Hi! I’m Vaibhav Mehta – an Indian, actor, dancer, singer (my mom begs to differ on that one), traveller & now a travel blogger as I write this down. Born in Rajasthan & brought up in Hyderabad, I am an engineering graduate (usual route to doing anything else in India) who makes a living as a professional actor.
Living multiple lives through different characters and entertaining people is what I enjoy doing, hence, the choice of being an actor. I find people fascinating which is why though I like being alone (coz I love intelligent company), I like being surrounded by people too because they help me build characters for my roles, quench my thirst for new stories & teach me more to life than what a college or a university can.
I feel life’s too short & precious to be spent just in one’s home or an office cubicle. The world has innumerable sights, experiences, memories that are waiting to happen and my selfish self just wants to be a part of all of them.
WHY THIS NAME – “The Wandering Vegetable”
This is the ONE question that people keep asking me. So let’s address the elephant in the room of “WHY The Wandering Vegetable?”
Basically I am a vegetarian and vegetarian food is really difficult to find overseas. So, when I’m travelling abroad, I am constantly on the lookout for good quality and tasty vegetarian food. Since I’d taken to travelling like fish to water, I became *drum-rolls* – The Wandering Vegetable. See, it was that simple to land a weird yet ‘true to my nature‘ username.
HOW & WHY DID I BECOME A TRAVELLER?
There’s always a starting point to everything. In my case, it was my family holiday to Kashmir (northern state of India) that set the ball rolling. I remember being so overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the place and thrilled by the activities we did there, that I realised one thing – travel was something I liked and enjoyed.
The family vacations were happening every year but still there wasn’t any burning desire to become a world traveller. The year was 2016. I was working as an actor in Dubai playing the male lead in a Broadway-style Bollywood dance musical called Jaan-e-Jigar staged at Bollywood Parks, Dubai Parks & Resorts. Just incase you want to see the trailer to the show, click here (entry’s at 0:36 *wink wink*)
It’d been a year where I had worked my ass off each day and had not taken a single leave at work performing shows regularly, entertaining the hordes of people that would turn up to witness Bollywood in all it’s glory. It was the same show that we performed day in & day out.
I can’t pinpoint a particular reason but I guess the amalgamation of exhaustion, monotony of work & getting bored of people around me triggered something in me that had to be addressed. I wasn’t enjoying my work. I felt jaded and needed an injection of freshness.
It was the need to feel rejuvenated- just a break to recharge my batteries & give me a new perspective not just at work but at life.
So I packed my bags and did my first solo self-funded trip to Spain in April, 2016 & the rest as they say is history!
I’d returned to work only to feel energised, content & happy with myself. I was a goofball of energy ready to take on anything & everything. Infact besides acting in the musical, I’d started hosting a dance reality show called Bollywood Parks Dance Off & the positivity that I carried from my travels even rubbed onto my hosting.
Ever since the travel bug bit me, I have continued this balancing act between acting and travelling. I’d finally found out one love that could nourish another (acting) & that was – Travelling.
It made me a different person. A better person. Thanks to travel I’d gained the following –
- A broader perspective of life.
- Acceptance of situations & people around me.
- Humility with the realisation that I was just a little speck on this huge planet.
- Tolerance & patience in testing times.
- A strange sort of comfort in uncertainty and the feeling of being lost – 2 things that are the ketchup sachets that come free with the burger of acting.
I fell ‘head over luggage‘ in love with travelling. The smell of an immigration stamp on my passport page felt like limited edition perfume to me.
All I knew was that there were 195 countries on the planet and that I’d rather see them than die wondering.
The whole idea of waking up in a different country, heading out exploring unknown places not knowing where I’d go next, meeting strangers, experimenting with food, experiencing foreign culture, collecting memories; appealed to me.
Such is the situation now that the moment I’m sitting on a flight to one country, I’m already planning a holiday to another.
I started a travel page “the_wandering_vegetable” on Instagram on the 3rd of December, 2017 and haven’t looked back since. Seeing the immense love & support from people for my work, I felt the need to give back the love by sharing my travel stories & experiences. So I decided to be a travel blogger.
Make no mistake, it’d feel great if I can earn money through my blog in the future, but the primary reason for creating this blog remains – my eternal love for travel. As Jack Kerouac rightly said – “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain“.