Wanderlust

I wrote this 16 months ago. 

sankit:

It’s a sentiment all too common among most of us. Some love to see the monuments and structures of which they’ve only seen pictures. Some love to eat a variety of foods knowing that it’s coming from the source. Some love to get away from undesirable weather. 

There are tons of reasons to go about seeing the world, but everyone one of us differ on this. I don’t think seeing monuments is super cool. I think hearing accents, smelling villages and cities, observing what it is that induces emotional responses from people, and taking note of how humans choose to manipulate their environment is awesome. That’s why I want to engage with the world around me. Knowing that guides my travel and my plans. If I just thought, “I’m going to see the world,” I wouldn’t know where to start. Heck, even with my current guidelines, it’s still not clear – but it’s better than no intention at all.

The worst thing about not having intention – besides making it hard to plan – is that it calls for activation of the lizard brain, bringing fear and resistance to the forefront of your would-have-been plans. Planning with intention makes it infinitely more likely that you’ll actually convert on plans, that you’ll find a way to explore the world.

Once you have intention, you have no reason to delay action. 

Time lapse

I haven’t blogged much since the first two days of my trip, and I’m already flying to Barcelona now after 2.5 weeks in india, but I’ve been keeping so many things in mind about my journey that I want to share. I’ve barely had the time or energy to sit down and type out full blog posts, but I’m going to be sharing these blogs in time lapse, using the notes I’ve kept in my phone, notebook, and the emails I’ve written to loved ones over the last two weeks.

I realized many people don’t know that two years ago, I shaved my head and spent roughly 2.5 months in India (my first time in my home country for a while) (shaving my head is also slightly irrelevant but I looked funny). 

Roughly two months of that time was spent in a village called Mankaiya,  which is about 30km out of Varanasi City. I learned incredible things about rural life in India during this time, adjusted to living in fields of 115 degree weather with no electricity or running water, and gained something of an understanding of Mankaiya’s problems. I started growing attached to the village, and I was lucky to have the opportunity to start a program there to support the education, nourishment, and social growth and development of a handful of children of an untouchable caste - known as the Mushaher tribe, named after their habit of eating rats (if that offers any sense of who they’re starting from).

Having family and relatives in India of all sorts of means, experiencing what I did in Mankaiya, trekking in the Himalayans and interacting with mountain villagers and the greener side of the country, among so many other things, made me fall in love with this country and it’s uncountable facets. 

So I came back. To see more of this magical place, to view some of the same with lenses I’ve developed over the two years since I was last here, to see how I might be able to effect better change in Mankaiya, to remember how big this world is.

On a whim (and with a sweet airfare deal :), I chose to include in my itinerary a very different part of the world which would naturally face me with entirely distinct experiences: Western Europe. I’ve found myself there twice in my life, on a tour with my family in 2003 and on a school trip to Spain in 2009, but both were guided and constrained. This trip is more freeflowing, albeit short. I don’t know what I’ll find in Barcelona, Sevilla, Paris, or Dublin, but I’m looking forward to smiling at it all. 

So this month, I’m sure I’ll see a lot, think a lot, feel a lot. Where will I be? Here’s a breakdown of the itinerary with a brief on my intentions: 

May 15 to May 18: Mumbai
Staying with my mama (mom’s brother)
May 18 to 19: Varanasi City
Staying with Raj uncle, a friend and past business partner of my dad, to 
May 20 to 24: some mixture of Mankaiya, Kaithi - a village where Vallabh Bhai, the man that made my first journey in rural India possible two years ago, lives - and Lucknow (to visit another project I’ve been supporting)
This is to monitor the program we have worked on there, spend time with my village family, and get back in touch with the lifestyle there. Far too brief.
May 25 to 26: Calcutta
Lodging arrangements not set. Don’t know anyone that lives there, and don’t know much about the city besides the fact that it’s the second biggest in India. 
May 27 to 29: Darjeeling
Lodging arrangements not set. I like tea (and apparently this is where the world’s best black tea is grown), and I loved being in the mountains of India two years ago. Although there is no trek planned for this visit, I’m sure the visit will be special.
May 30 to 31: Back to Mumbai 
Winding down at my mama’s house with family. No plans but to explore Mumbai by foot.
June 1 to 2: Barcelona
No plans, but hoping to have a chance to feel out the architecture and the rich artistic history of the area. The nightlife scene here should be stellar. 
June 3 to 4: Sevilla
Visiting my friend Julia who has been studying abroad there all semester. She’s planning the itinerary. I’m planning on surprise.
June 5: another day in Barcelona
June 6 to 8: Paris
My friend Sajeeb is more familiar with France than I am. Very little clue on what to expect, but I hear the cafes and food are lovely.
June 9 to 12: Dublin
I’m really looking forward to the bar scene here, and I’m hoping to have time for a day hike or two in the hills. It’ll be a nice contrast with a lot of the urban life we will be eating up.
June 12th night: one last go at Barcelona before a morning flight to New York.

