Dan Mayur - Global Nomad: Travels and Travails

Global Nomad

Travels and Travails

Dan Mayur

Copyright 2020 by Dan Mayur.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 11/12/2020

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CONTENTS

Part III Two Cradles
of Civilization

To

Connor and Benj amin

In fond memor y of

Your great-great-grandfather Maganlal Nagindas Baa

who instilled in me the love of tr avel

May you fearlessly explore our beautiful w orld.

Travelingit leaves you speech less,
then turns you into a storyte ller.

Ibn Bat tuta

W HAT IBN BATTUTA said seven hundred years ago rings true in my ears today. I have traveled. I have had a lot more than my share of globetrotting in a career that spans over three decades. Some of those travels took me to places from the Swedish border near the Arctic Circle to witness the spectacular northern lights to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina to see the colonies of penguins peacefully basking in the sun. Other trips have shown me the magnificent Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg and the gut-wrenching killing fields in Cambodia. And there have been a lot more. I have had the good fortune of visiting many more parts of the world, about seventy countries at last count. These travels have left me speechless. This is my attempt at storytelling as Ibn Battuta says. I hope he will app rove.

I was born in rural India in a small town called Chopda. Until the age of twenty-two when I first came to the United States, I had not sat in a plane or gone outside the two-hundred-mile radius from our little town. Yet I grew up listening to fascinating stories of foreign travel from my grandfather. Grandfather Baa, my mothers father, was a rare human: a social reformer, adventurer, and a pioneer in many walks of life. An unlikely world traveler, he went to Europe and the United States three times in the nineteen thirties and forties when India was under oppressive British rule and foreign travel for most people was practically unheard of. Baa was a great raconteur and would come home from his trips loaded with gifts and stories he would repeat decades after his trips with great relish and hearty laughter. By the time I was five years old, I knew about his climb up the Empire State Building, his awe-inspiring description of Niagara Falls, his ship passage through the Suez Canal, his camel ride around the pyramids of Giza and his visit to Mount Vesu vius.

I was delighted when I received my admission to Rice University in Houston, Texas. But the thought of my going to the United States brought more joy to Grandfather Baa than to anybody else in the family, me included. Since the day when the admission letter came to the day I left for the United States, every day he would tell me the stories of his travels that by then I had memorized verbatim. Then he would extract promises from me that I would climb up the Empire State Building, see Niagara Falls, visit the pyramidsthe whole worksbefore returning to India. He would then end with his favorite sl ogan:

India is cursed by man and nursed by God. Eur ope
is cursed by God and nursed by man.

As time went by, I have been able to explore the world and see everything on Grandfather Baas list and a lot more. My professional career has been in the engineering/construction industry that services major energy companies all over the world. The travel bug that Baa had infected in me came in handy. I traveled the globe attending meetings, negotiating, solving problems, and seeing the world on the fly. I enjoyed working. I was focused, disciplined, and determined. I kept pushing forward. I was an overachiever. I enjoyed the travel; but it was Monday-morning-in, Friday-night-out, typical business schedule that just gave me glimpses of the places, whetted my appetite, and left me longing for longer more relaxed travel trips so I could get to know the new cities, meet the people, and immerse in their cult ures.

American corporations create a unique malady. The more you work, the more you succeed. So you work more until you become a workaholic. Unbeknownst to you, stress and anxiety build up. Then comes the burnout. I realized there was an easier way to happiness, especially once my basic needs were satisfied. Travel. I believe that once you travel, it becomes a permanent part of you. The journey never ends. It haunts you, playing over and over in your mind. That was happening to me. I wanted to travel at my pace, at the destinations of my choice, doing specifically nothing. Nothing other than observing, reflecting and understanding. Emotionally, I had become a nomad. A global n omad!

I am blessed with a wide circle of friends, among them some highly accomplished authors, professionals, academics, journalists and travelers. When I mentioned to them that I was becoming a global nomad of sorts, I received a spate of comments about what Global Nomad meant to them. Some of them are quite revealing as well as entertai ning:

Nomad implies no attachment but global implies a degree of affluence. So it is one of those terms that all of us who are relatively privileged like to see ourselve s as.

Somebody with a zest for life and travel with the requisite affluence to affor d it.

Anyone that can sense the reality and predicament of another that is unlike them, travel with their stories and empathize, would be a nomad. Global could mean a destination a few hundred kilometers away or one that we have no clue a bout.

In the simplest form, it is my palate that roams the world, as I cook up food from across the continents in my kit chen.

Somebody who has the realization that despite the affinity to ones roots, one realizes the oneness with the Univ erse.

A good, little ambiguous phrase. Nomos is Greek for pasture, so the world is my pasture might be one way to look a t it.

Global Nomad is a hyperbole of sorts. Nomad is someone who wanders around without growing roots anywhere. But, of course, it is understood that one can do that only within the limitations of the g lobe.

In the present context (In the year 2020 when the pandemic Covid - 19 is terrorizing humanity all over the world), Global Nomads are those who initially spread the Corona virus causing the dreaded dis ease.

It is wishful thinking during Covid - 19. Once upon a time, not too long ago, it is what we all were.

Somebody who is mad but claims to be no mad.

The Ideal Homo Sa pien.

A person hoping to discover who am I? But ends up finding out not hing.

It is the choice to not have a home or roots where you are. It is also the choice to not have responsibilities to your home or roots wherever they are.

Also referred to as Glomad! No permanent address, highly mobile. Could also refer to lifestyle migrants who travel between their country of origin and their new chosen home country. A Global Cit izen.

It is an oxymoron because a true nomad has no specific affiliation to any country while a global has ties to all.

A nomad is not someone who travels frequently just for fun. A nomad is one who does not have a permanent, settled home, and is constantly moving in search of susten ance.

To paraphrase Gloria Steinem it is good to travel and live out of bags and hotels but also nice to have a nest to come home to. One does not preclude the o ther.