Travelling Light

Recently I had a pleasant surprise when checking in for a flight at Dhaka airport. After I placed my suitcase on the weight scale, the ticketing agent looked at me, puzzled. “Sir, your luggage is so light that it is showing a negative weight.”

So there it was. Airline weight scales can be erroneous in either direction. I had to abandon my hypothesis that airlines bias their scales towards heavy to extract overweight luggage charges from passengers.

But, more importantly, this was the best compliment that anyone could give me, the traveller.

“Travelling light” - those two words imply mobility and freedom. You can pack quickly and be on the move, without anyone’s help, without bothering anyone. Depending on your mode of travel, though, light travel can mean a lot more. Take, for example, my days of backpacking in the American wilderness. When you go off by foot into the remote back country of Yosemite National Park for several days carrying everything you need on your back – clothes, tent, sleeping bag, food, water, cooking utensils, stove, fuel – the weight of each item becomes crucial. You become keenly tuned to what you really need to survive and function. (Incidentally, during the warm months, a small shovel is among those necessities – for your toilet, so you dug a small hole in the ground and covered up your excreta. In the snow, protocol requires you to carry out your solid waste.)

That’s how I learned about Ultralight Backpacking. The goal was to keep the weight of basics under ten pounds; to this you added food and water. I never quite reached that goal but came close by using items made of lightweight material. Some of it came down to money. Lightweight gear was almost always more costly. But there were also skills involved: how to wear a frameless backpack so your back is not in pain after miles of walking, how to seal the seams of a single-wall tent so you are not drenched in your sleep when that midnight shower arrived (the commonly-used but heavier double-walled tents are more waterproof in rain); how to identify every useless strap that your backpack came with and cut it off.

My backpacking and camping days are largely over. But some of the lessons I learned remain with me. Travelling light can become a way of looking at life, which, after all, is just another journey. Have we stepped lightly on our life’s journey? How deep an imprint have we left on this planet? How has our journey impacted others – now or in the future? Did we deal a heavy hand on our fellow humans by denigrating them or their beliefs? And, in this age of climate emergency, how heavy is our carbon footprint?

As we leave behind an extraordinarily tumultuous year and stand on the verge of a new one, these are thoughts to ponder.

Dear Reader, I wish you a happy new year filled with lighter steps.

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