Walking

I get the feeling that for many, my style of travel isn’t particularly fulfilling. For the most part, I’m not usually partial towards seeing great sights or visiting the areas that my destinations are known for. That’s not to say I don’t want to see them, but rather, that I don’t feel a need to. 

I see most of the value in traveling to a culturally distinct place in walking and observing. Nipun spoke eloquently about this in his Baccalaureate address to the Penn Class of 2012: 

“When you walk, you quite literally see more.  Your field of vision is nearly 180 degrees, compared to 40 degrees when you’re traveling at 62 mph.  Higher speeds smudge our peripheral vision, whereas walking actually broadens your canvas and dramatically shifts the objects of your attention.”

I don’t need to leave Mumbai having seen the beaches, the trade centers, the celebrity homes or whatever else this place is known for to feel like I really sucked the juice out of it. 

I’m happy having a smidgen of an understanding of how business, transport, relationships, food service, design of shops, interactions with strangers, child’s play, pace of lifestyle or a myriad of other things is different from what I’m used to. Spending hours on end walking with only that intention — for me, that’s gold.

Why I travel

I have always believed the most valuable thing someone can bring to the table is perspective. Skills are usually substitutable. Material is always replaceable and is usually less than necessary. But perspective is distinct, but I think because it’s so hard to quantify or describe, people don’t talk about its value so much.

The last year of my life has brought me a lot of questions. My relationships with so many have drastically changed in nature. I’ve been left with confusion about what I want out of my professional life. And most unsettling, I began to lose touch with my relationship with myself — I had trouble sitting alone, always felt like something was missing, and was constantly looking for more, as if what was in front of me was never enough.

In this time, I talked to people I looked up to, people I saw eye to eye with, and lots of people I didn’t see eye to eye with. What did I learn? These questions and instabilities aren’t too uncommon. I think the questions arise from the deviation of our touts from what we’ve grown to learn as “normal” — the representation of all the things we have learned to be “right,” things we’re supposed to do, general expectations for the way our lies are supposed to play out.

What I’m slowly grasping, however, is that deviating from the norm isn’t a bad nor a good thing, but it may very well be an important step to figuring out what it is that you want to do, who you want to be in the greater context of the world. 

When I travel, I’m blessed with the opportunity to take note of new circumstances distinct from what I’m familiar with. The last few years have been filled with social norms of a somewhat elitist university, a little bit of Long Island arrogance, huge emphasis on the newest things in the tech world, and much less inner transformation than I had hoped for. Across the pond, there are intact ions with people, buildings, streets, animals, and so much more waiting to broaden my mind. 

My hope is that, over time, I can learn to appreciate different ways of living and thinking, and, in turn, really understand the idea that there really is no right or wrong. 

So why did I leave home for a month without a plan of action? To see through new lenses. This is where I’ll share where that journey takes me.

Here’s to tearing apart everything I think I know.

Cheers,
Ankit

leading by example

I’ve written a bit about Nipun, but this guy is really something. The more I get a chance to indulge in some of the projects he’s set up – by reading more DailyGood newsletters, looking more thoroughly through the helpothers.org community, serving at Karma Kitchen, partaking in Wednesdays – the more I realize how amazing it is how he influences the people around him. All of the talks he gives, he doesn’t talk about ideas or theories, he just shares stories of kindness – things that inspire him, things that make his life awesome.

The Nipun effect makes the people that are inspired by him practice kindness, generosity, and pursue service-minded projects. He does nothing to tell them what’s right vs. wrong, what they could be doing with their skills or anything like that. He just leads by example, and his example inspires people.

I just thought it was really fascinating. Some of the most well-respected leaders of the last century didn’t necessarily TRY to create a movement. They just led by example and scaled up when more people wanted to support them. Really interesting stuff.

smile more

The guy to my right, Pancho, radiated with love. He chose to pass in the sharing circle, but I had heard of him well before Wednesday. I still don’t know him as well as I’d like to, but we’ll be working together at Karma Kitchen on Sunday J.

