Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope you are having a sunny Sunday :)
Happy New Year to everyone. May this year, we can all live by the motto, “There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path to everything.”
Though I am writing a larger piece on the lessons from 2023 and also a post on What it Means to Live as a Nomad—I don’t have a fixed owned or rented home in one place—here I want to give a short synopsis of our life on the road. For new readers. Also because this is a new year. And because my partner and I are about to complete three years of living itinerantly.
On Jan 31, 2021, we left our forest-fringed, one-room, rooftop abode in Bangalore. We stayed in guesthouses for a few weeks until we got our car delivered, and then we left the city with our stuff in the car. Since then, starting from a few hours in a hotel to months in a guesthouse, from jungle huts to sea-view houses, from not having a place to sleep until midnight to putting up with our friends for more than a month, we have lived in various ways.
Both of us have been working full-time. He has a remote job. I—since the summer of 2017—have been writing full-time. I have the blog On My Canvas and this newsletter, I do freelance writing, and I also do other creative writing. You can read about my journey of quitting the job to find a profession of passion in the linked post.
So how has it been to live from place to place?
Our life is hard, as our friends say. But every day is exciting, unexpected, and challenging.
“Today is neither yesterday nor tomorrow.”
We go from having a great local breakfast in the morning to walking out of a hotel we had booked because the rooms look shady, the guesthouse is filthy, and the staff is rude. But we also go from waking up at four, parking our car on the road, and hiking all the way up to high mountains to camp there for the night. We have often lost our way. Driving through India during the second wave of covid, because we were already on the road, was not a relaxing experience. But then a couple of hosts/neighbors have become families. Whilst there were times when a French woman held my face and was sorry to see me leave, once someone wanted to throw us out of their house so badly we had to call the police. After trying to find fish soups in narrow streets but not getting anything without egg or other meat, I have slept hungry.
Rain ruined my phone while we rode our rented bikes through a Vietnamese forest drunk on local beer offered by a local family. But then I celebrated my partner’s birthday with another family over rice liquor and prawns caramel cooked in a clay pot—while the birthday boy snored in our room with its door left ajar. From watching dolphins on the banks of the Ganga in Kolkata on one Diwali and dipping in the Indian Ocean and baking pizzas on another, I have gone to not leaving the house for weeks because I was writing. The same hotel room—405—in Gangtok was our home for three months. For various reasons. I lost my way in Sikkim countryside on the Himalayas with two family dogs, one of whom abandoned me and another one stayed with me until the end.
During the heavy rains on the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh in 2023, we lived through major landslides for almost two months. Water pipes had broken so there was no water. One night, a tree fell on the electricity pole so the power went off. Vegetables and fruit trucks stopped coming to the villages. Gas cylinders were not being supplied. There was no phone network. From our home, the first floor of a guesthouse building we booked monthly from the family, we could see landslides all around us. Even some of the hill of our host family was swept away by the relentless rain. We didn’t tell our parents that one night the Himachal family was worried if their home would be safe or it would be swept away.
“If you feel something or if you are scared, just come running to our house,” the son of the family, younger than both of us, had said. Phones weren’t working so he didn’t suggest calling. We didn’t have to run up to their house a little above us on the hill.
We have spent whole days on—literally—the road, with all our stuff in the car parked on the side. We checked out of one home stay, didn’t like any other, and my partner had meetings and calls and had to stay put in one place. So we sat in parks, cafes, roadside benches, and even in our car for hours using the charger we have put in it.
Most things we own have a name. Starting from our bags: which are bedding, laptop, utensils, spices, fun, et cetera. We call our car Scooby. Once a dog guided us on a dense Himalayan jungle trek all day, and we called him Scooby. Scooby represents a guide, friend, helper, home, and a being we can rely upon to keep us safe.
Amidst all the hardships of not having a permanent place to call home, the adventure has ranged from hair-raising, stressful, and scary to exhilarating, ethereal, and there-is-nothing-more-I-have-ever-wanted. The three years are a life pot overflowing with rich moments when I have found myself breathing along with the universe, both of us screaming, “See, how amazing everything is!”
The journey has kept us running around, but that means we haven’t had even one day at home when we have been bored, had nothing to do, or had to kill time. There’s always more to see, do, read, experience, and figure out.
If we weren’t out and about on the road, we wouldn’t have been seeing so much. We could easily be staying in our apartment. At the most, go to the shops, movie, gallery, theatre, office, park, or another destination nearby for a week or two weeks, maybe longer. Maybe we would have had weekends of trekking in the nearby countryside. We wouldn’t have had to deal with so many different people.
