About The Author
Inder Raj Ahluwalia is an internationally renowned, multiple award-winning travel/aviation journalist and author. Ahluwalia has been writing on travel, tourism, hospitality, food, lifestyle and aviation for over forty years for leading Indian and international newspapers and magazines, and covers some 50 countries, including his home base, India. He has lectured at several international forums, and spearheaded 'think tank' activities involving tourism, heritage, environment and aviation. He has also interviewed hundreds of eminent personalities. Under the brand-name Travel Darbar, Ahluwalia also writes travel blog features, and gives travel talks. Ahluwalia's brilliant and distinguished writing career has been crowned by several international and national awards for travel writing. His impressive list of honours and awards includes the prestigious 'Mark Twain Travel Journalism Award' by the Heidelberg Convention and Visitors Bureau; the 'Medaille D' Or du Tourisme (Gold Medal of Tourism) by the French Ministry of Tourism; a special 'Switzerland Tourism Award'; and the Best Travel Writer In India' Trophy. He has also been recognised for his exceptional travel writing by Singapore and Malaysia Tourism Boards. Introduction Born to be Sikh! It tells its own story. And quite a story it's turned out to be. For me, being born a Sikh and living life as one has turned out to be an immensely interesting, challenging and joyous experience, and one that has shaped my psyche and personality to become what it is today. How good or bad, relevant or insignificant it is, remains another matter that belongs to another realm of thought. What matters is that it is my psyche and personality today, and my being a Sikh has made them what they are. While mine has been a fairly ordinary life in the general sense, and alas, I can't lay claim to having achieved anything spectacular or even significant, it has been an action-packed, eventful and exciting journey of sorts. When I compare it with the journeys of those I know intimately, it comes across as starkly more momentous, significantly more shaky and off-beat, but certainly more interesting. In fact, interesting to the core! I remember vividly some of the major twists and turns on my life's highway. It's a sobering thought but the fact is that there have been more than there should have been. One thing that's crystal-clear is the fact that I didn't take all the right Burnings on the said highway, and in fact took several wrong ones. The result was that figuratively speaking I couldn't land up at the right place at the right don't know exactly how much back-tracking I did, but it was considerably and needlessly more than I should have. I suppose in the ultimate analysis it doesn't matter that time. I What matters is that I finally embarked on this particular journey of adventure and discovery as a Sith travel journalist, rather than just a travel journalist. much. From then on, armed with a certain sense of purpose, 1 felt things changed a bit in terms of my behaviour. I am glad I did this and my only regret is that I feel that perhaps could and should have done it earlier. My shift in perspective enhanced the quality quotient of my life and travels. At the risk of sounding fatalistic, I want to make the most of this journey while it lasts, because it is giving me more fulfilment than anything else in my life. I feel there is some meaning to things, and to things that happen, and to my life. I feel I'm finally doing more justice to the time placed at my disposal. And I feel a certain sense of joyousness and inner calm that I wasn't aware of in the past. Over the years, sailing the vast oceans of life, I feel my thinking and perception of life has changed a little bit. A sense of urgency has entered my thought process. I wasn't exactly procrastinating earlier, but now feel there are wheels beneath my feet when it comes to communicating my brand of thinking and psyche to the world. Considerably more than I did in the past, I'm trying to 'reach out' with a flurry of messages revolving around my international travels as a Sikh. The communication channels that lay dormant and idle are now wide open. I'm enjoying talking of myself as a Sikh more than ever, and sense those around me are enjoying it too.
Introduction
Born to be Sikh!
It tells its own story. And quite a story it's turned out to be. For me, being born a Sikh and living life as one has turned out to be an immensely interesting, challenging and joyous experience, and one that has shaped my psyche and personality to become what it is today. How good or bad, relevant or insignificant it is, remains another matter that belongs to another realm of thought. What matters is that it is my psyche and personality today, and my being a Sikh has made them what they are. While mine has been a fairly ordinary life in the general sense, and alas, I can't lay claim to having achieved anything spectacular or even significant, it has been an action-packed, eventful and exciting journey of sorts. When I compare it with the journeys of those I know intimately, it comes across as starkly more momentous, significantly more shaky and off-beat, but certainly more interesting. In fact, interesting to the core! I remember vividly some of the major twists and turns on my life's highway. It's a sobering thought but the fact is that there have been more than there should have been. One thing that's crystal-clear is the fact that I didn't take all the right Burnings on the said highway, and in fact took several wrong ones. The result was that figuratively speaking I couldn't land up at the right place at the right don't know exactly how much back-tracking I did, but it was considerably and needlessly more than I should have. I suppose in the ultimate analysis it doesn't matter that time. I What matters is that I finally embarked on this particular journey of adventure and discovery as a Sith travel journalist, rather than just a travel journalist. much. From then on, armed with a certain sense of purpose, 1 felt things changed a bit in terms of my behaviour. I am glad I did this and my only regret is that I feel that perhaps could and should have done it earlier. My shift in perspective enhanced the quality quotient of my life and travels. At the risk of sounding fatalistic, I want to make the most of this journey while it lasts, because it is giving me more fulfilment than anything else in my life. I feel there is some meaning to things, and to things that happen, and to my life. I feel I'm finally doing more justice to the time placed at my disposal. And I feel a certain sense of joyousness and inner calm that I wasn't aware of in the past. Over the years, sailing the vast oceans of life, I feel my thinking and perception of life has changed a little bit. A sense of urgency has entered my thought process. I wasn't exactly procrastinating earlier, but now feel there are wheels beneath my feet when it comes to communicating my brand of thinking and psyche to the world. Considerably more than I did in the past, I'm trying to 'reach out' with a flurry of messages revolving around my international travels as a Sikh. The communication channels that lay dormant and idle are now wide open. I'm enjoying talking of myself as a Sikh more than ever, and sense those around me are enjoying it too.
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