What I gained most simply from Pancho’s presence, however, is that it’s important to smile more. We get old and develop furrows in our brow because we work so hard. Pancho has a million and one wrinkles on his face, but none of them are in his brow. Every one of them is on the sides of his eyes. The wrinkles from smiling too much. Simply being next to him made me smile more, and I honestly believe that forcing a smile makes you happier. I don’t know what happens physiologically, but it doesn’t matter much to me.

Less of a story, more of an observation.

why let your gifts get taken away?

First, the guy to my left, Somik, shared a story about his New Year’s Eve – spent at a hospice with a monk. He described two of the elderly men there who repeated the same phrases to him. One repeated asked him, “Are you Eli? Are you Eli?” The other reached out to him and just kept saying, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” He had done nothing to induce conversation with any of these people, and it was clear that they had lost some mental capacity that they once had.

The monk took Somik to the side. “So many of us live long enough to watch as our gifts are slowly taken away. Wouldn’t it be something if we could spend our years giving them away?”

I don’t know what it was, but something about that story hit me so hard. I teared up for a few seconds, but I was next in the sharing circle so I needed to step it up and share like a man. The idea of giving away your gifts is something that really resonated with me, and that’s something I really want to be more conscious of this year. 

types of resolutions

Aumatma made the funny point of how everyone in the circle that shared their resolutions had these super meaningful goals – focusing more on the present moment, meditating more, searching for their personal source of negativity and eliminating it, being more conscious of x – so she broke that cycle saying she wanted to shed some pounds. Obviously a joke, but it made me aware of the different shapes resolutions can take. As far as my perception takes me, I broke them down into three types – self-internal, self-external, selfless.

All of those deep resolutions would be self-internal. The weight loss, the exercise more, redesigning a house, getting a project done or whatever – those are self-external. Selfless would be a resolution to serve, to do something in the spirit of compassion without expectation. That can take form in many ways, but I think that it’s this last type of resolution that doesn’t get enough attention. I think it’d be great to make one type of each one of these resolutions a year.

I’m a big believer that you can make a change whenever you want. There’s little significance to January 1, but what’s really special about it is the spirit of change that’s in the air. The communal change that’s being made (or at least, attempted) is really inspiring, and I think there should be more organized attempts to leverage the power of communities. One of these attempts is something I’ve been working on with Chaz Howard, the chaplain at Penn called Resolution11. It’s a humble attempt, but I think it has the right idea (if I do say so myself J). 

lessons from wednesdays

The Wednesday night meditation circle at Nipun’s parents’ house works as such:

• 7pm – 8pm: sit anywhere any meditate silently
• 8pm – 9pm: sit in sharing circle, discuss passage of the week or any thoughts you might have
• 9pm – 10pm: vegetarian dinner served to everyone and enjoyed in silence

Anyone and everyone is welcome, and they’ve been doing this every Wednesday for 13 years. On average, 30 – 60 people show up.

As the passage of the week was discussed, I was getting increasingly nervous by the philosophical nature of it. I understood maybe 20% of it. I remembered about 5% of it. Way beyond my head (how’s that for an ivy league education?). As we went around the circle, some discussed their thoughts on the passage, others shared their new year’s resolutions, others shared their thoughts on…whatever was resonating with them at the moment.

There were four things that really struck me during the sharing circle, which I’ll describe in the next four posts.

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beneath the surface

There are some life lessons that are preached so regularly they are overdone. No one cares anymore and consequentially, they become one of those things everyone knows but nobody acts on. One of those lessons, for me personally, is that everyone has their own story. You never know where they’re coming from. You might not acknowledge that they’ve lived for as many days as they have, and there were a lot of things happening that shaped who they are today.

For me, that reminder came the other day in the shape of a dog. And the smell of a dog, feel of a dog, and…well, it was a dog.

There’s a dog at the office that Monsoon works at in conjunction with another guy. I don’t know what he does, but I think his name is Jimmy, and he always brings his dog to the office. When I first walked in, I saw the dog and semi-freaked out. I love quiet dogs, but I am terrified of that ring-the-doorbell-and-induce-five-straight-minutes-of-nonstop-barking-and-foot-sniffing-and-potential-licking-and-or-biting effect. I saw the dog through the glass door and was ready to tense up and hold my breath until it left. Instead, the dog just looked at me and walked away. For the next few days, I grew quite fond of the dog. It just roamed the office quietly. Never made a peep.