Now we have to go out for everything. We walk to eat, or we have to make it for breakfast within a certain time. We are eating such different food from all around India. If we are cooking, first we might have to pluck vegetables from the orchard or call the caretaker to replace the gas cylinder. Even if we begin the day with work, we might still go out for juice or coffee, or to see the nearby park. We also stroll around the town, visit its landmarks, and find our favorite food, streets, and green corners.
Because we are in a place for a limited time and we want to explore it, we create a flow in which we can work as well as be present in our surroundings. We might wake up earlier than usual to discover all the seven lakes around the village. Or evenings might bring us to another picnic area. Weekends are also outdoors. Now we have been having such a great time around the Cubbon park in Bangalore. In the afternoons, we walk into the park, sleep or lie down on the grass, and then work, leaning against a tree.
I don’t think that if we had a home we would have sat in Cubbon Park every day for hours. The house would have made everything so comfortable that we would have spent our work-hours inside it. We would have said, “Why complicate things so much! Let’s just finish this and go there later. Or there’s the weekend.” or “Let’s order in. Going that far takes time.” But now as we can choose where we want to be, we spend time in every area we want to explore. Nothing is ever far, because we move to that location to live if we like it.
Simple!
Truth be told, I wouldn’t go back and change a thing. I am thankful, with folded hands.
I have traveled from Himachal to Pondicherry and from Sikkim to Rajasthan. Yet, I haven’t taken a domestic flight in three and a half years.
And as a friend said, “You are not homeless, you have a home everywhere.”
She might be heading somewhere.
What does home means to you?
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Article from the Past,
I’m sharing a few on the transformation travel inspires,
Travel Inspires Change and One Small Change Can Transform Our Life.
Everything on: how travel is a catalyst to change, the power of keystone habits, and how a small change can transform our entire life.
Read the inspiration now. Or Pocket it for later.
The Pandemic, Start of Our Indefinite Nomadic Journey, Crossing Barricaded Indian State Borders, Collective Helplessness, and Fundraiser Campaigns
The beginning of the journey in March 2021.
Read the narrative now. Or Pocket the read for the next weekend.
Why I Travel and Live a Nomadic Life
Though I wrote this piece seven years ago, I stand by everything I said then.
Read my reasons now. Or Pocket for later.
Quotes I Love
“One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.”
Virginia Woolf
Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
Victor Frankl
"To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day."
The Roman poet Horace.
“I am not doing a favour to anyone by doing good work. I am just holding the end of the rope thrown towards me, helping in the running of the system, paying the dues for being here.”
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading and What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
I haven’t read or seen any movie or series the last week. I have been out and about exploring the Bangalore city, relishing the Karnataka dosas I was missing, sleeping and working for hours on the grass in the city’s lush Cubbon Park, meeting friends, playing games with them, and so on.
Soon, I would be reading books I have already added on the list of 2024
And for all adventure lovers!
Sharing random photographs from the past three years to show how unpredictable my life has been.
getting colacasia leaves to cook in our Himachal abode this year. You can see the landslide has taken down most of the plants.
a full rainbow, no drinking or washing water though
our first highway stop with our brand new car, March 2021
last sunset of 2022, Siliguri, West Bengal. I used to walk here almost every day. Open copper pastures, lot of garbage around, but still the nature kept it all peaceful.
a thali that kept us full in Gangtok for the last two months we were there. My partner and I got glasses of free buttermilk every few days because we were regulars.
passing Maharashtra at Sugar cane harvest time in November 2023.
Eating overloaded cream roll with jam taken from breakfast. On my periods in the cold. Feb 2023, Gangtok.
With Scooby, at a height of 3400 metres after a long hike of 6-7 hours, July 2021, Himachal Pradesh.
being messy in a guesthouse in Mumbai, April 2021. My partner’s parents had both gotten covid and we had gone to be near them in case they needed help. That was the beginning of our indefinite road journey.
working from the pastures, literally. July 2021, the Himalayas.
While I was climbing up this hill, the Udaipur royal family had gotten worried for me, the solo woman wanderer in the forested mountains around sunset. The guards here must have informed them. Udaipur, April 2021
but then I had gotten this view. And I was safely fetched by the son of the family. I was alright though, even if he hadn’t come. Udaipur, April 2021
truths of traveling long-term. July 2021. The Himalayas.
I hope you have all your laundry done, and its dry and fresh. Have a great week.
Let me know what you think about this letter. Press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
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