Travel Memories

 

It is said that travel is the only thing which you buy that makes you richer. Every year in the summer, the Goan heat induces cravings for the air of any place with a low temperature. My family and I head off to a cool village in or higher than the Himalayan foothills. It’s been eighteen consecutive summers following this ritual which can be termed as anything but monotonous. My summers have never been spent abroad. There is so much to explore in one mighty landform, let alone in the entire country itself. And we haven’t been to the same place twice. The tangible forms of these memories are a bunch of family pictures taken in each of these places. I have been hoarding every other thoroughly recorded memory like a happy miser.  

 

The form that I have chosen that reminds me of home is something that repeats itself, but yet does not. It is also one aspect with many memories, each different from the other. It may also not be linked to my culture, or my native physical home. These memories are created in places that didn’t have anything that belonged to me, places where I was not brought up in, no similar culture, no academics, no friends or near ones. I haven’t even lived in these places for more than three weeks, and will probably never physically revisit. But to me, they will always be home.  

 

                                                         -Inês Barros