A Never Ending Journey

Seldom do we find people who have courage to change their own lives by moving out of their comfort zones. And it’s even rare that they never go back on the same path and rather choose a path less travelled. The path which not necessarily give them a livelihood but provide them the satisfaction, satisfaction that they are giving back to the country and its society!

Meet Dinesh and Shobhit, two boys with extraordinaire passion for travelling and living the life their way. This passion made them quit there exuberantly paying jobs and they headed for a journey which lasted for a lifetime. Their 309 days journey set them apart from other travellers as they earned by doing petty jobs and even when they came back they never headed back to their fancy paying jobs rather joined various NGO’s and organisation to work on a grass root level.

Q. When did the wakeup call came that you just had to give up on well paying job and start exploring places?

A. After working for two years we headed for an unplanned trip to Goa which lit the spark in us to make it big and our passion

Q. Why did you choose not to plan a trip unlike other travel duos and how sceptical were you about failing in your plan?

A. Honestly at first we did try to plan it, we spent few months planning but the idea was so vague and huge at the same time that we failed to plan it. Since every traveler who plans a trip, first decides upon a timeline of the trip, then places to stay, then

Q. Describe some of the moments, which probably changed your life forever?

A. Now we see the world from broader perspective though we still have to learn a lot. But now we have started understanding things from the other side as well.

Moments which really had an impact on our outlook and thinking were, like once we had volunteered in Bylakupe in Karnataka in a Tibetan monastery and after our 5 day visit we asked for some feedback from the head of the monastery and he wrote

"But the real exploration is not planning and heading to a time-bound journey but rather make every place you pass your destination."

places to visit and the mode of traveling and now when it comes to us we didn’t want our journey to be time bound, we had no wish to see the famous tourist places rather we wanted to go to unexplored places then the popular ones, we were not carrying money so no point of thinking planning about mode of traveling and stay.

Soon we realized that there is no point in planning as it will spoil the fun and it’s boring too. But the real exploration is not planning and heading to a

time-bound journey but rather make every place you pass your destination.

We were sceptical initially about this trip as we have never been to places we wanted to explore. We did doubt our gut once as we had no money and didn’t know if anyone would offer us food or shelter. But then it was a call direct from our hearts and we shall take everything that comes as an experience. Atleast we won’t be disappointed that we didn’t answer the call from our heart like many others and die with regrets.

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"..if one day we wake up in the morning at a place we have no idea about..."

from then took over. Somewhere deep inside our hearts we did realize that we always had this dream of setting out for a soulful journey and explore the outer & inner world which might be crazy but we just wanted to experience life as it comes to us and enjoy the moment where, if one day we wake up in the morning at a place we have no idea about, we don’t even know where to go

next or bother about anything in this world...just keep moving ahead and we did experience ultimate freedom.

"...even a smallest of the deeds can do meaningful wonders at the right time."

Q. Any specific future travels that you guys are upto anytime soon?

A. We have plans to make few more trips towards the Himalayas, around Uttarakhand and Himanchal... Since there are many unexplored places left. We might not do this exactly the same way but now the soul will remain the same of these trips to experience the reality and be with people as one of them rather than being a tourist.

We also plan to take people along with us to have such experience, people who actually want to break the monotony of life rather than going for a holiday break.

Q. Which region of the country would you want to go back again and yet again?

A. Though each and every place had given us love and warmth and without even thinking much I would say ‘North East’…a place where people are as loving as any other state or may be even more with sheer innocence. We had no idea about this place and yet we thought we would at least spend few days in Guwahati if not other places but we spent around 40 days in north east and explored it.

Q. From starving to teaching at schools to doing petty jobs the journey must have given you a reality check about the real India. Comment.

A. This question actually covers each and every moment of our journey since at every step it was a reality check, not just about the country but for ourselves as well…still I would try and keep it short.

The decision of not taking money was for a simple reason that we miss out on reality and run for comforts since we have got money in our pockets. We wanted to experience hunger it’s not like that we belong to rich families, we both have seen struggles of a middle class family yet there was much more left for us to experience.

