Archit - Speech on Passion for Travel

Consultant | Passionate Traveler

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Full Transcript

00:01 Hi everyone, good afternoon, my name is Archit, they gave an introduction about my work as a consultant, I also work with UNICEF, if anybody is wondering if I am going to talk about sustainability, I am going to talk about governance, I have a tendency to surprise people, the answer is not, I will not be talking about any of that, the topic that I chose for this one is that

00:30 The theme is why and if I ask myself what I am something extremely motivated about it is to visit every country in the world and there are 193 UN recognized countries. I am extremely passionate about going to all 193 of them. Oh 50 or so days ago it was my birthday and I was with a bunch of people and they were like let's do something too funny.

00:57 and to funny can mean something for somebody very differently right for me it was ah I was in Montenegro and I was like okay let's go to the border of Montenegro and Albania stand over there ah it is called a no man's land so when you go across across a land border there's like 100 or 200 meters of no man's land it does not belong to any country so that is where I celebrated my birthday the reason for that was I just wanted to be

01:26 in a place which I cherish and something that I am extremely driven by. So, I not here to talk about you know what I went to this country, I went to that country, it not a resume, it is not like an Instagram where I am just like you know posting favorite pictures, but it is more of why I did this, what my journey is and why am I trying to do this thing.

01:50 So, ah the year was 2008, I am not sure if there are people in this room who were not born in that time, I am pretty sure there is like most people were born at that time, but the year was 2008 and I had gotten my first passport, I got selected for an international student exchange program, I got this book the passport and I was supposed to submit it in my school, did not submit it, put it on my heart or in my breast pocket and kept it for the entire day.

02:19 oh I felt really happy with that passport. ah It was something that just like feels, felt magical to me and then I subsequently decided that hey you know what I will try to go to every country in the world. So, by the time I was two and a half years old my parents had been like you should know every country in the world their capitals, their currency and their flag. So, that stayed with me and when I got my first passport I was like okay I am going to go and visit every country in the world at some point.

02:48 if I can ask how many of you guys have a passport.

02:54 Alright, how many of you don't?

02:57 great.

03:02 Another question, I will ask randomly what was the first country that you visited? Anybody who has been abroad like raise your hands raise your hands please. Let us make it a little bit interactive not yeah. Bhutan. Bhutan ok yes we consider it a country yes.

03:20 Okay anybody has been to any other yeah offbeat yes.

03:26 I can't hear you Dubai, okay, Dubai UAE you mean Egypt right. So my fascination was like I work in a different set of fashion. I was like, okay, you know what, let me go and try to do all these dangerous countries at like a before I get married because then I will have a bunch of responsibilities and it will be like why are you going here, why are you going there. I have done Pakistan briefly not so much. I want I was supposed to go to North Korea in April.

03:54 could not go but maybe next year. I will ask you one more question which is one country that you have not been but you want to go like consider there is no constraints. I heard Iran yeah or.

04:10 Bosnia and Herzegovina I heard Israel. Alright one more.

04:17 Yeah, okay, nobody for the North Korean club, that's fine. ah So, yeah, all all fun and games. The reason I feel that it is important for me personally to visit every country in the world and set foot over there is not just it's not just a stamp on the passport which I am like absolutely fascinated about.

04:37 But the entire goal is I want to understand more than one ways of living. We are 1.5 billion people in this country and we feel that it is easy ah that this is the way of living but in India there is a whole bunch of diversity. But when you go to you said Bosnia and Herzegovina I was in Bosnia and Herzegovina just couple of months ago and the way they do things is very different than the way we do things. ah

05:05 very well defined by the country that you are born with and this is not what you choose you are just it's an accident of birth and you just land up over there. It's also an innate biological thing I feel like ancient times it was that we had this tendency of exploring, exploring and exploring we used to draw maps. If you look at ancient maps it will have a border which will say that okay this is there, this is how much we have explored after this they would write a line called here be the dragons like we don't know what is over there.

05:35 Same was with Antarctica, the earlier people used to think that after this there will be a wall of ice. So, people we used to believe that the earth was flat and there will be a wall of ice, some people had seen that wall of ice and that was basically Antarctica, one of the earlier speakers had been to Antarctica. So, those things really fascinate me and I feel Alexander also had a similar thought process, his thought process was very imperialistic.

05:59 and he wanted to conquer the countries for me I do not want to conquer the countries but I want to conquer my own ignorance because I feel that I am way too certain and people get too comfortable that I am 30 years old and 32 years old and then I know decent bit of the world and then you go to another part of the world and you see that they do things very differently. Tolerance is something that you learn, you learn that there are more than one ways of living, there are more than one ways of understanding things.

