We all like to travel our hearts out. Either we have travelled enough to know that, or we are yet to explore that side of ourselves. Nonetheless, there’s a traveller in each one of us. The traveller inside always craves; for new places, old places, the touching breeze, the silent roads, the thoughtful and lyrical rain, the crackling sound of leaves, the busy shopping streets, the cloudy hills, the warm-shiny beach, the boozed evening, excursions with strangers; and there is always more on everyone’s bucket list.

A lot of you must have plans before pandemic struck the globe and started taking people’s lives. Well at least I did! We come across news of the rising pandemic (in India, UK, Russia, Brazil, USA and many other nations ) everyday. We hope and pray for the hospital staff and essential services (irrespective of our blood relations with them) who have been putting their lives on line. A lot of people have been having a hard time managing with mood swings, anxieties and variety of stresses. However, this article is not about the pandemic and its impact on people.

This article is about willingness to travel or explore yourself but not being able to do so because of the crisis. It is about the mental urgency and craving to go out to places and live. It hurts us, at times, for not being able to go with our set plans or make new ones right now apart from another harsh fact that a lot of us are unable to meet our dear friends, or are away from family, or are with family and having a hard time adjusting with the dysfunctional or patriarchal familial structures. In such (hard) times, we only look for escapes from our locked-in, non-productive and monotonous lives. However, after more than 3 months of such time, we find ourselves out of options to keep ourselves active, entertained and productive.

If you love to travel (or dream to travel) and love to read (or looking forward to read), Bucket List of a Traveloholic by Sarika Pandit, published in 2014 by FingerPrint Publishers is a must read for you. It has also got a rating of 3.73 on Goodreads. I must also mention for your better judgement that this is the second travelogue but first good travelogue I am reading; the first one being The Shooting Star by Shivya Nath, published in 2018 by Penguin. Although, the book has a rating of 4.09 on Goodreads, I did not like the book for its writing style and experiences (perhaps) which compelled me to leave the book midway. I found the book to be complexed in writing style, and unnecessarily or uninterestingly detailed. In addition to that, I found the book very non-relatable because of the style of storytelling of the author. However, for your better judgement, that was the experience of a beginner with travelogue reading; though I have read a varied genre of books- including classics, thrillers, fictions, non-fictions, poetries, philosophical books, etc.- apart from travelogues. So The Shooting Star did not meet my expectation for right now, because I wanted a book which has intriguing experiences and is simple to read, and I found another wonderful and engaging book, Bucket List of a Traveloholic.

While I downloaded the book only last night, I couldn’t go to sleep without reading even a bit of it. So I started reading it early morning around 4.45 AM and I kept reading it till 7.45 AM in the morning with my breaks and morning talks with parents of course. I’ll quickly give away some insights on what made me love this book so much that I am eager to write about this even before finishing it and while I am still in the middle of reading it. (also, my apologies that this isn’t a book review but just a descriptive book suggestion.) Also that this book is successfully satisfying my craving to travel.

1. A MYTH BREAKER:

One insight that the Bucket List of a Traveloholic gives you while reading it is that it breaks your myth of the binary concepts of reading and travelling. Often we think that a person is either capable of only reading books or just capable of only travelling. We think that a quiet, calm person might want to read only books and not be very enthusiastic about travels. In contrary to this, we think that a restless person can only wish to travel and explore the outside world, and definitely not dive into books.

Well, this book gives you an interesting insight through the thoughts and travels of the author that reading and traveling are not binary. One is capable of loving both books and travel, and perhaps also capable of being lazy about the both. The writer is very enthusiastic about travel and even being independent into choosing travel partners than to procrastinating on making travel plans.

While on the other hand, she is also very well read and enthusiastic about books. Personally, I have never felt more related into listening someone’s stories or reading about travels. So the book excites me personally very much on this particular note. There’s a quote from the book which paused me only to brood upon the myth of exclusive perceptions of the two hobbies, and think in the line of non binary perception of these, and has indeed left radical impression on me. The quote is-

"Given a choice between living inside our own heads and living in the world outside, we’d [the author and her sister]  choose the former any day of the week and twice on the weekend…. That if there is one thing that has kept the world inside our heads alive, it is the living, breathing world of books."  

Here, The author and her sister take a memorable trip together before the sister’s wedding. I had never imagined how an author or a traveller could think of the internal philosophical world of minds and a world of books when she’s on, perhaps, one of the most memorable and loveliest trip of hers. I thought maybe all that one can think of is roads, rivers, people, markets, food and more exquisitic stuff, but not living inside one’s head. (I know though this might sound stupid and overwhelming.)

