It was meant to be written about!

Now that I look back, maybe I was meant to write this experience down from the beginning. The signs were all there, just that I did not understand.


Summer of 2014, started with my flight to Delhi from Amsterdam, via Helsinki. To understand the reasons behind taking this flight, lets go back few months. It was the month of March and I had to finally make a decision. What do I want to do for my thesis? I wasn't sure, like always. I consulted Somesh (officially: professor; unofficially: friend, philosopher, guide) about possible research fields. I told him my interest in real, live projects. He mentioned about a project in Colombo. I jumped at the opportunity of being able to do my research in a third country (first and second being India and Netherlands respectively).To cut things short, after many hiccups that involved visa issues and what not, my travelling dates and tickets were finalised.


I was supposed to be in Colombo for 10 days, all by myself. My first ever solo trip!


It is on this trip I realised that travelling alone is the best form of education.


Coming back to the signs, on my flight from Amsterdam to Helsinki, I met and Indian person. He was around 60 years old, I think. We had a 5 hour transit in Helsinki before our flight to Delhi and what better way to use our time than making conversations about why/where/how we are travelling. He was from the field of journalism and was in Netherlands for the recently concluded Hockey World Cup (yes! there is something like that too). I was really impressed when he told me that attending sports events was his passion and he had attended more than 6 Hockey World Cups, 4 Olympics and Commonwealth Games. I never imagined someone with passion like his. Further, he told me he was working on a book on history of Indian hockey. The game which is believed to be the national sport of the country was introduced by the British to keep the lower economic classes occupied. The higher princely classes were involved in cricket and the rich merchants in golf. Though hockey was the poor man's game, India ended up winning almost all international competitions. There was a time when British decided to withdraw from Olympics because they did not want to lose against their colony. Some British players ended up playing from the Indian team. Something I found interesting was, British, Pakistan and Indian players who played for the same team in 1944 were on competing teams in 1948. This, and such other interesting stories were going to be a part of his book. I believe this was the first sign.


At the same airport, I also met the Pakistani lawyer who represented the widely covered Sarabjit Singh case in Pakistani jail. He, too, was working on the release of a book and was travelling to India for it. So, its not even been a day and I had already met two people who were writing books!


I reached my home in India the next morning and left for Colombo via Mumbai the same night, although none of this happened easily. The transition from 16 degrees in Rotterdam to 42 degrees in Delhi was almost killing me. Add to this my cancelled Delhi-Mumbai flight, and the perfect recipe for tempers flying is ready. After explaining the customer care representative my situation 3 times I finally got the flight rescheduled with only one glitch. I now had to wait 3 hours at Mumbai airport. Wow! what a beginning.


Next morning, tired and exhausted, I arrived in Colombo. I had a taxi waiting for me, thankfully. But tada! the driver doesn't know the way. It took us 2 hours to reach the hotel which should normally not take more than 45 minutes.


First half of day 1 was spent sleeping.

Contd...