When you open up a room in your home to complete strangers you automatically open up your world to new experiences and myriad stories. Rather than rely on my rather unreliable memory I decided to chronicle these experiences in this post.
There is something inescapably similar amongst solo travellers….they are all trying to find something that they could not in their homeland.
Our first guest was a half-French half-Chinese lady who had had multiple breakups and had landed up with a man old enough to be her father. She seemed to be in search of her own true self. She was in town to interview the founder of an NGO….so moved was she by his story. Talking to her I discovered a lost soul desperately trying to make meaning of whatever she knows.
We also had the good fortune to host a Scottish journalist in town for the football world cup, who filed copies late into the night and then rushed to attend the day’s matches. Friendly and open, his reviews of the stay mention the home food and the care that he was accorded. Who says that you don’t need a home away from home?
Next came a 42 year old Londoner who was in the search for material for her book about dogs. She was also a hugely into organic food and all things yoga. In a private session she revealed how her recent breakup with her boyfriend in America has left her feeling bereft. How the book project is a lonely journey and she wonders whether she will ever find a home or peace.
A young Chinese girl, had saved up for months to come to India. She had meticulous research done about the places she wanted to see and some immaculate planning about her time here. Once the bonds grew deeper, she spoke about her controlling narcissistic mother who has never divulged her father’s true identity to her. She is on an inner quest to find the man who fathered her.
Cut to the young Indian boy, who left his flourishing job after the death of his younger brother in an accident. Something in him was broken and he needed psychiatric support. Now he was travelling the country by himself…trying to search for some sort of peace.
Then there was the Italian woman, who was in love with a Bangladeshi man living in Venice. She was traveling all over India working for an NGO who help Italian couples adopt Indian children. Her efforts were always geared towards learning some Bengali words so that she could impress her man back in Venice.
There was another guest who was a middle aged lady from Mexico. She got married to her childhood sweetheart when she was 25 and went straight out of her father’s home into his. Now another 20 years later she finds herself divorced. Circumstances have forced her to leave this man but her pain hasn’t allowed her to stay in her country for very long and she is traveling through America and Asia trying to gather the courage to return to her hometown.
There’s something common about all these people. They have all set out from their personal spaces to look for something that they couldn’t find there. Unfortunately, wherever one goes or whatever one does the inner demons and psychological conflicts travel too.