Someone Up There Has Got a Bad Sense of Humour

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
-Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist

When you don't get something, all the universe conspires in mocking you.
-Shwetha

It is easy to dismiss this as mere coincidence but with the number of times I have run into information eyeing you with a mix of mock disdain and pity, you can't turn a blind eye. Everything I hear and see seems to be about travelling.


I love travelling and the love stems from my curiosity for new cultures rather than new places. So while for some, travelling implies checking out a new area or a new mall, for me, the definition is to set off exploring a place culturally different from the ones I have visited before.


First, the television kept broadcasting shows in which the skinny host waxed eloquent about the destination. I diligently avoided the travel channels but to my misfortune,even the news channels were party to my ragging with the prime airtime dedicated to plump and pimply television stars visiting shrines with picturesque scenery adoring the background.


Being an avid reader(bookworm sounds geeky so won't be using the term for myself), three newspapers drop heavily inside my home to be received eagerly by a restless me. But nowadays, I dread to open the pages because they are flooded with snaps of postcard-perfect locations. As if that was not enough, some newspapers run weekly pull-outs dedicated exclusively to travel. Not amusing. Not amusing at all.


I have now started receiving SMS ads like "Trip to Srinagar for just Rs. 29,999!!" and "Visit the hottest destination this season- Andaman and Nicobar islands. Contact blah". How the hell did they know about my dream destinations? And they got the cheek to message and lure me with dreamy holiday SMSes. Grrrrr.


If that was not enough,strangers swoop down on me and vomit details of some overseas trip they undertook recently while I squirm uncomfortably, wishing for a moment, that I was deaf. And blind too, when I see them post pretty snaps on Facebook.


So what is the problem, you ask? Company, I say. Correction- good company. While I wait for my joining date, the people whom I consider good company have started working with a gruelling nine-to-five schedule. I am pretty sympathetic to their condition and don't have enough heart to deprive them of weekends reserved for catching up on much needed slumber.


Solo trips are a fancy idea, but they are just that- fancy, not practical. I can't expect my parents to fish out a generous sum to sponsor some crazy solo trip of their graduated-but-not-yet-started-working daughter. As parents, I do not expect them to throw caution to the winds and bid me adieu at the railway station while their daughter goes out alone. Though I believe the situation might have been different if I was of opposite gender. Sigh.


I can still cope with the feeling of being static and passive and somehow, grudgingly, accept the fact that I may not get a chance to go on a full-blown touristy kind holiday. But I simply cannot bear the prospect of facing these ads,articles and other stuff related to travelling. Please, spare me the hurt :(