How A Grandfather From Nashik Travelled To 75 Countries To Realize His Dad's Unfulfilled Dream In the summer of 1963, a 24-year-old man was leafing through his father's collection of Indian travel brochures, a stash he had discovered only the previous year in their Nashik home, when he chanced across a book with black and white photographs of the Italian city of Pompeii "My father was a strict disciplinarian and never ever had any conversation with me throughout his life except when he saw me going through those brochures,” recalled Arun Narayan Sabnis, now 77 years old. Sabnis’ father told him that he had always wanted to travel, but could never afford it as he was supporting his family of five children as well as his siblings. "That touched a chord in my heart.” His father's sudden passing brought him back home from Mumbai that year, forcing him to abandon his PhD dreams in order to support his mother. That summer day, Sabnis decided he would find a way to travel the world, asa tribute to his father. "Let him see the world through my eyes if he could not when he was alive,” he said. "That was the germ." So, in 1973, a decade after he had promised to see the world, Sabnis boarded an Air India plane to England as a Ford Foundation scholar. He was to pursue a course in urban studies at the University College of London. His wife stayed behind in India and took care of their two children—their daughter Supriya Pilgaonkar, now a well-known name in the Marathi and Hindi entertainment world and son Sumit Sabnis, who flies business tycoon Mukesh Ambani's private jet had succeeded in breaking the curse and was the first one from my family to travel abroad," he said, "That was the beginning.” The following year, he travelled across Europe. It was "educational", Sabnis recalled. "| was exposed to an entirely different culture and the effect was shocking,” he said. He had not had much exposure to western culture before his trip abroad, and the 34-year-old found it “thrilling”. He learnt much from his friends abroad, which helped broaden his outlook, change his attitude, and "fired an insatiable desire to see and experience more and more." “Looking back, | am amazed to see the enriching changes in myself," the septuagenarian said, "Besides the tremendous variety and contrasts in the cultures of the people across the world, | find amazing and striking similarities in their thinking and actions even when they were thousands of miles apart and without any inter-communication. This really brings us together as a human race!” He also noticed what he described as “increasingly widening and disturbing gaps in the people in the name of religion, colour, language." He travelled across Europe, Australia, USA, Canada, Greenland, and Africa, One of his most memorable trips was to Antarctica, the only continent he hadn't been to by then. in 2011, the 72-year-old booked a ticket on one of the most dangerous oceanic cruisesin the world. Along with 84 other passengers in a small ship, he set across the Drake passage between South America and the South Shetlands islands of Antarctica. “The eerie feeling that you are visiting a part of the world, which is very much as it was millions of years ago and which only very few Indians have set foot on so far," said Sabnis, "was giving me immense kick and thrill." As he crossed the Lemaire channel, an 11 kilometre-long strait off Antarctica, he experienced a kind of "eternal silence” which was unique. There, between white mountains and icebergs, he saw penguin colonies and seals lazing on icebergs. In direct contrast to this idyllic thrill was the 60-hour return journey. As the wind blew at 100 kilometres per hour, the rough sea waves tossed their cruise ship 7 to 9 metres in the air, causing it to roll almost 45 degrees sideways, said Sabnis. Most of the passengers were sea sick, and Sabnis was sure he was going to die. "I had nightmares throughout the night that everyone is searching for my dead body in the ocean!" he said. "This 60-hour ordeal was the most dreadful part of the journey.” But that didn’t stop him from travelling, again and again. And last year, at age 75, he realised he had travelled to almost an equal number of countries, even though he didn't start travelling. with that particular aim. Reading comprehension Why did Arun start travelling? Which trip does he consider “educational”? Why? Are the cultures that he has seen different? How was his trip to Antarctica? Where there any challenging aspects? Vocabulary: 1. Provide synonyms for the following words: eerie; idyllic; dreadful, aim; toss. 2. Provide antonyms for the following words: enriching; memorable; unique. writing: 1. Summarize the text above in no more than 100 words.