Trust As Currency: Vimal Geethanandan's 11 State Journey Without Spending Money

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[{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1509016887009","data":"I've lost count of the number of times I looked at my motorcycle and thought to myself, let's just kick start it and drive off into the sunset and probably never return, keep wandering till the end of time, until the sun burns out and the stars die. But, sadly for us mortal beings, we are confined to our place in the world due to various factors, we often tell ourselves that we will travel one day and never actually do it, we rationalise it by telling ourselves that we simply cannot afford the journey. <\/p>Vimal Geethanandan was, however, different. He spoke at length about reaching out and grabbing what was meant for him, travelling and living his dream, as he told me over the phone from Bangalore, so he decided that it was the time he simply practices what he preached and set an example. <\/p>\"That's how I began my journey,\" he laughs over the phone, \"I just had to show that yes, I'm serious about what I'm talking about. As simple as that.\" <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1509018130878","data":"59f1d4166e270"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1509018132800","data":"By the time Vimal was done with his journey, he had travelled thousands of kilometres across 11 states over a course of 9 months, only cutting short his journey to return home because his family was shifting base from Anantapur to Bangalore. He did this without spending a single rupee. <\/p>\"All I had was three pairs of clothes, a tent, a sleeping bag, my laptop, phone and phone charger. That's all\", he says over the phone, \"The journey itself was accomplished by walking, hitchhiking, depending on the kindness of strangers and my own volunteering.\"<\/p>And kindness, Vimal found in droves. He speaks about meeting people who went out of their way to help him, a family that hosted him for over a week, people he met through his volunteer work, with whom he also travelled to the North-Eastern states. <\/p>He travelled through Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Maharashtra, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and West Bengal, beginning his journey in July 2016 and ending it in March, earlier this year. <\/p>\"My mother only let me go when I promised that I'll take my phone with me and stay regularly in touch, otherwise I wouldn't have done that either,\" he laughs, \"So over the course of the journey, I had to constantly keep talking to her, telling her where I was. I turned this into telling her my experiences.\" <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1509019097197","data":"59f1d41902e97"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1509019099066","data":"The 23-year old dropped out of Engineering only recently, \"I was at college to learn about life in general, I don't think I need a degree to do what I want to do in life. I learned what I had to learn, so I left,\" he says, \"You really learn a limited number of things in college. Life is the real teacher.\" <\/p>As our interview drew to a close, we ask Vimal whether he would have continued his journey had he not returned to help his family move to Bangalore, to which he replied in the affirmative, \"I was fully intending to keep travelling till I travelled all the states in the country. I wouldn't have returned so soon.\" <\/p>Asking my final question, I ask him what has he learned over the course of his travels, \"Everyone has a story, everyone is just trying to survive, live, go on to tell their own stories one day. This is, I feel, extremely important, as my travels have shown me that I cannot really judge anyone. I've stayed on the roads, I've felt lonely, I've cried when I was lonely, I've missed friends and family, but at the same time, I met incredible people who took me in, people who made me part of their stories. I've lived in everything from star hotels to huts and I've listened to all their stories. It has taught me to be humble and be accepting, we are an incredibly diverse and amazing country. I hope I can get this message across to everyone.\" <\/p>As he signs off with his final message, a thought crosses my mind, a wild fantasy of running off again into the sunset, but I tell myself that my place is telling the story for now, and in that, my own will be written. One day, I shall pack my bags and look to the North because the Mountains are calling their son home. <\/p>"}]

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