What my trip to Seville made me realize

Gunjan Jain, Manager - News & Media for Oxfam India writes about her recent business trip to Seville and how travel can change you, little by little.
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I was recently in Barcelona on a work trip and decided to travel down south to the Andalucian port town, Seville, for a weekend. Seville’s most prominent monument is the Seville Cathedral and like a dutiful tourist, I made it my first stop. As I was walking up to the entrance to the cathedral, a woman approached me, thrust a stick of rosemary in my hand while saying something in Spanish. I politely tried to return the rosemary and walk away, instead she took my hand and opened my palm, and started drawing her words with her fingers. I still couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I figured she was trying to read my palm and tell my future. Rubbing her hand on my belly, she indicated I have two babies and a happy future ahead. I wondered if she ever told anyone otherwise. I watched her bold features and a somewhat motherly aura. By now I was intrigued by her. I allowed her to take my other hand and go through the same sign language future forecasting ritual. I was intrigued to see how this would end. Once she was finished, I smiled, thanked her and tried to walk away. But not too soon. She opened her purse and signalled me to pay up for services rendered. Aha! The gullible Indian tourist fooled into paying a Spanish fortune teller. The irony was hilarious.

Not a travel tale to brag home about. Yet my silliness made me happy. I was an anonymous nobody and didn’t have to prove myself – as a professional, a thinking individual, someone who reads, and has to understand fashion, can decorate a house and manage her funds, be a dutiful daughter, cook with perfectly manicured fingers, have an opinion but also the sense to not voice it, can be smart, sensitive, confident, vulnerable and strong, all at the same time. Phew! It’s exhausting to just exist I thought to myself.

When I was asked -- "what my recent travel(s) taught me professionally", I started wandering in the memories of orange tree lanes of Seville, stumbling on scattered moments I brought back. I thought of,

--The trio I had ignored sitting under a tree past midnight, singing away a soulful melody.

--The curious human nature, whether Chinese, American, Spanish or French, when requested to take a picture, the results were the same.

--Global renditions of a small me in the bottom corner of my large touristy background.

--Stolen peeks into arched entrances and pastel courtyards covered in plants, through intricately carved wrought iron gates. Life is locked away in these tiny moments.

--A chance to stop balancing the many hats we wear and tune out the noise on whatsapp and social media.

--Strike broken conversations in sign language. Venture into the unknown world of fortune tellers and incomprehensible Spanish menus and maps.

A friend had posted on my Facebook page, “Traveling alone is the very best. Your senses are alive, your heart beats faster and your being is fully present to the moment. Enjoy it fully.”

Travelling is my therapy. Catharsis. The time to heal from the daily wounds that life in a city like Delhi inflicts. Don't get me wrong. I love my Dilli. I've spent half my life here. My karmabhoomi. But sometimes in the motion of karma, we forget ourselves. Our little joys and sorrows. I wonder why the travel industry is thriving. Is it just curiosity fuelling people to explore exotic destinations? Or the need to get away from the everyday madness and mundane? Or the subconscious search for the self? Probably a little of all...

Back in Delhi and work, I sit at my desk, sipping my morning tea and contemplating the 290 mails waiting in my inbox. Two hours to a meeting for which I should give myself 15 minutes to prep. Ok maybe 10 will do. I feel a wave of invincibility. Armed with the confidence of an explorer and the experience of navigating unchartered situations, I’m ready to take on the challenges of a competitive professional world. Secretly, tucked away is the fragrance of a dried up stick of rosemary in my purse and the forecast of happiness from a fortune teller in a faraway land. I return whole and healed.