Q. Why did you guys not go back to the corporate world and rather decided to work for grassroots?

A. Shobhit and I always had some inclination towards the social/development sector but had no experience as such so we never took that risk of directly getting into it where we really wanted to contribute and bring some significant change.

After getting into our first job in a reputed private company It didn’t take much time for us to realize that though we are doing

Q. What was the mantra to your survival during the entire trip?

A. Being honest has been the sole motive of this trip. We promised ourselves that we wouldn’t cook up stories to get food and shelter. We told the people that we left our corporate jobs to explore our country without any money, and we completely understood if they didn’t get our intention, we never blamed them and rather headed elsewhere to find one. We knew if it’s hard for our parents and friends to understand our zeal to go distances then it’s completely alright if they didn’t buy our idea.

about us in our diary in Tibetan Language. Almost 5 months hence when we were travelling through Ladakh valley at about 15000 feet, we were caught at a very cold and barren place where we couldn’t even find a shelter for ourselves and found ourselves really vulnerable but then we saw this tent of a Ladakhi guy who stays and runs a small shop with his sister. When we asked

for a shelter and favour he asked for Rs 5000, taking as normal tourist duo. Then we started to have a conversation and settled at rs 2000, at that time I showed him the feedback which the head of monastery in Karnataka wrote for us. To our amazement that note really won him over and he greeted us and gave us food shelter quilts and all the warmth for free. We still wonder how that letter worked as a wonder for us and saved us from a dreadful night. It was then we realized that even a smallest o the deeds can do meaningful wonders at the right time.

"Though we knew that we might want to get into this sector but not everyone has to be a social worker to do something for society."

so well here but we realized that this isn’t the work we will be doing for our whole life and somewhere the aim of making money is giving us all comforts of life but something is missing, a void inside and I guess every soul has that voice, buried deep down inside our heart but because knowingly-unknowingly we put ourselves into the cage of society and responsibility and we keep ignoring the voice and not even try to attempt it.

So the only difference was we didn’t ignore it, this time at least. Then during our journey when we saw and experienced the love of people of this country, sheer selfless love, our heart melted and realized that even though at present we are not giving anything tangible to these people or the students we used to interact during our journey itself was kind enough for them to make some sense out of it and we decided that it’s our moral responsibility to give back to this society. Though we knew that we might want to get into this sector but not everyone has to be a social worker to do something for society.

"...first time when we got food after almost 36 hours, we both looked at each other and smiled and realized the value of food and many things..."

When we had no money, yes the only thing used to come to our mind was food but it remains for a while and it goes…initially it was damn difficult but first time when we got food after almost 36 hours when we set in front of our ‘thali’ (in Rajasthan at one family who gave us shelter), we both looked at each other and smiled and realized the value of food and many things like we keep on hearing about people killing for food, working hard for food, people dying because of hunger…basically it was a big shock and gave us a new insight.

Teaching in school and colleges, well we had no idea that someone will take us to school and will make us talk to the students. At first it was really the moment where mind stopped working but since we started to explore may be this was another one…so we started with sharing about our lives and then kids started sharing about theirs…then we got to know that there is so much they do not know so we started telling them and shocking things about our education system came to us that how it is ruining the lives and it is said Youth is the Future of this country, why future …why not Youth is the Present of this country and give them what they need…

Well we did our bit where we could and there are many good people working at grassroot level but the need is huge and such people are less. So though we were little satisfied by what we were doing but it’s not enough a lot more has to be done.

People of India have no idea about their own rights or meaning of democracy…one person asked us “you guys are travelling like this from one state to another…do you have permission for this?” Now, what else we expect from these innocent people.

"North East…a place where people are as loving as any other state or may be even more with sheer innocence..."

The real innocent people and it’s an irony that it’s the media who never publish or shows this part, all we here is the militant groups and the violence in this part. Not only people, the whole Northeast is beautiful and people must visit and learn from these people here.

For example we keep talking about women empowerment, one should learn

from this place where each house has handloom machine and every women or girl knows how to use it and they make their own clothes.

These people need attention from the country since they face the fury of nature the most and in the name of development there is nothing.

We would love to go again and again, do something to help them and somehow we need to connect the rest of India, won’t be a surprise but people have no idea about the north-eastern states and the people there.