Long Strange Trip

  • 6 Sep, 2020

Sabbatical (noun) - also known as gap year; a prolonged hiatus in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some dream, e.g. writing a book or travelling extensively.

“A gap year can be anywhere, for any length of time, doing anything you want. Though almost all gappers are looking for an enriching experience, there are lots of different ways to achieve it. The only thing that’s limiting you is your ambition and imagination.

A gap year is about new challenges and new experiences, seeing new countries and meeting new people. It’s about living life to the full and realising there’s a world of opportunity out there just waiting to be explored.” ~ Macca Sherifi, gapyear.com

Welcome to gapyear.scrollstack.com!

This corner of the web will be hosting a host of tales from a thirty-six-month-long 'gap year' for your reading (and my writing) pleasure.

With the way things are at the moment, one can enjoy most experiences only vicariously for now.

From the simple taken-for-granted pint at the local pub to the exotic oft-daydreamed beach vacation, all activity has been put on hold while Planet Earth takes an indefinite 'gap year' from humanity.

This too shall pass. When? No one knows. But in the meanwhile, chin up! Let's go on a trip...

“Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me
Other times, I can barely see
Lately, it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been...”
~ Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh & Robert Hunter

Press PLAY and keep scrolling :)

The days between August 2017 and August 2020 were the longest, the strangest and the trippiest of my life so far.

Here are a handful of reasons why - in the form of snippets already posted on Instagram at random over time (plus a few relevant links), rearranged and neatly scroll-stacked in chronological reading order.

To ensure some semblance of brevity in this introductory post, no more words would be typed out apart from those already existing in the captions of the 20-odd posts below. Expect slight incongruities, odd rants, scattered hashtags and stark time-jumps.

[ Please note that most posts are multi-slider carousels. Do swipe sideways for the whole story before scrolling further down :) ]

Without further ado, down the rabbit hole, shall we?

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#Repost @the.eclectic.book.reviews || #Delhi - Nitin. ‘Till 2017, my life trajectory followed the conventional route where I completed my professional studies and slogged in the corporate world for 7 years. Taking a break for myself was always on my mind but it was only after surviving a bad phase in ‘16, that I finally left my job and was free to travel. . My first trip was a spontaneous trek in the Himalayas with a friend, on whose recommendation I picked up #OnTheRoad by #JackKerouac . . It ended up being my companion during one of the most exciting, unexpected & fulfilling phases of my life as I explored the Himalayas on my own for 6 weeks after the trek. Though a work of fiction, the book is based on the author’s own travel experiences after recovering from a tough time, upon the arrival of a crazy friend. . With his unconventional writing, Jack, through the protagonist, takes us on multiple cross-country trips across the USA in the late ‘40s, as he traveled without a plan from New York to San Francisco, back and forth, via Chicago, Denver, even Mexico. . When I read this book, I had no grand plans for my sabbatical, but never would I have guessed it’d span 33 months! When it got too cold in the hills, I headed for a 45-day journey along the South-West coast of India, Kerala to Goa, with a few detours. . Mid-trip, Lady Luck shone on me, when entering a giveaway contest led to me winning 2 return tickets to London, enabling a 3 month Eurotrip, a pipe dream of mine. In the ensuing months, till the world shut down, I continued grabbing any travel opportunity that came my way & ended up exploring the USA, even Mexico - my swansong On The Road, just like Jack’s. . Like Mr Kerouac, I too aspire to document my experiences in the form of a novel (working title- @dont.panic.dont.try), an ongoing effort; along with @project.bibliotherapy -my initiative to help chase away the blues in these unprecedented times, one book at a time. . I’d recommend On The Road to everyone, as it’ll convince you that there has to be at least one phase in your life which you need to dedicate to doing what you want, in the face of societal expectations. Speaking from experience, it helps🙃

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#OnThisDay in 2017, “the morning of August the 9th, a Wednesday, my alarm didn't go off. Still I woke up at 9, surprisingly hangover-free considering the 11-pint 'fare-thee-well' bender the night before. I woke up absolutely free, completely clueless about the day ahead. My time was mine, and no one else's. For the first time ever. No school or college to attend. For the first time in seven years, there were no commutes, colleagues, managers, clients, meetings, targets, Key Responsibility Areas, achievements, designations, paychecks, rewards, bonuses, career advancements, job security ahead... Also no concrete goals or fixed Plan Of Action. Only uncertainty, and lots of it. The first few hours of my 'gap year' were three parts liberating, ninety-seven parts overwhelming. So it was a literally insane me who decided that the best cure for my blues would be to spend some exclusive quality time with the ones who’ve been responsible for much of my joy and happiness over three decades, but now scattered all over the place. My books. Over three weeks of self-prescribed bibliotherapy, I reunited myself with long lost buddies from all stages in life, the fondest from childhood. And there were more than a few still around, all thanks to a mother who believed there can’t be a thing such as too many books, and a father who carefully preserved every memory, even all those years I wasn’t around, busy playing the Game of Life. There were many gifted and treasured, some bought but never read; others borrowed but never returned; none stolen, thankfully. For the first time, I had all my friends in the same place, at the same time. And like responsible friends, one, they gave me perspective, and two, the encouragement to pull off crazy, random stuff, one day at a time…” (#repost from the caption of the first ever post on the feed of Project Bibliotherapy on March, 22nd, 2020) #endofsabbatical #visualresume #infographicresume #dipsite #dce #dtutimes #fmsdelhi #britannia #timesooh #scrollstack #projectbibliotherapy #bibliotherapy #douglasadamsquote #johnlennonquote

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Stay safe, stay sane!!
~ Nitin

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