06:27 and that is the whole goal that I want to do with my whole journey. Somebody had mentioned Israel ah and somebody had mentioned Iran. I will tell you when you try to visit multiple countries in the world there are some interesting problems that come across your face and because I tend to work with UN and then I tend to go to different countries I am always stopped at immigration.

06:53 at the Indian immigration itself like where are you going like ok I am going to this place like why are you going and then I have to explain give an explanation that I am going for this and this reason and then you land up at some country and they will be like I have not seen an Indian come over here why are you crossing the border like this. North Macedonia how many of you have heard of North Macedonia?

07:15 When you hear North Macedonia what is that one thing that comes to your brain?

07:20 Alexander the Great was from there. Alright. ah When you hear of Monaco, what do you recall?

07:31 Very good, alright. So, ah there are lot of interesting things that you learn. I would ask you one more question, interesting. Let us do a little bit of trivia. ah How many of you guys know Italy? Everyone, right. There are two countries within Italy. Can anybody name them? Sorry. Yes, yes, Vatican. The other one is? No, the other one is Sicily is not a country, San Marino.

08:01 San Marino is a country there are three countries in the world which are a country within a country San Marino, Vatican and the other one is Lesotho which is in South Africa. So, right now I am 32 years old and I have been able to visit 43 countries till now and I do not want to die before I touch my feet in all 193 countries of the world which are recognized by the UN and then subsequently I will be like ok once I am done with this I had this innate fear that once I am done with these 193 countries then what I am going to do sir said that not everybody can go to Mars that is true.

08:31 ah I would then go for the FIFA list, FIFA has I think 216 countries. So, ultimately it all boils down to why? I feel that you, I are all humans and we are all connected when you sit with people of different countries, if it sit with people of different races, different backgrounds, there is a whole lot of difference, but at the same time there is a whole lot of common that you can draw from them.

09:00 Next I would say one more why is I feel the world is a very very very small place and the good example of this would be that there are six speakers today one happens to be it's basically a coincidence once happens to be my Dr. Saurabh is my guide from bachelors ah in the first half there was Mr. Pranjal Kamra who was my senior from school.

09:29 and we just happened to meet today. The world is an extremely small place. The more people you meet, the more connections you develop. You might have heard this seven connection theory that any person in this world is just like seven degrees of freedom away from you. So, I actually believe in that and my why has always been like to touching the lives of people understanding what culture they come from and understanding what drives them forward. One interesting thing that keeps me awake at night is life is incredibly short like really incredibly short. If you think about it any

09:59 anybody who was born in 1900s is no longer alive. So, the set of people that were existing in 1900s on this planet none of them is existing right now at this point. So, we are all going to be replaced and you should find try to find out your why as well as the how part of it and then just go and execute it. So, I will leave you with that thought.

10:25 of figuring out what motivates you. For me, I figured this out, my life I am still figuring out, but I figured this out that this is what something motivates me and I am to going to take all the risks that are possible to go to all these countries. Yes, there is going to be a risk, you might die in one of these countries, but yeah you should be, you should if you are going to die, you should die trying something that you are absolutely driven and passionate about.

10:54 Before I close somebody had mentioned Israel and Iran so if you guys are updated like there is something happening uh if you guys do not live under the rock there is something happening. We are not going to go over there but what we are going to talk about is in India you are not allowed to have two passports, two ordinary passports. Fair? ah How many types of passports are there? Can anybody tell me?

11:21 Sorry 3. ok name them.

11:29 one is ordinary, the third one is the white passport ok and under no circumstances you can have I might be wrong, but you under under most circumstances you are not allowed to have two passports, but if you wanted to visit Israel there is a clause.

11:42 that you can apply for a special purpose passport which is only valid for Israel and you can have two simultaneous passports at the same time. So, all these things you come to know you sit with ambassadors, you sit with embassies, you sit with the Indian government and you will come to know all these interesting things. ah Every time you would go I love going and interacting with the immigration officers of those countries they would ask me a bunch of questions and people tell me that is it not inconvenient like in some random country three people are asking

12:12 me like what why are you here I am gonna go back there are like some people think that maybe he is not gonna go back some people think he might work for intelligence. So, all those things they actually give me a kick and that is what drives me forward and that has shaped my career and that has shaped my goals in life and I think I am one of those fortunate people who has figured out that I have not figured out everything in this life, but that why has been figured out and once you figure out the why the how the what.

12:43 gets figured out, when should not never be figured out because when answer is right now, that is incredibly short and you should make the most out of it, very cliched but I live by it. Thank you so much.

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