Why I Love To Travel

 Like most Bengali families, our small circle of three - my mum, dad and me - loves to travel. After some of weeks of going to school and clicking at a computer I find myself longing to just take my bag and go out and take a train or car to somewhere - it's just enough to know that I'm somewhere new and can explore all I want, no homework, no nothing to hold me back. And so, me and my family light out in our little car and drive out to a new place, with no more than three months of time between our last trip. Many don't understand my urge to just go into the wilderness (or into a mysterious passage in a deserted fort, for that matter). I'll try to explain.

Our latest trip was to Ajanta and Ellora, where we first visited the Ajanta caves. I was jumping in excitement since I myself love to draw and paint, and at Ajanta I could witness the work of masters.

 God knows that He himself might have painted those 1,900 year old paintings on those stone walls.Those paintings, the painstaking carvings of the pillars, and the stunning natural beauty of the place that moved me and many others, and still stir our souls, even after sixteen hundred years of erosion and vandalism. That such art, such pure beauty, still stuns and awes men of our age, phone stuck people that we are. It made me feel elated that I was standing where many great minds and skillful human beings had treaded. It opened my mind, and although I couldn't achieve a tenth of what they did in a thousand years, those artistic monks inspire me to no end.

You don't have to read and study to understand the world and its ways if you can travel. You don't need to pray for happiness or see miracles to believe in a higher power, if you can travel. If you feel like moving away from the harsh world of reality, or you want to learn of the struggles and joys of life, all you have to do is travel. Travelling makes our lives seem small and distant, our problems petty and insignificant. It opens our minds and fulfils our souls. You can trust me on that.