Written By Sukriti Taneja
Twenty kilos of baggage allowance.
Twenty deadlines chasing me to the boarding gate.
A wedding in Phuket was meant to be a break, an absolute blur of beaches, buffet dinners, and cute vacation outfits. But somewhere between the pheras and the poolside cocktails, I found myself slowing down. Subconsciously.
Not to pose. Not to post. Just to…breathe.
It wasn’t the kind of travel you log on the ‘gram. ’ It was the kind that maps something deeper; one that quietly redirects you back to yourself.
Here are five lessons I didn’t pack for but carried home anyway.
Presence isn’t passive. It’s power
Weddings are a riot of colour and chaos; there’s always another outfit, another event, another person to greet. But somewhere between the haldi playlist and the baraat, I noticed this: the moments that stayed weren’t the loud ones. They were the ones I actually noticed. A bride biting back a laugh. A father tucking a strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear. A pause in the music where two hands found each other. We often think presence means standing still. But it really means tuning in. Feeling instead of filming. Absorbing instead of rushing. It’s the most powerful thing we forget to do.
Love doesn’t always look like a fairytale
There was no cinematic speech, no perfectly timed kiss. Just two people who knew each other’s favourite snacks, who whispered in chaos, who shared inside jokes mid-rituals. Their love wasn’t loud, but it was lived. And maybe that’s what real love is, not dramatic, but dependable. Not flawless but forgiving. Not made-for-Instagram but made-for-each-other.
You’ll rarely get everyone in one room. Savour it
The mehendi crowd was the loudest. The cocktail dance floor, the most unhinged. At some point, I looked around and realised, this might be the only time in their lives that all their people were under one roof. That kind of gathering doesn’t happen often, not even for birthdays or Diwali. There’s something sacred about having your whole heart, scattered across cities and years, show up in one place. If it happens, soak it in. Completely.
We’re so deep in the doing, we forget how to be
I didn’t check a single email in seven days. No Zooms, no backlogs, no ‘just one quick thing’. And the world didn’t fall apart. Instead, I remembered what it felt like to watch a sky without photographing it. To walk without purpose. To eat slowly. To swim carefree at 1 pm. Maybe rest shouldn’t just be something we earn after exhaustion; it’s something we owe ourselves for simply being alive.
Forever is made in the smallest moments.
It was a three-hour-long Hindu wedding, complete with mantras, heavy lehengas, and a whole lot of sweat. But what stayed with me wasn’t the rituals. It was the groom adjusting the bride’s maang tikka. The bride nudging her best friend to stop crying. The family fighting back the waterworks as the fire crackled. Forever isn’t built in declarations. It’s cemented in these ordinary, unrecorded seconds of tenderness.
And for once, I didn’t want to capture it. I wanted to feel it. As a photographer, travelling anywhere and everywhere has always been about recording each moment, timed and framed perfectly. But not this vacation. Phuket gave me beaches and sunsets, sure. But the real journey happened somewhere quieter. Somewhere beneath the noise and neon.
Because sometimes, the most meaningful travel doesn’t ask for a visa. Just a little presence. A little pause. And the willingness to look inward, even when the world around you is dressed in sequins.