The soul searching journey to the south of India

Written on 13 July, 2026 at Mumbai

12 days ago, I took a leap. I went on a journey to see if the universe was still on my side. I had no idea where I was going. I was in a low place, and I started the journey almost on instinct. I still can't fully describe what happened over the following weeks

This is probably the first time I don't feel like writing a "detailed" journal entry - the experience was too surreal to fully put into words. But if I had to summarise it: South India is beautiful, the people are kind, and the Bhagavad Gita truly has a lot of answers.

I took this trip to test my trust in the universe, and somewhere along the way I realised I am the universe-it's all connected, it's all me.

Usually when I come back from trips, I do a detailed breakdown-the itinerary, the food, the people I met. This time, I'm not going to do that. The point of this trip wasn't the details-it was the travel itself, and the search for something deeper.

Here's how the route looked:

Mumbai → Gokarna → Kumta → Murdeshwar → Mangalore → Kochi → Alleppey → Nagercoil → Kanyakumari → Villupuram → Pondicherry + Auroville → Kodai Road → Kodaikanal → Villupatti → Mumbai

I leaned into impromptu plans and made some good calls along the way-the right trains, the right buses, switching to a better hostel in Kodai at the last minute. But honestly, it also felt like the universe was a good travel companion-getting me to the right place at the right time, again and again. From catching a train I'd missed earlier at Panvel, to a last-minute booking at a hostel in Gokarna, to landing in Kanyakumari on my birthday, to discovering Thiruvalluvar, to the incredible weather and a striking moment of light in the sky in Kodai-it all felt oddly stitched together.

I travelled mostly on local buses and general train coaches, ate local food, and walked when I couldn't find transport. I only took a scooter once, in Pondicherry, to visit Auroville. The food, the nature, the culture, and the people made the trip what it was.The food was genuinely excellent-from elaneer payasam to a simple "poor man's breakfast," to biryani, to Kerala rice beer. Every bit of it was memorable.

And the people were so kind-the driver who dropped me at Kumta, the elderly women who helped me find the railway station in Kanyakumari, the friends I made in Kerala, the fellow travellers at the Kodai hostel, the bikers I met in Gokarna, the strangers on trains and buses who made the journey feel less solitary. Small, unplanned kindnesses, again and again.

South India is stunning-green, clean, and full of people with a strong sense of civic space. Kerala was lush and beautiful. Tamil Nadu was steeped in culture-from the food to the temples to the philosophy of Thiruvalluvar.

And the Bhagavad Gita-I don't even know where to start. I'll write a separate entry just on that. But I'm glad I picked it up for this trip. It gave me a lot to sit with.

Six stops, six highlights

• Gokarna-Sitting on the beach, reading the first few pages of the Gita, looking out at the sea-it solidified something I already believed about consciousness and interconnectedness. A sense of oneness that stayed with me for the rest of the trip.

• Murdeshwar-I learned about RN Shetty, who single-handedly built an entire town around his philosophy of "I'll do it my way." I'm keeping that as a personal motto going forward.

• Alleppey-A ferry ride, a shared lunch with strangers who quickly felt like friends, and a quiet realisation about how I connect with people.

• Kanyakumari-The highlight of the whole trip. I'd wanted to reach Kanyakumari on my birthday without quite knowing why, and once I got there, it made sense. I didn't have a laptop with me, so I wrote that day's entry by hand. Discovering the stories of Vivekananda, Eknath Ranade, Thiruvalluvar, and Gandhi there-and how central the Gita was to all of them-gave the stop a real weight. If Gokarna was about understanding, Kanyakumari felt like a calling.

• Pondicherry-The unexpected highlight here was disappointment: Auroville, a town built on the idea of living out the Gita's principles, turned out to be underwhelming-half-empty, poorly maintained, and reportedly asking for a huge sum just to build a garden. It felt like a missed opportunity.

• Kodaikanal-The final stop, and maybe the most important. If Gokarna was about truth and Kanyakumari was about purpose, Kodai was about finding myself. The weather, the hot chocolate, the people-and a small act of kindness from a stranger that ended up shifting how I understand myself. It's a longer story, one I want to write properly rather than summarise here.

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I started this trip at one of the lower points in my life. By the end of it, for the first time in a while, I felt like I actually knew myself.