The land has hosted many legendary scholars, savants, sages, saints, philosophers, chroniclers and countless number of common people who have walked across its vast territory in the distant past during times when walking was the only option to reach places fired up by an undaunted spirit of exploration. We are now reading about their exploits with awe and in no frame of mind to go places on foot, except short distances per se like doing the last mile to reach chosen shrines. Maybe, Amarnath Yatra, the famed trek of 43-km undertaken by some 6,00,000 pilgrims every year, is an exception.

Tracing the makeover of humans from walking to commuting at increased speed and in comfort using various contraptions (bullock cart, bicycle, automobile, railway locomotive and aircraft taxiing before take off) to the inventing of the wheel may sound strange with hardly anybody giving due credit to its unknown inventor. That takes us to the point of talking about the amazing rise in the number of people shuttling between points of their origins and destinations.

One cannot be denied the flight of thought in saying that the arduous journeys of the aforementioned land’s ancient scholars and others by walking were marked by wonderlust (the urge to gain knowledge in all its dimensions and propagate the same among the people at large). Juxtaposed to their enduring achievements is the current scenario of mass movement of people across the land and beyond marked by wanderlust, mostly for pleasure, not to speak of achieving anything that endures.

The number of people commuting over short as well as long distances by railways and roads across the country has already crossed dizzy figures, and counting. The phenomenal rise in their numbers and mass has far outpaced the rate of adding to the existing infrastructure (rail track and highways) as well as raising the level of related services, particularly in meeting the needs of comfort and safe food during journeys. Two threats to the safety of people on the move, namely sabotage of rail tracks and roads unfit for safe movement of automobiles have been rising by the day resulting in loss of life and limbs of lakhs of people every year. The third feature of substandard food served in insanitary style on the country’s railway network, both on the moving trains and on platforms of railway stations has just been highlighted in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) tabled in the Parliament last week.

The difference between the wonderlust of the land’s legendary saints and scholars of the past on one side and the wanderlust of the land’s current masses is the essence of the difference between the traveller and the tourist. The former’s travails and those of the latter are different kettles of fish. The land earned its cornucopia of knowledge garnered by the traveller and the government is cock-eyed on the revenue contributed by the pleasure-seeking tourist.