To Saunter or Not to

The first thing after reading this title that I wrote was why I am using a fancy word for walking leisurely. But alas I’m too engrossed in romanticizing walking as do people to running. I came across this word first reading about Aristotle and his “School of Peripatetics” which was his way of bringing clarity to thoughts while walking. He used to teach while walking and run thought experiments. But I’m not always thinking about such critical things while walking and hence I stuck upon Saunter which is more like wandering without any aim. For me this is the time actually where I’m thinking so much on so many things that I pick up random rabbit holes of knowledge, end up reading too much enough to conclude that there is so much more to that topic and the cycle continues.

Pre-MBA and before corporate life started I used to see walking not in such good light. But in moments of stress and frenzy my walk in the campus all but cleared my anxiety. Walking around the Bhavan’s lake was so therapeutic. Even under the sound of a hundred crickets and cacophony of frogs there was a lingering silence. As time passed by I found this to be so much joyful in my residential society too. Late at night when normal office going people had dozed off a stroll around is my definition of peace. I had always tried to stay away from that iconic pose all our father’s tend to make with their hands stretched back, the tummy protruding outwards and a slight comfort in the spine to walk around. Here I am though doing the same, understanding more than ever why the walk he takes is necessary just to calm our nerves, escape the dilly dally ways of the world and connect with oneself.