Dreams do come true :)

This ideally should have been shared last year. #LazyMe. But it was my best trip of 2014. Those 10 days were a dream come true!! We've all heard of the phrase ," And when you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."  It did happen :) There is a background to the whole chronicle with a guru story. :)

The Background

So I met this Lazy Soul (Ok! Don’t call him lazy, he gets offended! ;) Mathew (Matt ) in 2013 during an Art Of Living course which I was facilitating. He had come to India on a holiday and his friend Additya (Addi) pushed him into the course (I do give you credit for this Addi :) Addi had to repeat the course so that Matt comes all 6 days of the course. I still remember the excitement on some of the volunteers faces, “Didi, Australian bhi hai is course mein!!” :D Apparently he is a Canadian whose been working in Australia for a while. In the course, he used to be a good listener but used to HATE any physical exercise! After the course ended, I met him after a week in some event and it was my birthday the next day, he wished, and god knows from where our conversations started.

I took him to Chandni Chowk like a good Indian host and he loved Kake Da Dhaba and the Dal Makhani. Every foreigner loves Chandni Chowk, the true India. I took him to meet Sri Sri too!! Not able to find that pic :( Guruji talked to both Matt and me for a while. Guruji asked him " How did you find the course?" And this mean guy replied ," Oh! don't ask. My knees hurts! She was my teacher" then Guurji looked at me and sweetly said " Aise kaise course sikhaya. Dekho kitna dard ho raha hai use." ( How did you teach the course, he is in so much pain). I was listening with head bowed and hands folded. A sweet scolding from the Master was also seeming good to me. Atleast he was talking to me :) And Matt was all happy 'coz he saw me getting scolded by Sri Sri! Duh! But for me, those were precious moments with the Master :)

Matt used to ask me a lot many questions relating to life, India and spirituality. A lot. Infact, in my answers he would dig out the next question :) :) Matt and I are both Librans and I guess that’s where the common connect is. We both have a similar perspective towards life.  Take it easy, travel, explore. Of course, we differ in some things too.  As much as I am particular about things, he is that much carefree and easy going. He came to do video shoot for one of the competitions which my ex-organisation  (sigh!) had organized and we and Addi later went to see Ramleela in which he went all bonkers over Deepika :D I still remember how he was like Leelaaaaaa while coming out of the theatre. Lol

We talked a lot about travel and exploring India, he went to Amritsar and Manali but I had work commitments so couldn’t. But I so wished to go on a hippie trip together. Soon his India trip came to end.  The dream remained unfulfilled :( I went to drop him at the airport and realized I would miss him for a while.  But friends are friends. And distance doesn’t matter much when you seriously want to stay in touch.  So from end of 2013, I had a foreigner friend with whom I could talk about anything , who would give me a foreign perspective on things, not coated with too many emotions unlike Indians (I still love you India!). I wished and longed for our travel plan but he said he wouldn’t be back before 2017 unless it was Addi’s marriage. This “unless” worked ;) Addi’s marriage got fixed for November 2014. So Matt booked his tickets to India along with his sister Britt. 2 weeks in India, one week for travel and one week for the wedding. Since Addi had the wedding, he couldn’t join in for the travel plan. It was truly a guru story for me. A conspiracy plotted ONLY to fulfill my travel dream. Why? Because Addi’s marriage broke off (Relax! Addi was happy too so don’t do that awww please). He called all his friends to inform not to book / cancel their tickets. Matt had the option of cancelling his tickets but that would have meant a loss for him perhaps so Britt and Matt decided to come to India anyhow. So now we had 2 weeks of travel instead of one! Whooppy!!!! I was on cloud 10! (If there is any beyond 9)

Matt and I used to discuss at length to select places to travel. Dropped the plan to go to a hill station since they are Canadians and are already exposed to severe snowy winters (Talk about snow in front of them and watch their expressions, it’s funny!). We thought of Darjeeling too, then dropped. And finally decided on Udaipur – Jodhpur- Jaisalmer. Matt had been to Jaisalmer alone in his earlier trip and was all gaga over it so it was a must. We decided our travel roles too – I would get the tickets done and he would get the hotel bookings. Foreigners follow trip advisor like a bible :)

About the awesomest (wish there was such a word) trip in the next post... 

Keep Smiling 
Swati :)