Becoming Yogi By Sneha Patil

On the surface, Yogesh Gupta had it all-a successful career as a petro chemical engineer at Shell in the Netherlands, an adorable French girlfriend, and a cozy home they had built together. But Yogesh wasn't happy and his mind was cluttered with existential doubts. When the noise in his head became unbearably loud, he took a sabbatical and escaped to Nepal, where while trekking to the Everest Base Camp he discovered the joys of solitude whereas months later in Vietnam, he found meaning in doing nothing. By the end of his first sabbatical, Yogesh had tasted blood and wanted a deeper peek into his mind; and so, a second sabbatical soon followed when he zoomed across Central and South America on a motorbike. It was then, while volunteering in an orphanage in Peru that he finally started finding the answers to his fears and doubts. Yogesh discovered what he truly wanted and a fancy job did not even make it to the bottom of his list. He packed his bags and left the Netherlands for home, to India, on a bicycle. This long two-wheeled journey eventually brought him home to himself, to Yogi.