The Nomads of No Man's land

The fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

Jean – Jacques Rousseau

picture credit : pinterest

"No Man's Land" denotes disputed territory. In 2010, on my visit to Ladakh, we had a bit of a misadventure. An avalanche near Changla Pass, the second highest motor able road in the world, hit us. Though among the lucky few who survived, we couldn’t return to Leh, and had to move to other side of Changla pass, towards china. The locals informed us that the road to Leh wouldn’t open for next days because of bad weather and the avalanche needs to be cleared. We somehow managed to get hold of the ministry asking to be evacuated through a No Man’s land …a disputed stretch of land between Indian & China of approximate 80kms.

It was during this journey, I saw two things for the first time

The Nomads & The No Man’s Land.

The Nomads there earned their livelihood via their livestock by producing the world’s finest pashmina and yak wool. The Nomads have no competitors. Even with all modern technology, their jobs and livelihood cannot be replaced. The nomads are masters of the environment and proud of the leisurely lifestyle. They do not have fixed habitation, regularly moving to and fro the same areas. The earlier definition of nomads has two categories, Pastoral Nomads (owning livestock), and Trader Nomads.

Now, homelessness is not the virtue only of a nomad. Urban Nomads; Business travellers spend most of their time at hotels and airports. Urban campers experience cities across the world. For the both these new categories of nomads, the common things are, always being mobile & at new locations, though they return to their base country or city eventually.

This year at Oscars a movie that won most awards was Nomadland. A story of Fern. After her husband’s death, the houselessness that she felt makes her hit the road and start living in a van doing odd jobs. It struck a chord with a majority of people who are stuck at their homes, even with the privilege of not being homeless.

Airstream one of the largest RV manufacturers saw their sales increasing 36% last year. The famed VanLIfe that got amplified attention last year has 9.3M tagged posts on Instagram. Now that says a lot about it being a lifestyle thing. They are living on the road either by choice or, as many have found, it’s cheaper to downsize and live out of a van or camper than be stationary. Being a nomad has suddenly become cool. Like everything else, add Digital to it, Digital Nomads: it becomes uber cool & relatable.

Post COVID, a lot of pre-set notions about work life changed and remote working gave people the bonus of living in cheaper and most times a more beautiful part of the world. Even before COVID, some of us at more progressive companies were already working remotely from locations across the world. In the year 2019-20 itself the number of traditional employees working as digital nomads grew by 96%.

However, these Digital Nomads are different to the hippies who did soul searching trips rejecting the rapid trend toward urbanization and believed in the ‘back to nature’ spiritual life of their ancestors. Neither are these digital nomads an alternative community who meet at a Burning Man or for music, psychedelic life on the beaches of Goa and Thailand. These Digital Nomads believe in themselves and are mobile with assortment of talents and network that must be continually maintained and enhanced. They travel to learn new things and work with new people. They log in more work hours than their contemporaries working from office.

But there is another kind of a nomad now - a cross between Digital nomads (who are generally solo) and the original nomadic tribes. These nomads are urban couples/ families who are giving up their pretentious fast city life to move to smaller towns, villages and hit the untrodden path thereafter. Some even sell all their belongings and move on with life at their own pace. They largely live off grid, and even learn to forage and do natural farming. Some have gone off grid with kids who maybe home (trip)-schooling or attending online classes. Some are exploring short term nomadic experiments. My friends Rajesh & Devi who along with their son Aum & fur baby Simba are planning a 2 month ‘on road’ living. Both of them intend to continue their everyday office work online and Aum continues online schooling, while they drive from city to villages and experience ‘life on the go’ while still fulfilling their responsibilities towards work, life and schooling.

An interesting piece of data that some surveys have thrown up recently is that up to 40% of workers are thinking of quitting their jobs they don’t get a hybrid or WFH model even after the COVID nightmare is over.

The meaning of work-life balance has a new meaning now. It is no longer about splitting the time of the day as work and life, but it is about the freedom to choose the environment that they wish to work from. A whole lot of youngsters have stopped owning land or property and have embraced a life on rentals. Digitalisation have made their constant movement much more possible. They prefer that to a daily commute.

You may be wondering that we are stuck for last 2 years at our homes due to pandemic, where is the question of travelling and movement. But, Nomadism is a state of mind. There are a few who believe that purpose of life is best served when you can travel to most places in this world, meet new people, engage your skills and gather more experiences. Fascinatingly, it is in this pandemic lockdown year that mankind took another leap into space. A van life in few years may be replaced by a spaceship life, there will be a new breed, The Space Nomads.

Yet, some day we will rest, on a piece of land or float in outer space.

Till then we are all Nomads of a No Man’s land called Earth.