Live to Relive

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The last few years have been a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. While I would prefer my bike to explore what this vast and beautiful country has to offer, I do understand that after repeated accidents, it's better to at least travel rather than curl up and hope for a quick recovery. In my previous travelogue I thought I was less than adventurous considering that I had the luxury of a roof, air conditioning and some gadgetry to get me around the western ghats. This time around, I was pampered to the maximum as I flew all the way to Mumbai, sat in very uneventful taxi rides and reached the comfort of home with little to no stress. However, learning comes to those who go looking for it and I guess we can always find something we can ponder over, rather than whine about missing how we get there.

It all started when one of my cousins decided to come down to India via Mumbai. We thought we could all catch up there instead of roaming around familiar places in Bangalore. Not that this city is any less vibrant, it was just an opportunity to explore something new. With that in mind and tickets in hand, I was off to Mumbai, a city which is an acquired taste. There are lots of things wrong here; the smell, excessive population, bad roads, overcrowded beaches, excess heat, humidity and the list goes on. Then again, there is some charm to it, the right blend of both a new age India and that of the older, wiser country. There are ultra luxurious and seemingly exclusive places, at the same time, something for the not so wealthy as well. Something for everyone is the pattern I could trace; which bothered me through the trip. There is no feature pertaining to the city I can single out apart from it's diversity. There is loads of culture, yet there are yachts in the ocean with the Taj and Gateway of India overlooking all of this. It has one of the most extravagant private residences in the likes of the Ambani's while also housing the biggest slum settlement on earth. Talk about irony. While I noticed so much in such little time, I was taken aback by the sheer number of clicks around me. People wanted to take photographs to share with friends and family to re-tell the experience once back home.

It got me thinking. Are we in a time and age where we need to record every single thing we do? I can go a step ahead and say we are documenting, not really recording anything, because to tell a story you don't need photos all the time, at least not with different poses that decrease quality time you have on your hands. The enthusiasm can always be recreated in words, sentences and speech in general. This gusto of retelling tales was further strengthened while coming across some apps which let you 'document' every photo taken, every call made, every bite of ice cream savoured! This just drives me nuts. Why can't we just go back to the old days of clicking a couple of photos for the sake of it and live the moment? Why is there a constant need to recall these times? In a way, won't we lose the feeling of how special it was? After all, too much of anything is also sour.

P.S: Just today, I was browsing through my Facebook timeline only to find that it put a smile on my face and even made me laugh at myself for uploading what could have been clearly avoided. It's funny how our opinions oscillate time and again. I was not even aware of Facebook when it was the 'in thing'. In fact, I was least bothered to put up photos or share content; all of which changed as and when I decided to open up a little by the day. After going into a shell again for quite a while, I decided to stick to my guns and regulate my activity there. And you know what, it has indeed been rewarding. It has given me an opportunity to be less of a recluse and paved way to showcase emotions in front of friends and family. Not to mention, it has been a great platform to share stories on travel, improve this blog's visibility and catch up with some old friends who are now scattered around the world. With this in mind, I should probably revisit my earlier post on Facebook; or should I?


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