Ancient travel bug, alive and kicking!

Right from the time, some two million years ago*, when the earliest of them appeared in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, Homo sapiens have been hit by the travel bug.

It began with the migration in the general direction of the rising sun. Thousands of years later, they were all over the globe mostly by walking.

Long, long ago…

Many settled down and raised families. The restless others moved on. Many just followed their instincts or their cattle to greener pastures, water and affable climates. As a group, wherever they went, people learnt to socialise, hang out with each other, formed bonds and strategies for challenges facing the individual and community.

In between, man, ‘the most curious and mobile of all animals' wanted to know the unknown, the world beyond the community, to gain knowledge of new frontiers.

That same spirit of wanderlust reigns today. Maybe we don't walk as much as our ancestors, but we still manage to clock in a bit. Oops! Forgot Sabalsinh Vala, the indefatigable walker-globe trotter. He carries a light bag on his back, a Gandhi-like bamboo staff and great determination.

He has covered 175,000 km by foot and now the spirited 72-year-old is off on another expedition — to go around the world in 800 days. Reason? To challenge the human spirit, inspire others to see the boon of walking, and, of course, to see the world afresh, child-like.

Travel fantasy

Unfortunately not everyone can do it that way. Presently with rising disposable incomes and a buoyant economy, people are travelling like never before, taking advantage of the easier, swifter means of transportation.

Then there are those who undertake the minimum of foot-work and yet manage to voyage to all manner of places and situations. There's no checking out ‘best fares', visa hassles, or packing tooth-brush.

Books and literature, cinema, the Internet are their tickets. In an instant, they're whisked off — to exotic locales and people and experiences. Call it virtual journey or vicarious thrill, it is there.

For how can one open JK Rowling and not jump aboard the Hogwarts Express or climb on the same broom for rousing Quidditch as Harry? Or go on a Thames boating holiday without remembering the shenanigans of Jerome K. Jerome's three friends and their dog? Or jump on the raft with Huck and not get involved in the Mississippi scenes? Or not participate in Bruce Chatwin's grim, electrifying scrap with Nature for survival in Patagonia?

View of the world

Early in my marketing career, I had the good fortune of travelling all over India and abroad. I developed the habit of always combining some fun with serious work. Invariably my travel kit included walking shoes and city maps.

So when in a Mumbai or Kolkata or Chennai, Ik'd be out of the hotel at the crack of dawn to see the place as it wakes up in its pristine splendour — without traffic, irate commuters, and the hustle and bustle.

Instead, freshly scrubbed by a new day scenes would greet me everywhere. The Gateway of India, the boats returning and the Arabian Sea, Colaba Causeway and the Indo-Sarcenic buildings; the sprawling green Maidan by the Victoria Memorial, trams trundling dreamily in the misty distance and early morning cricketers; another welcome escape from tedious air-conditioned business discussions was the walk from Savera/Woodlands to the lighthouse and back on the Marina and beach, with cool breeze lifting the spirit.

In this same way, I've travelled in various global cities — Brussels, London, NYC, Chicago, Kathmandu, Colombo, Hong Kong… all before I was 30!

Extended family

These days, I have the habit of carting a camera and diary to record sights, sounds, friendly encounters and such on local and overseas travels. Everywhere I go I see the sheer variety of people, languages, culture and the thrilling, fascinating human drama around. Black, brown, yellow, white and all shades in between they may be, but deep inside me I realise they are my kin, my blood.

Didn't scientists tell us that we, the original people of India, had features very similar to those in today's central Africa? Those who left the Great Lakes and settled down in the southern Indian peninsula came to be known as Dravidians.

Around 300 BC, these people with ‘dark to brown complexion, broad nose, curly hair' built ‘cities with organised streets, two-storeky brick homes with bathrooms and underground sewers, domesticated cattle, sheep, and elephant, and cultivated cotton and wheat, built boats, and became skilled in working with bronze and iron'.

A larger purpose

While drinking deep of such information, I encounter a lot of people also similarly bitten by the travel bug and curiosity. They are out on work, or on business or personal reasons. Some are out looking for a soul mate, the person of their dream. Often many are out for pleasure, adventure and I suspect, are hoping to capture and relive the excitement seen in the movies and TV and books and history or are meeting up with like-minded souls, checking out local cuisine and enjoying the good life.

There are many who see travel as integral to the learning process — to keep the mind sharp and agile, imaginative capacity enhanced, and as a tool to retain a competitive edge.

To me travel does all this and more. It shrinks the world, brings people closer…and builds bridges to those who scooted out of Africa millions of years ago!

Why travel?

Studies show that people travel mainly to visit family and friends. Another reason is employment, and business. A ‘good job' or a lucrative deal takes people literally to the ends of the earth. Increasingly, people travel for holidays, honeymoons and just to break the tedium of everyday life, and to ‘de-stress' — with some even opting out of the rat race to seek peace and seclusion. Many travel to experience another culture and a ‘different' way of life. Millions travel to see and explore the world.

*anthropologist Dr. Albert Chuchward's estimate

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