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Dimapur, Jan. 30 (EMN): Professor turned hitchhiker, 31-year-old Karthik Dhyaan from Hyderabad has travelled across 18 states in India in a quest to understand people across the borders and live a purpose-driven life.
Dhyaan, who has a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of California, started his journey as a hitchhiker in 2019 after resigning from his job as a professor at the University of Hyderabad, where he had worked for almost three years.
‘I was fed up with the monotonous life and with my job, I wanted to get away from the materialistic lifestyle and dependence on electronics, which is why I decided to do away with my mobile phone, left behind my lifestyle and took the journey of a nomad with a purpose to understand people beyond the borders and their life,’ Dhyaan told Eastern Mirror.
Dhyaan reached Dimapur without a mobile phone and had carried only a diary, book, pen, backpack and five sets of clothes. He has been volunteering at Green Park in Dimapur for the last five months.
He said he travels not for pleasure, to spread messages or for recognition but to find hope, with an opportunity to meet people and to understand people and their life.
Dhyaan's purpose also includes extending voluntary service in any form, and that is how he landed up at Green Park in August.
It was through a website “workaway” that he got to know about the need for volunteers at Green Park when he was in Uttar Pradesh, Dyaan shared. After having spent a month in UP, he took a train to Guwahati and later took a lift in a truck to reach Dimapur. Initially, he was in Dimapur to volunteer at a school but since the school was closed, he chose to volunteer at the park run by the same proprietor.
He acknowledged that the proprietor of Green Park had offered him a job with salary but declined ‘as this was not his purpose and principle’ while setting out from his hometown.
Dhyaan shared that he lost his mother and elder sister when he was eight years old and lost his father in 2017, making him the only surviving person in his family. He said that he did not inform his relatives or friends about his voyage when he left Hyderabad.
While it may be not so easy for any individual to travel without a mobile phone, which is a mode of communication and connection, Dhyaan’s tenacity and his commitment to his purpose has led him across the country without the device. He only relied on the internet service and computer that was available at his pit stops over the course of his journey.
Dhyaan said he took up odd jobs -- from working as a receptionist to a bartender -- without salary but with lodging and food included wherever he offered his service. He said he had one principle -- not to work for salary but render his service while being provided with the basic needs.
Having left behind a lucrative job in Hyderabad and taking up odd jobs without salary made him realise that ‘humanity was still alive and life was not always about money’.
“I led a life that many youngsters would want to live but in the process of this mechanical lifestyle, I forgot my own people and became selfish where everything was about me”, he said.
Although he confessed that he had met some people who were not kind during his voyage, there were others who were kind and helped him selflessly.
Travelling for almost three years, Dyaan said he had reached a point where he thought of quitting.
But whenever the thought crossed his mind, he shared that he met people who were kind, which in return made him determined to carry his journey forward.
Dimapur, he said, has become almost like a home town for him after having spent five months; ‘and with the kind of hospitality, concern, love and the adventurous lifestyle and food habits of the people,’ he plans to continue volunteering at the park till he sets out for another destination in his travel map.