I boarded the overnight train from Varanasi back to New Delhi. I lost the game of rock-paper-scissors, so I got stuck with the bottom bunk—but as I lay there, I looked up and saw a breathtaking sky. Countless shooting stars crossed the heavens, fireflies danced through the air… it felt like a scene from a dream.
The rumor that “trains stop when cows cross the tracks” turned out to be true. Our train halted multiple times and arrived significantly late. Along the way, I shared a laugh with a Spanish couple I had met: “It’s the cows again, huh?” In the midst of chaos, strange yet warm bonds between travelers formed naturally.
On the flight back home, someone asked, “What’s the first thing you want to eat when we land?” We tossed around answers—yakiniku, sushi… But in the end, we all agreed on one thing: gyudon (beef bowl). After spending weeks in a country where cows are sacred, the simple act of eating beef in Japan suddenly felt like a kind of spiritual experience—a “sacred gyudon,” if you will.
This journey taught me so much. The importance of knowing when something is enough. That convenience isn’t guaranteed. It’s by facing discomfort, uncertainty, and wonder that your inner values sharpen and come into focus.
Even now, I still feel that this journey was my true starting point.
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