Window Seat – The Experience.

I personally am obsessed with having a window seat when I am travelling, be it in a bus or a train or a car. If there are no pestering grown ups around who would make me give it up out of “respect” and to showcase my “obedience” *rolls eyes*, I can handle the pestering little brats and shoo them away easily. There is just something about staring out of your window into nothingness that ups the ‘experience’ factor of the otherwise mundane and inevitable journey intended to just move you from place to place.

I am not saying that journeys aren’t fun otherwise! Of course journeys can be super fun with people you love, people you want to spend time with. But, I don’t think you can deny the fact that at least one of those times you wished you could have your space. The pace at which we are busy living it up, sometimes you just need to pause and breathe. There is nothing like the serene calm you experience when you are travelling in the night, cars zooming by, stars in the dark sky like a canopy – sheltering you from everything beyond.

I am specific about the night journeys because that is when you are most likely to be free from chit-chatting people, noisy vendors trying to sell you cheap food, loud big-bellied men trying to run jobs from miles away, old people not realizing that  just because they are deaf, it doesn’t mean that the entire world is too and all the screaming spoilt kids. And when you do chance upon these rare time-frames, it’s almost like the world decides to take the break with you. Everything slows down to your pace, or maybe it’s the other way around, you slow down to match the world. Who knows.

Music feels more amplified, you relate to every song on your playlist even if it has no relevance to your life whatsoever! Random songs bring back memories, bring back people. Some make you smile, some make you giggle, some make you quiet and some bring tears. Acting out the song with just your face, lip-syncing like it’s your own comes naturally and doesn’t feel weird or fake at all. Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran seem like your closest friends now and you totally imagine singing along with them in the farm, sitting on a checkered red and white picnic towel, smiling because you know they understand, even if no one else does.

The most common thought on such journeys – The One. You either think about the one who is already in your life, the one who has left or the one who you’re waiting for. And sometimes, the one might be ones! I am not really sure if I should call that fortunate or unfortunate. A whole lot of reminiscing and wishful-thinking happens. It gives you an emotional high, everything is magnified. I have made decisions on such highs, some good and some that i have regretted eventually.

I don’t really know if it’s the silence or just seeing things passing you by or just noticing how far far away everything in the sky is, but it gets you thinking – thinking about all the things that you’ve done, wishing you could undo a few, wishing you could do a few better and about all the things you wish to do in the future. Everything seems to make sense, your mind goes into overdrive. The wind rushing through your hair manages to muddle up your thoughts somehow, you jump between ideas like they are mere instances and before you know it you don’t even remember where you started. And just one of those times, you get to feel empty. I treasure these, where your mind is just clear and there is absolutely nothing that you want to think about.

If you give it enough time, it’s almost like for those few hours you are separated from reality – in an alternate universe where you feel understood. It’s just an illusion, but it’s a bloody satisfying one at that. You tend to get all philosophically dizzy and start analyzing life and all of it’s exploits, usually more dramatized versions of the same. It all depends on the amount of time that you spend on the road and what the road looks like.

If there is one thing that can one-up this experience, it’s a rainy journey. Not like a heavy noisy downpour, but the kind of rain that makes you all fuzzy from the inside and leaves you feeling as comfortable as snuggling into mum on a cold night, back in your own bed, under your own roof – in a place called ‘Home’. And if you understand what I mean, you know i am not exaggerating. But that is a story for a different time because it deserves an article of its own. So, for now, close your eyes and lean back and imagine what it would feel like – specially if the destination has something or someone very close to your heart. Or better yet, make it happen! Go take a break! Smiling already? I am. 🙂

That is why I call travelling an ‘Experience’. It is so much more than just movement, we have only talked about one part of it yet, and this part doesn’t even have anything to do with the destination or any other person but you. There is so much more and hence, I’ll keep on writing!