Shefali Shah Instagram – Silence is addictive, and so is solitude. When I took my first solo trip in December, I decided I’d travel a lot this year, and yet I also thought this was a one-off fluke solo trip, an odd instance that happens once in many, many years. But to my pleasant surprise, I’ve done pretty well.
Traveling with yourself is very interesting. I don’t think I’ve found a couple more in sync. I said, “Pade rehte hain.” She said, “Fine.” I said, “Walk par chalein?” She said, “Sure.” We even agreed on the temperature of the room and the side of the bed and happily shared the shower.
We watched the mountains together, felt a wave of vertigo and exhilaration as we hung 8,000 feet in the sky over our heads and the Dhauladhar range. We liked the same bracelets from a lost-in-time shop. We walked through winding lanes, pine forests, and snow.
We shared the nothingness of the skylit room and a secret rendezvous in the kitchen, eating under a spotlight as the chefs moved around silently, doing their bit.
We said nothing, and yet we understood all the silence. It was beautiful.
But even in this quietude, she whispered, “Vipul would love this calm, peace, and view.” Or she exclaimed as she floated amongst the clouds, “Maurya would have been doing somersaults in the air whilst paragliding.” Or she pondered as she absorbed the beauty, “Aryaman would love every design detail and revel in it.”
I don’t regret my solo time, but I’m not going to shy away from accepting that every time I experience something, I want to share it with them. That moment, that fragrance, that vision passes, and no matter how many pictures I share, the experience can’t be translated nor experienced via photographs. So this time, I tried my luck. I asked Vipul to join me. I cajoled, coaxed, and convinced him to come. He was neck-deep in work, and of course, it wasn’t easy for him to take off on the spur of the moment. I realized that no matter how much I romanticize it, we have never done anything spontaneously or on a whim. And I told him so… (continued in caption)
#SheTravels #ManaliDiaries #SoloTravels #Solo | Posted on 17/Mar/2025 18:00:36
