Come fly with me: Off to new stages

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players

I had once learnt these lines by Shakespeare for a speech competition at school and since I've also been reading a bit of Shakespeare of late, it came to mind. Among all his plays that I read or studied, these lines spoken by Jacques in As You Like It, were some of the few that stuck. It went on …

They have their exits and their entrances

And one man in a time plays many parts.

Shakespeare is speaking about the journey of life, the seven stages which he goes on to explain, and there are many philosophical connotations one can draw from this. But in the travel arena, every place I visit is a new stage in which I adopt a new role and experience new things. With the continuous process of entering and leaving different destinations, I merely touch a small aspect of these places, albeit absorb and enjoy where I am, before leaving.

Even soaking in the atmosphere in a marketplace would only serve as an observation; what about the vendors who come here every day? Shouldn't I find out more about the history of the market? Should I not compare how this market might be different from the others and what makes it unique?

Truth is, I love being the observer. I love to describe how it makes me feel, what it is that I see — that is different from what you see. Essentially, just as in a play I would touch upon a character, similarly, on this new stage I manage to understand a fraction of the whole. But it is the travelling to new destinations that I find so exciting, that exhilarates me; it's the "new" that drives me. And now that I've got rather used to this peripatetic way of living, I'll be living the seven stages of life that Shakespeare describes through visiting and, perhaps, living in different countries.

And to play different parts in various scenes (countries), it only follows that I should keep changing into different costumes. So off I trot for a bout of shopping in Dubai before heading to the Maldives tomorrow. But with a trip to London planned very soon, I'll be saving some of my shopping for Portobello and Spitalfields, my favourite markets.