Break ke baad...

A friend points out that it has been exactly two months since my last post. I am back after my longest break since I started blogging, and I don’t know where to begin. I already had a backlog of over 50 places to write about before I went ‘off-blog’ and this period in between (when I have been living out of my suitcase) has provided many more memories to re-live and stories to recount. There were times during my travels when I was so excited about what I had seen or done that I almost wrote my blog posts in my mind and saved it there. But there were also times when my mind was so pre-occupied that it failed to observe and enjoy. This made me realize that there must be a saturation point even for travelers.
Whirlwind trips are not what travelers like me enjoy. Such hasty trips may perhaps touch one’s senses but it can hardly ever reach the soul. I fall under the category of travelers who like their jaunts spaced out in such a way that one can enjoy the preparation and anticipation, then truly enjoy the experience itself and then have ample time and space to ruminate over the experience until it seeps through and becomes a part of oneself.  It also helped me reaffirm what I see as the purpose of my travel. To me, traveling is not just about seeing all the must-see places (I have not seen the top must-see tourist spot in our country!), but an opportunity to re-discover myself every time I relate to what I see and experience.

So, just to share with you one of the most beautiful places I experienced when I was 'off-blog'. Here is the Barapani Lake (also known as Umiam Lake), about 20 kms from Shillong, Meghalaya. It was about nine o’clock in the morning; I was with a colleague on my way to Shillong for an appointment at ten o’clock. We just had a few minutes to stop and take in this absolutely pristine beauty. The air was cool, the sky blue and sunny, but the far end of the lake was still asleep under the thick misty blanket. We left for the day’s business, but my mind did not join me.