000. Why YayavarAbhi?
YayavarAbhi is two words welded together: Yayavar (यायावर) + Abhi.
‘Abhi’ is simple. It’s short for Abhishek, and it’s what the people close to me call me.
The first word, Yayavar (यायावर), has been with me for quite some time now. I’m not even sure how I stumbled upon it, but I remember feeling an instant connection.
When I was finalising the handle for this expedition, I ran it past a few friends. Almost none of them had heard the word before, let alone knew what it meant. Their feedback was practical.
“People won’t remember it.”
“You’ll have to explain it every single time.”
For two days, I tried convincing myself to pick something simpler. I made a list of more than fifty alternatives. None of them felt right. So I came back to the one name I couldn’t stop thinking about- YayavarAbhi.
So what does it actually mean, and why couldn’t I let it go?
The word comes from Sanskrit and has long been used to describe someone who wanders - a traveller without a fixed abode, a nomad. In older texts, it was even used for wandering ascetics who travelled from place to place carrying little more than what they needed.
The word was also immortalised in Hindi literature by the writer Agyeya, in his 1953 travelogue Are Yāyāvar Rahegā Yād? (Oh Wanderer, Will You Remember?). To Agyeya, a Yayavar wasn’t a tourist passing through to collect photographs, nor a pilgrim moving towards a single destination.
A Yayavar was someone who allowed the journey itself to shape them.
That’s the part I connect with the most. To me, a Yayavar isn’t someone who simply covers distance. A Yayavar is someone who lets the road change them.When I look back at the last few years of travelling, I don’t remember the number of kilometres I rode or the places I checked off on a map.
I remember the experiences.
I remember pitching my tent alone in pitch dark in the middle of a coffee plantation for the first time.
I remember stopping at a tiny tea stall before an important meeting. The owner quietly made sure I had breakfast, tea, and a peaceful corner to work from. I barely remember the meeting. I remember him.
The local stranger who went far out of his way late at night to find us fresh fish, just so our memory of his town wouldn’t be spoiled.
Travel has challenged opinions I was certain about, introduced me to lives completely different from my own, and reminded me, again and again, how much of the world I still don’t understand. Every long ride has left me a slightly different person than the one who turned the key at the start.
For the next few years, the road is my address. It will shape me physically, mentally, and culturally. That’s why this name matters. Some names are chosen because they’re catchy. This one was chosen because it felt true.
If this way of seeing the world resonates with you, I'd love for you to stay. Over the next few years, I'll be riding across all 800+ districts of India, one state at a time. Along the way, I'll share the people I meet, the places that surprise me, the history and culture I uncover, and the questions that stay with me long after I've moved on. This won't be a logbook of kilometres covered—it'll be a collection of stories from a journey that's as much about understanding India as it is about understanding myself.
A tourist consumes a place. A Yayavar lets the place shape them.