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I’d always heard of stories about how my father’s family grew up happy but amidst financial constraints. As we grew up, I’d find dad buying bigger televisions. I’d see him turning to national geography to find shows that showed animals or explorative journeys up close. Then he’d shift to news channels which reported something terrible that was happening. It was the dynamic I grew up with: A love for exploration combined with the fear of unknown where one clearly overpowered the other. And we bought bigger televisions each year. So, I always traveled in groups of 8. When one final day, I needed a break, I planned to beat cliche out of the bucket and decided to go to Meghalaya. My father and I had our two most opposite dynamics neck to neck with each other at the end of which, my rebellion won for the better and my father’s silent fear just had to be endured. So did mine. Meghalaya meant the land that stood amongst the clouds. The name was apt. Situated in the north-eastern part of India, Meghalaya was hugely undisturbed by the tourists but cultivated just enough to know that they would be coming, selfie-sticks and go-pros in hand. The people smiled their brightest like they were introducing us, newcomers, to their favorite TV series. And in the split second that our eyes would meet from the passing cars, they already knew we were going to love it. On the first day, I had planned to visit the Laitlum Grand Canyon. What I realized after reaching there was how inconsiderate I was to all the walking, and climbing this trip entailed. At 98kg and 5’3”, I wanted to think that it would be a cakewalk. Midway to the final point where it felt like I was exhaling my intestines. I screamed “I can’t do this. I am going to die.” A stranger’s voice passing by said, “But what if you live?” The cold atmosphere around me condensed on the surface of my skin. It felt as though I could be swallowed in the middle of nowhere if nature willed so. Nature didn’t will so though. Nature never did. I walked and climbed with heart beats so loud to find cascading mountains covered in green at the endpoint. It was the real-life version of the first-ever pictographic representation of nature that every child drew. For all the times it was imagined in our heads, nature always beat us with an effortless flick. It wasn’t an intended, “Suck you” flick. It was just the natural surrender that came with the magnanimous creation that surrounds you. The next day, to much disbelief I planned a trek that was 16km long and found a guide so that I wouldn’t be lost in between. It was only after I reached a river 3km down the line that I realized that all the preparation done for all the kilometers ahead (all materialistically and none physically) was left behind in the car. I tasted the water flowing down the river and it had a sweetness that I had never tasted before. 6 more kilometers down the line and I had pulled every single asana I knew to combat the different pains my muscles began to understand. My guide in the meantime fashioned me a crown out of leaves, played with the kids a few valleys away climbing the gigantic palm trees, and ran the remaining half to get me water and my car. There was still some distance to walk to the car and a bare-footed old woman accompanied us to be dropped off just a little away. She turned back at me every time I paused, and laughed. Eventually, I just got tired and every time she laughed, I laughed back. When finally I reached my car, I realized that holding everything I thought was impossible, I still made it somewhere in this blissful place and it was so much better than to never have started. I cried, whined, and did everything I could, but that day, I had walked with fear, hand-in-hand. And for me to have been there, so did dad. Travel takes in your whole world when it does.