On making lists

I am the kind of person who thrives on making lists. I make grocery lists, lab-chores-to-finish lists, which-cupboard-stores-what lists (both at home and at work in case you were wondering), and so on. In fact, when we moved houses four years ago, I even listed the pros and cons of moving vs. staying on in the same apartment.

This compulsive list-making would sound weird to most people except those friends of mine who've known me for years. I've found that jotting down both sides of an argument helps me think more clearly. This way I take decisions which I rarely regret later. 

So, after a year of constant struggling I finally decided to list both the good and the unpleasant aspects of my current life in India. The non-stop 'get used to things here vs. move abroad again' arguments in my mind were becoming increasingly disruptive. The only way I could think things through rationally was by putting it all down on paper. 

When I finished writing, the items on the plus side were far outnumbered by the things that I strongly disliked about my life here. It was only after I read the entire list that I realized that the things I regularly complain about are relatively minor issues. Those two or three things listed under the plus side overwhelmingly tilted the balance.

I always knew lists are useful things.  

Heaven lake, silk route and other idle thoughts

I was browsing through my bookshelf a couple of days ago and came across an old copy of  From Heaven Lake by Vikram Seth. As I hadn't read the book in over a decade, I started re-reading it. The book describes a hitchhiking journey that Seth took through western China (Xinjiang) and Tibet to reach India in the early 1980s. At that time he was an exchange student in Nanjing University and wanted to return home one summer by traveling through a part of the silk route. In his travelogue he talks about the changing landscapes and the people he meets as he moves through deserts, grasslands, flooded river basins and the Tibetan plateau. I thoroughly enjoyed reading From Heaven Lake again.

The book then got me thinking about the silk route. Seth starts his tale in Turfan- a town in the Xinjiang (Sinkiang) province of western China. The names of other Silk Road towns like Kashgar, Khotan, Samarkand and Bukhara bring up so many colourful images to my mind. Since yesterday I have been thinking about how I can travel at least a part of this route. Covering even a small part of the route would mean going through at least three countries (China, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to start with). Some of these regions are quite volatile politically. A quick search on the internet shows that various travel groups in China offer guided tours of the silk road. However, like Seth, I too detest the regimentation of organized trips. They also don't come cheap. Since I don't speak Chinese (like Seth does), I am quite incapable of making my own impromptu travel arrangements even if I somehow manage to land in one of these towns. I still need to figure out a way to make this trip happen. Hopefully before 2020.