2. SIMPLE BUT ENGAGING WRITING STYLE:

Her writing style is simple to read and complex enough to ponder upon. She has used very simple writing style to convey deep and profound emotions. However, it is not too simple to feel shallow and disgusted by reading it; nor it is complex enough to tire yourself reading. (It has exactly the amount of balance in simple writing and depth that I was looking for; so, found perfect for myself.) Therefore, this book made me so eager to keep reading it. Not even once I got bored or felt like dropping it in between, a quality in books worth looking for! Her writing and words are so engaging that I couldn’t stop myself before finishing almost two chapters in single read. (And I am a slow reader, simply because I like to feel and process my emotional journey with the book.) 

3. PERSONALLY FELT VERY RELATABLE:

When I started reading it, I jumped right to the chapter I wanted to read first since the chapters are not interlinked with each other and can be read separately. The entire chapter was devoted to Sarika Pandit’s trip to United Kingdom which is also a place I want to visit ardently. While I was reading her trip to UK, I was quite literally lost into my own memory-trip to Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh, India) where I lived in boarding school. I have wanted to visit Kasauli ever since I have graduated, with more of my dreams to travel which are far from fulfilling and living right now, during quarantine. If a travelogue can make you trip like that while you are bored to death at home, then it is definitely a worth read!

While the writer tells us about her visit to the United Kingdom, she tell us about all the streets and museums which take us to all the phenomenal and beloved writers like William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen (my personal very favourite, I am a big fan) and the Bronte sisters. She goes on to giving us the account of her days of reading these writers, which is very beautiful and relatable. She is both a traveller and a diverse reader, as we come to know from her travels and experiences.

Having studied English Literature during my bachelors, I have an inexplicable bond with writers and the country United Kingdom, specifically. Her journey made me feel like I was travelling the country and the streets, watching all the graves of beloved writers myself. It also gave me the places I must visit when I visit there in distant future.

4. TRIP WITH YOUR FEMINIST SPIRIT:

While I was reading the book I also got a glimpse of a well bonded and beautiful relation between the writer and her sister. One gets a glimpse of their planning a trip together and enjoying it together. We get to feel their shared memories, and tours to the countries together. What a feminist way of spending time with your sister that a lot of us only dream of! But dreams exist only to make them come true! So while I was enjoying my reading, I could not stop thinking about my own sister since we have spent both our entire teenage and our ‘coming-of-age’ adulthood together in same cities. We have shared so many fun stories, sufferings, pain, dreams and desires, and more of lively stories together. Our bond is truly cherished one. Altogether, it gave me a very beautiful, lovely and a very heartwarming experience of sisterhood as I read and wandered in my mind, making acquaintance of these sisters- ‘Radhika- Sarika‘, ‘Cassandra- Austen‘ (a lovely bond if you have seen the movie “Jane Austen” or read about her) and ‘Poonam- Itika‘.  

Secondly, the writer talks about a very real fact about travelling, that is, if one wants to travel then one has to actively seek out people with similar interests. One has to put a lot of whines and emotional connections to the back of their minds, and have an independent persona of their own. Not every time you’ll get the privilege to go with your bestie or your constant group (which is my own understanding of her words). So you’ll have to be willing to bring aboard just a good friend with similar interests and enthusiasm. One has to be willing to take risks and trust herself to be capable of managing situations.

Thirdly, it’s a good travelogue by womyn!! You go girls!! You go boys! You go all!! For girls, definitely it is going to be very relatable and good experience getting to hear travel stories not from your dad or brothers, but a womyn writer. For the rest, wouldn’t it indeed be exciting to hear travel stories of a womyn for a change! 😀

5. ON READING ACTIVELY:

Luckily, the day I picked up this book, I was surrounded with pretty and extraordinarily- ordinary compassions of nature. I was sitting outside in my verandah (backyard) at around 5:15 in the morning as I mentioned earlier that I read it early from 4:45 am to 7:45 am. It was a very breezy and sweetly lively day. (Though it also drizzled for few minutes, as if trying to take my attention off the book.) There was certain serenity and silence with all childish noises of leaves and birds, as if there were some pixies and fairies with the breezing nature. While I was reading, I contemplated how silence can be enjoyed better when you do something creative. Sure, there are times when we just stand blank at the doors of all the breeze and childish noises, and enjoy the silence doing absolutely nothing. But that is a very short lived experience. Or, for some, that is just one way of feeling the profound emotions of silence! There are more ways like humming a song, painting, writing or reading- all- while the flowery and tinker-ly breeze kisses our faces.

Such creative ventures with nature act as both your muse and the confidante, and it’s a very rejuvenating emotion. It fills you up with even more pixies and spirits like emotions, and you wake up into being more conscious of yourself and your creative works.

Eventually, it is your own journey into reading the book, setting a convenient surrounding for reading, and living not just experiences of the writer herself, but also getting lost away in your dreams of adventures. 😀 ❤

I hope you keep experimenting with your reading styles and books, and enjoy this recommendation!

With Love. 😀

POST SCRIPT: I shall leave The Shooting Star for better and different times, and will surely review about it for this post perhaps does not do justice to this book. The post is not analytical review of these books. It simply concerns a decent insight on starting with a travelogue and which one I liked for initiation.