I was never very interested in travelling for sightseeing.
Partly because I assumed that’s what travel was all about – seeing monuments, ticking off tourist spots, and posing near “must-see” sights.
And since I hadn’t travelled much, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything.

After all, you can read about countries.
Watch documentaries.
Zoom in on Maps.
What more could travel offer?

And yet – whenever I visited a new town, a remote village, or even someone else’s home in a different setting, something shifted inside me.
I used to think it was just the novelty of being on a trip that I enjoyed -and that the serious pursuit of travel wasn’t worth the time, money, or effort.

Especially because I wasn’t -and still am not- into sightseeing.
(Or being seen near sights!)

And if all one wants is do is to eat, drink and relax with family or friends, then one resort is as good as another. The location hardly matters.

But over the years, through journeys prompted by work, family, friends – and now, occasionally, by my own curiosity – I’ve come to realise something:

Travel does recharge my batteries.
But more importantly, it expands my mind.
Not despite skipping the sightseeing – but because I do.

And it’s often the small things:
A brief conversation with a stranger.
Observing how people move, speak and smile.
Noticing how a community, a sreet or a city wakes, breathes, walks, eats, drinks, works and unwinds
Watching how people watch over their children in a park
Watching how dogs greet and meet

“Travel isn’t always about distance. Sometimes it’s about perspective.” – Anonymous

When you’re not rushing from one attraction to the next, you start noticing the texture of life:
• How do people greet each other ?
• What does a quiet evening sound like ?
• What do people complain about? What do they celebrate?
• What do their markets smell like?
• What expressions do people wear – on the streets, in cafés, in museums, on crowded trains?

When people ask me about all that I saw or what Ivdid after I return from longish travels, I often find it difficult to answer 😊.

So here’s what I ask you.

Is travel just about “seeing the world”? Or is it about learning to see differently?
Can we travel not to escape life, but to witness how life is lived elsewhere?
Is it okay to skip the brochure-worthy sights – and still return with insight?
Is it a good idea not to seek out the familiar when one travels – ‘ our’ food and ‘ our’ people ?

I think so. Do you ?

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -Henry Miller

Let me know what you think – and what kind of travel has changed you.

_

For millions of working people in Indian cities, street food vendors are more than a convenience-they’re a lifeline. Affordable, accessible, and often delicious, these vendors serve the city in more ways than one.

And yet, despite legislation championed by well-meaning activists, and progressive judicial pronouncements-like those from the Bombay High Court-the lived reality of street vendors remains precarious.

They continue to be treated as encroachers by city planners and administrators. Ironically, even those with hearts bleeding for environmental, gender, or human rights causes often look past (or away from) the rights of the people feeding the city from its pavements.

Over the years, a few officers at the helm in the BMC have crafted schemes to accommodate street food vendors with sensitivity – and due regard for hygiene . Judges have issued detailed orders to balance livelihood and urban order. And yet, on the ground, very little has changed.

The truth is: Indian cities still haven’t figured out how to plan with the informal sector instead of despite it.

A fundamental shift is required – from managing street vendors as a “problem” to recognising them as part of the solution to urban hunger, unemployment, and even safety.

After all, a vibrant and safe street is a lived-in, watched-over, and easily fed street.

And sometimes, it’s also where joy quietly arrives in a rain-drenched city :

Despite early morning showers in Mumbai today, I made my way through Kalanagar to pick up breakfast from a vendor as a surprse for my wife.

Muthuram arrived in a kaali-peeli cab all the way from Dharavi, carrying snow-white idlis and two kinds of chutney in large stainless-steel containers . The aroma of the soft idlis and the bold spices in the chutneys cut straight through our jet lag – bringing joy and the unmistakable flavour of the country we call ours . 😊

UrbanIndia #StreetVendors #InclusiveCities #Livelihoods #PublicPolicy #UrbanPlanning #Governance #MumbaiMoments

For centuries, science and technology -paired with the engines of enterprise, whether public or private -have propelled humanity forward. From the industrial revolution to the digital age, our ability to harness innovation has created wealth, expanded life expectancy, and improved the ease of living in ways our ancestors could never have imagined.

Artificial Intelligence is the next frontier in this journey. Its potential to optimise systems, personalise services, accelerate discovery, and transform industries is both exhilarating and undeniable. In areas ranging from healthcare and logistics to education and finance, AI promises to deliver faster, cheaper, and often better solutions. Even the business of entertainment -once the stronghold of human whimsy and imagination -is already seeing disruption through synthetic voices, AI-generated scripts, personalised content, and immersive virtual experiences.

And yet, as the biblical wisdom reminds us, “Man does not live by bread alone.”

A higher standard of living does not automatically translate into a higher quality of life. Wealth and convenience may add comfort, but they do not guarantee meaning. While machines may be trained to simulate emotion, they cannot yet feel it. While they may reproduce the patterns of human creativity, they do not suffer, yearn, laugh, or long for transcendence.

In an age of AI-generated poems and paintings, the human soul still seeks something else -authenticity, connection, purpose. These are not just data points to be predicted, but lived experiences to be understood.

This doesn’t mean AI is the enemy of meaning -far from it. It can be a powerful ally in expanding access to knowledge, preserving heritage, and enhancing human creativity. But it must remain a tool, not a replacement, for the very things that make us human.

As we race ahead in our pursuit of innovation, we would do well to ask not just what we can automate, but what we should preserve -wonder, ambiguity, silence, story, art. These are not bugs in the human system. They are features of a meaningful life.

In the end, our greatest challenge may not be building machines that think -but remembering what it means to be.

—-

Readings :

• Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – On the future of humanity and the implications of AI on human meaning.
• Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism – On how digital technologies reshape personal and social meaning.
• Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities – On the value of imagination, emotion, and the humanities in an increasingly utilitarian world.
• Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial – A classic text on the philosophy of artificial systems and their limitations.
• Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget – A passionate argument for preserving human individuality in the digital age.