The nomad in me loves black

I know the nomad in me. I know how excited he gets when a plane takes off… that is like a trigger that awakens the traveller instincts that are otherwise content to remain silently observant except a nudge now and then to buy another lens kit or take part in some other blogging contest that has a trip as a prize, or just to plan one if nothing free is coming my way. The traveller can never really stay away from travel… right?

The traveller and the writer in me can also never move out without my black survival kit… yes, I call my set of travel essentials just that. I don’t find it strange at all that most of my travel kit is actually black. Let me first list it out for you:

Black polo shirts
Black socks
Blackish-blue denims
Black DSLR camera
Black smartphone
Black selfie stick
Black Bluetooth trigger
Black tablet
Black stylus pen
Black laptop
Black mouse
Black fountain pen with black ink
Black shoes
Black cap
Black cabin bag
Black shoulder bag

I have chosen five out of the list and clicked them together for you to know that black is indeed the reigning colour when I travel. You can see my black laptop with its black Bluetooth mouse too there kept on a black coffee table… well, you can’t deny me some indulgence in a picture, right?

Why black?

I believe a black DSLR, for instance, wouldn’t allow large architectural wonders to lean over me and whisper, ‘Wow! What a Gaudi-ish camera you have in your hands!’ It would just make me jittery and possibly introduce a series of shakes in my normally steady pictures. No sir, I wouldn’t want my camera to be a medley of colours for sure. Look at the black stylus pen now… will I want to remain focused on the sketch that I am trying to draw on my black tab or would I just be content to wave them around and get a few indulgent smiles because a lot of people do love funky colours and designs on their gadgets. You just have to have a closer look at what the Japanese tourists carry with them and you’ll know what I’m trying to say.

So now that we know the reason for having chosen black as the colour of my technological gadgetry that accompanies me every time I step out of my house, let me share a little secret too. Shhh… don’t you go around telling this to everyone. Ok? Now that I have you sworn to secrecy, here is the truth. I am not able to use all that I always carry every time I am on a trip. I was in York a week back and my shoulder bag was full and heavy with all these black objects on a day that was more than sunny. The hotel reception had gracefully agreed to keep our cabin bag at the reception…. as we were early for a check-in and so we decided to walk up and down the market area, the Shambles, and even up to the University of York where Specky was in the mid-nineties for her DPhil. There was so much walking to do… well, one interacts with a city only one is walking, you see. I was able to use only my black DSLR… and some wonderful pictures were clicked. The rest of my black travel gadgetry kit remained in my bag… and that was one day I realised how heavy they can be when they are all together.

Now all that I want to say is that though I would love to have all the things in my black objects list when I am travelling, there would be a few that I’d love to keep in my hotel room. I mean, I need the black laptop only towards the evening when I may need to download my pictures from my black DSLR or write about the day or maybe complete a blog post or do some uploading.

A friend once asked me why I need to carry my set of black tech objects everywhere… and I looked at him silently for a while before I said, ‘Great moments need to be shared. As pictures. As tweets. As smiling selfies. As facebook updates. As blog posts. As sketches. Can you live in a world where no one ever shares anything?’ My friend thought for a while and said, ‘No. But why do all your travel essentials have to be black?’

‘Ah!’ I said, ‘I’ll give my reasons for that in a post and you’d better read that. And I’m sure that friend has his answer to my fascination for black now.