Leave It All Behind and Just Travel!

Badami sits in northern Karnataka like a postcard from a different century—the cave temples carved into sandstone cliffs, the Agastya Lake catching the light at certain hours, the silence between tourists that feels earned. I was there with my camera. Stefan was there with a Harley.

Stefan

He is German. He was a mechanical engineer at Harley Davidson for over seven years. In 2009, he left. Since then he has been travelling—not the Instagram kind, not a month off between jobs—but properly, continuously, the way some people move into a house and other people just keep going.

His motorcycle was a Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic. He had chosen it deliberately. It is a touring bike, built for long roads and heavy loads, the kind of machine that says you are not planning to stop anytime soon. He called it ideal for this kind of journey, and he said it the way someone says something they have tested thoroughly.

He had covered major parts of the world. He was in India for about two weeks and still wanted to see parts of Kerala before leaving.

What He Said About India

I asked him what he liked most about India. He did not pause the way people pause when they are searching for a polite answer. He said the spices and the culture, immediately and with conviction. He had been learning mantras—Hindu prayers—which he intended to recite daily for spiritual peace. He was going to take that practice home with him. He said he would come back. He said it was his first time and he already knew.

The Inversion

Here is the thing that stayed with me. Stefan had come from across the world to absorb something from India—the philosophy, the culture, the spiritual practices—and was carrying it back deliberately. Meanwhile, many people in India are doing the reverse: trading in the culture they grew up in for something that looks more Western.

I am not making a simple argument against change or openness. But there is something to notice in the image of a German man on a Harley Davidson, learning mantras in Badami, telling a stranger that he will definitely return—because he found something here worth returning for.

I came home from that trip feeling differently about the country I live in. Sometimes it takes an outsider to show you what you are standing on.