me 20 minutes.”
“Sure man! Thanks”
I started searching for those photographs so I could mail them. This trip to Kanchipuram was really refreshing and exciting. Like, I never really thought one city could have had so much variance in the architecture of temples. Incredible. And not that even one of them had been compromised in their respective creativity. They were all masterpieces and pioneers of their own architectural style. I felt so content and was boosting with energy to resume the Tamil Nadu trip the next weekend.
I mailed the pictures. In the subject I wrote, “Weekend Explorations TamilNadu”. Weekends for me are always days of exploration. Internal or external. And why just weekends, any such stretch of time which is peaceful and you can have your own private composure. Any such time can be used for the exploration. Even trying hands at water colouring, stitching, cooking, watching some new shows, etc. anything which you haven’t tried or anything which can reveal another hidden virtue of your life. That is exploration. It is fun.
I got a notification on my Instagram. Wait, not “a” notification. There were multiple uploads. I knew it was all his. He was just crazily waiting to reach home and upload his new “insta” material. His phone ditched him early in the trip else he wouldn’t have waited to even reach home. Such is “his love” for social media.
The pictures were all beautiful. He had taken all from my phone as his was switched off. Very beautiful shots of the kalyani (pond of the temple), the rathas ( the statues of the chariots made of brass) and the stone inscriptions and sculptures. Really good shots. But there was something which disappointed me. The captions.
The captions mentioned “Weekend escapes”, “escape to eternity”, “Weekend getaways escapes”, etc. He just used the word “escape” everywhere. So many hashtags with escape word in it. I wondered what travelling meant for him.
I checked the hashtags. I was astounded to see the huge number of applications the tags had. And when I checked through the posts, they included great tourist locations, some in the Himalayas from Sikkim to Nubra Valley in Pakistan, from the Scandinavian cities to the city of Benaras. All this was an escape?
I sat down wondering on this? What might be the difference between the experiences of these two different mindsets. One which accepted the trip as an exploration and the other that took it as an escape. It was difficult to figure out the difference as both meant – (somehow) proper utilisation of the free time to relax the mind. But something, somewhere was surely wrong. The way he posted everything on the social media and the kind of comments he got were hinting in a different direction.
I will share some of the comments. “Welcome to Monday in 6 hours”, “Client meeting in 10 hours”, “wake up, the weekend is gone”, “No weekend next week”, etc. It was extremely alarming to see, what the meaning of job and a free day had become. Everything that he did, was it just an escape? If yes, certainly that is the reason why, he left everything on me and asked me to plan it. I was eager to explore more and more in 2 days and so I took all the charge of planning and enquiring.
There surely exist two different annotations for the two different thought processes. There has to be. I do not know which sounds more globally and politically correct, but they sound different for sure. I mean the very way you approach your trip changes the way you look at it.Let us take some scenarios.
In the first 4 hours of the trip:
“Explore”: This place is so different and beautiful. It will be real fun here. We will try see as much as we can with maximum absorption.
“Escape”: Yea really it is beautiful. The whole week we are into 6×6 cubicles. This place is really gonna give some good experience.
In the mid of the trip:
“Explore”: Day 1 was really tiring man. But it was beautiful. Sad that we couldn’t cover the last destination, but maybe tomorrow morning we can take it up early.
“Escape”: Yea. Atleast we saw so many things. Else whole day sitting in office, doesn’t really help us either.
At the end of the trip:
“Explore”: Beautiful city, no? I really wish I had brought my sketchbooks and pencils. So many places to be sketched. I am really looking to visit the place once more. Possibly, in the winters.
“Escape” : Yea man. Only if my phone did not switch off. Nice trip though, man! Thanks. Arghh.. again the same office-office from tomorrow. I hate this.
Not that all the things happened word to word. But these are my interpretations of the entire trip. I believe and its my personal belief, maybe wrong or right, I really don’t care. But this is the difference I believe exists between taking a trip as an “exploration” or an “escape”.
So the next time, when you are uploading a pic on social media or just writing the caption to your pic, think over it – Explore or Escape?
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Always Ranting, Rantzaada.
The 11 o' clock diary 