Born Restless — On Wanderlust, Ancestry, and a Dream Called India

Some people can live an entire year without thinking about the next trip. I’ve never understood how. For me, longing to travel isn’t an occasional desire—it’s a constant background noise. Even when life is good, even when routines are comfortable, a part of my mind keeps scanning the horizon as if it’s looking for an exit sign.

Over the years, I’ve tried to explain it simply: curiosity, a need for change, a love of new landscapes, new food, new languages. All of that is true. But it still doesn’t explain why the urge feels so deeply wired—less like a hobby and more like a personality trait.

And then there is that old, still unverified family story: that I may be a descendant of a Romani family (what many still casually call “Gypsy”—a term I’m careful with because it’s loaded and often considered disrespectful). I don’t bring this up to romanticise anything. The history of the Romani people is not a poetic metaphor for freedom; it includes persecution, displacement, and stereotypes that have caused real harm. Still, the rumour exists—and it keeps tapping me on the shoulder, because it could explain more than just my restlessness.

When strangers hold up a mirror: “Are you Indian?”

Something has happened to me repeatedly while travelling: Indians have assumed I’m Indian too.

Not in an exaggerated, flattering way—more in a normal, conversational way, like they simply place me in a familiar category. At first, I brushed it off. But when something repeats often enough, you start to pay attention. It made me wonder whether the family rumour might have some truth, or whether I simply carry features people read that way.

Then comes the historical twist that makes the thought even harder to ignore: many scholars agree that Romani populations trace distant origins back to the Indian subcontinent, based on linguistic and genetic research. That does not prove anything about my family line, of course. But it creates a strange bridge between an old rumour and a lifelong fascination I’ve had since childhood.

India has lived in my head since I was a kid

India is not just “a country I want to see someday.” India has been present in my imagination for as long as I can remember: the names of cities, the idea of huge train stations, temples, rivers, noise, colour, and human density on a scale I couldn’t even picture properly as a child.

And then there is the food—honestly, a big part of the emotional connection. I love Indian food so much that I could die for it. The spice, the depth, the comfort of it, the logic behind it. A good curry doesn’t just taste good to me—it wakes something up.

So with all that, you would think I’d have been to India ten times already.

The irony: I’ve never really been there

The truth is: I have never properly travelled in India.

The closest I came was a few hours during an emergency landing in Hyderabad—an unplanned stop caused by a medical incident on board and crew duty time limits. It wasn’t a trip. It didn’t satisfy anything. It was just the strange experience of being on Indian soil without arriving in India the way I had imagined for decades. I wrote about that incident only recently, and even now it feels like a tease from the universe: Here you go. You’re close. But not like this.

Why India never materialised: the planning trap

I’ve planned India many times. The trip always collapsed at the same point: India is simply too big for my brain when I try to “do it right.”

Where should it start? Where should it end? North or south? Rajasthan or Kerala? Cities, mountains, deserts, pilgrim towns, national parks? Every itinerary exploded into a list that was longer than the time available. And then came the reality check: budget.

India, for me, became the perfect example of how too many dreams can cancel each other out. When everything is a must-see, nothing gets booked.

Maybe the answer is in science (and paperwork).

Sometimes I think I could settle at least part of this question by doing a DNA test. It might not give a clean “yes/no” about Romani ancestry—consumer DNA results are limited and depend on reference databases—but it could offer hints. And more importantly, it might push me toward real genealogy: documents, names, places, the boring but meaningful work of tracing where people actually came from.

Would that explain my wanderlust? Maybe. Maybe not.

Because even if DNA tells me nothing dramatic, the longing will still be there. Some of it might be inherited. Some of it might be personality. Some of it might be the simple fact that I feel most alive when I’m not standing still.

And that brings me to the place that became my answer—at least for now.

Because when India remained a dream, Sri Lanka became the doorway.

See you in India?

Maybe, someday.

Happy Travels!