It was so quiet that I even made an attempt to reach out and let it lick my hand. That kind of behavior is absolutely preposterous for me, but I thought I’d give it a shot. The dog looked at me funny. I got closer and it ran away. I was really confused, but I thought little of it.

The next day, I find out that the dog was a victim of animal abuse. The previous owner treated it like shit and instilled within the dog a fear of humans getting close. I’d never interacted with a dog that was scared of people. Then again, I consciously choose to interact with dogs…close to never.

I’m not the first to admit that I do let first impressions affect my impression of people. I also won’t deny that I just judge people based on appearance, passing them on the street, but I think it’s really something special when you try to learn about someone’s story to understand them. At the least, understand that there’s a reason behind everything. 

gather

This has nothing to do with inspiration, but everything to do with one of the most phenomenal meals I’ve ever had.

I’ve been lucky enough to spend my working days having lunch with Sandeep, who’s been gracious enough to hook me up with some baller lunches (on the company, of course :P). On Tuesday, we went to Gather, which is, according to Sandeep, the best restaurant in the world. Setting the bar pretty high, I was really hoping his hype would be met with food of equal deliciousness. 

And it was.

I saw the menu, and there wasn’t a single thing that didn’t look appetizing. After skimming through the various pizza and sandwich options, I decided on the mushroom pizza with a kale salad appetizer, washed down with house made pomegranate kombucha. I saw a few people eating the pizza while I walked in, and it looked like nothing I couldn’t handle.

To my surprise, I was satiated after half of pizza, made with the most unreal dough I’ve ever experienced. It had a way with melting in the mouth while managing to stay just perfectly chewy. It didn’t make sense to me, but I let it go as I noticed how well the cheese’s texture complemented that of the dough. Unbelievable. The different types of marinated mushrooms was just icing on the cake (or…mushrooms on the pizza).

I quit the pizza for a bit as the kale salad on the table was giving me those “eat me” eyes. I couldn’t resist. Tossed together with an appropriate amount of olive oil, sea salt, shredded cheese, some relative of squash and carrots cooked just right, olives (THAT I ACTUALLY LIKED; I normally cannot stand olives!), and tomatoes that you knew were vine-ripened, it was delightfully heavy. I stomached all of it just fine because, well, I’m something of a tank when it comes to taking in good food. Nothing really stops me on that end.

I went back to the pizza and ended up saving two slices for home (which is going to be dinner tonight J), and forcefully followed that up with the house ice cream of the day – something crème cheese something blueberry something awesomeness. I have no recollection of the name, but it sounded so good out of the waitress’s mouth that I had to get it (clearly my taste buds trump my stomach’s desires. It was ready to explode). It was like the best cheesecake I’d ever had, except blended up and served as ice cream with two biscuits that tasted as if they were handmade specifically for me. Unbelievable.

This has nothing to do with revelations, life lessons, or anything of that nature, but this meal was just…really something to remember. I wish I were better at documenting flavor because I don’t think I did this meal justice with this post, and I might just be wasting your time by writing about it all, but man, it was good.

The point? Go to Gather.  It’s good. 

pay it forward

The idea of paying it forward isn’t one that is at all unfamiliar to me. I’ve experimented with it here and there, but I’ve never been so intensely surrounded by it – Karma Kitchen, the people I was staying with, etc.. I always viewed anything good I did for anyone at all an act of paying it forward. I had never actually taken part in paying it forward with money though.

After a day at Karma Kitchen, I went to the juice bar that Chris and Aumatma run together and grabbed an awesome green smoothie that Chris billed me for with a Smile card. I gave him a look and said, “Come on. You don’t have to do that.”

He smiles and responds, “You know how it works.”

Instinctively, I dropped a $10 on the table. I knew the smoothie didn’t cost that much, and normally, I don’t go to juice bars because I make all the same juices and smoothies myself for a fraction of the cost and…I just don’t like spending that kind of money. The generosity I was stuffed with just pulled that $10 out of my pocket, though, and nothing about it felt wrong. It was really just…good. 

sidenote: pay-it-forward should become a thing. “pif it” for short. i think it could catch on.

"There is a whole world working together on our behalf."

a poster at cafe gratitude

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“i am marvelous” (aka awesome hot chocolate) at cafe gratitude