I was born and raised in Mumbai, in India. India is hard to describe in a few words! To me, it’s chaotic, marvelous, beautiful, vastly cultural, deeply historic, and constantly evolving. With so many things always moving, it can be a lot to handle over a prolonged period of time.
When I left India at 17, I think the biggest emotion I felt was relief. I think I’ve always known I wanted to leave it. I had a very privileged childhood and was fortunate to have parents who loved to travel, so you could say the travel bug bit me early in life! When I left, I didn’t know where I wanted to end up or what my life would look like, but I knew there was a much bigger world out there, and I wouldn’t have been happy staying in the same city where I grew up.
For me, traveling is how I love to learn about the world. I hoped to reach the point where I could travel the way I’m traveling today. I studied at university and have been working for many years in Singapore, but I still get to travel extensively, even for work, which is amazing and something I want to keep doing for as long as possible.
My most meaningful journey will always be my time in Guatemala. I had the opportunity to help with building a school for the local community. The people there were simply the most welcoming, kind, friendly individuals. They were fascinated by the fact that I had traveled from Singapore, eager to know where it was on the map because they’d never heard of it before. They brought us into their daily lives, showing me how they lived and teaching me that, at the end of the day, happiness comes from within. What you have, own, or can buy is superficial, but joy comes from within. In comparison, I feel like I contributed insignificantly to how much they contributed to my life experience.
When I travel, I love talking to strangers. At first, it seemed like a scary thing to do because, obviously, you don’t know the people and can’t predict what the interaction will be like. But over time, I realized that starting off with a simple comment about what is happening around us, or maybe the food we’re eating, or a shared experience we’re having, was a nice way to break the ice in the conversation.
Oddly enough, you realize that when you meet people while traveling, the similarities are actually more than the dissimilarities. And with the world seemingly becoming more disparate, it’s a nice way to reassure yourself that there are kind and similar people all across the world.