Tourism

"Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid...Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence."* 

Tourism while it generates a lot of money is undoubtedly one of the stupidest enterprises undertaken by many humans every year. It doesn’t further understanding, instead it often reinforces stereotypes or else is used to simply justify one’s biases. Consider the average tourist: What do they think when they book their tickets to a particular ‘tourist’ destination?

Who are these people who visit the English countryside and return with visions of quaintness intact? Not once do they ask, “How come the sheep roam free?” (All predators hunted to extinction.) Or “How come the trees are so few and far between?” (Very few ancient woodlands left.) Both especially striking if one is from India.

Due to circumstances, I’ve lived in places that people like to be tourists in. Recording some recent interactions– you know, for sociology.

1

He: Is this the area where they lived in ‘Friends’?

Me (to myself): No. That was imaginary. No one with those kinds of jobs can afford those apartments in Manhattan.

She: We’ve done Times Square, MOMA and Central Park. Aur kya hai dekhne ke liye? Kahan kahan jaayen? (What else is there to see? Where should we go?)

Reminded me of a woman who got out of a car in Dhanaulti looked around– the entire Himalayan range was clearly visible against the clear blue sky– and asked us, “Aur kya hai yahan dekhne ke liye?” (What else is there to see?)

2

Me: The MET is displaying all 17 Van Gogh’s in its collection. And Whitney has a Jeff Koons retrospective. Should we go?

She: I saw Van Gogh in Paris and then when I went to Amsterdam I spent half an hour at his museum.

Me: Okay. So what do you want to do?

She: Where are the best outlets near NYC?

Me: What outlets?

She (looking at me as if I am some new kind of stupid): You’ve not been? Shops where you get discounted designer stuff.

3

He: Take a picture of this street. It’s so New York.

Moments later.

He: Take a picture of this Tibetian shop. It’s so New York.

Moments later.

He: Take a picture of this Cafe. It’s so New York.

Moments later.

He: Take a picture. It’s so, New York.

Half an hour later.

Me: Have you been up the High Line?

Both: No. What is it? Where is it?

Me: Right here, up above our heads. Want to see?

Both: Yes.

Moments later.

He: Take a picture. This is so rad.

Moments later.

He: Take a picture of the railway tracts. So rad.

10 minutes later.

He: Lets go down from this exit.

4

She: The girls are so feminine here. They like to wear dresses a lot, no?

Me: …

He: Girls here have such smooth skin. Unlike in India.

Me: …

He: The gays here are so rude…I mean confident, not dabba dabba sa (scared) as in ––

Me: This IS their city.

5

She: Thode saal aur ghoom lo phir wapas aa jana. (Roam around for a couple of more years then come back to India.)

Me (to myself): We aren’t on a holiday here. You are. (Nor have we been for the past 10 years.) We work and live here.

6

He angry: I don’t like NYC.

Me (wondering does he expect me to apologize): But you’ve just landed an hour back. 

 ***

"To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walked around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don't know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysentric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event."

 – *Don DeLillo, The Names

The Playlist

Come down now, they'll say 
But everything looks perfect from far away 
Come down now but we'll stay*

There is a playlist for riding the Amtrak past gigantic warehouses and grain silos, past the heap of crushed metal and glass– junked cars and computers, with barges going up and down the rivers, bridges with arches and bridges suspended by cables, the red and white oldsmobile waiting for the green light, the far away solitary house winking through the clouds, the cows out to pasture, the kayaks out in the lake, the cyclists scrambling up the hill, the horses running in the fields, the Canada geese grazing on the golf course, two pink plastic flamingos seeking company out in the yard, the man and boy walking to the quayside, the yarrow flowering by the rail side; yellow, white and pink, the grasses going to seed, the petunias, blue and white, tumbling down from baskets, hanging from lampposts, in one town and then the next and then the next and so on, the waves trying to outrun the train collapsing in exhaustion just short of the tracks, as another train rumbles by with carriages marked Vancouver and Santa Fe; the bald eagle completes a circle and starts to circle again. The sun goes down, the clock reads 8:30 PM and home is not yet within sight but not that far away. The songs have come to an end. And one presses replay.

Yes, there is a playlist made for every such train ride. Each song a perfect story to accompany the sights. Each playlist made to order for each and everyone. It makes one wonder, why don’t more people take the train in America?

Oh, what melody will lead my lover from his bed?
What melody will see him in my arms again?**

*From the song 'Such great heights', as sung by Iron and Wine.
**From the song 'Cliquot', by Beirut.

Measure for measure

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimension.*

*Oliver Wendell Holmes

Cambodia

As the dark clouds gather, threatening thunder and rain, we talk about Cambodia. Not that there was rain when we were in Cambodia, far from it. But rainy afternoons when all one can do is watch the water colour the landscape makes the mind meander and Cambodia may just as well be where it may choose to roam.

We say yes, let’s talk about Cambodia. But let’s not talk about the shoot. At least not the producer. And absolutely not about the National Geographic photographer. And we agree not to. But let’s talk about the shoot. You know the shoe shine boy and the ladies with their babies. Oh! Yes, yes, we remember. But let’s not talk about ‘channeling Steve McCurry’: the little lama with the index finger close to his lips, the girl with the blazing eyes and pink headscarf. And we laugh. For we remember the book and the “inspiration” for the photographs. But then we also remember the airport where we saw the book. So, she says, let’s not talk about the airport. The military men with steel in their eyes. We say almost in unison, this is no afternoon to talk about military men and airports! And there is silence. We remember but choose not to talk about the military, or the history and even those other photographs- black and white and chilling. For what can one add to all that has already been said?

Then he says remember the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Again there is silence. By now the rain like silver sheets is busy obliterating the beautiful watercolour that it had painted just a few minutes back. Cold, dark lines of grey on grey. We remember Siam Reap and the trees that are taking their time to shred apart, stone by stone, what was once the pride of the Khmer rule, unlike humans they lack both pride and perhaps also a heightened sense of purpose.

We might as well talk about the Foreign Correspondence Club and that lunch, which we know, even though we may not want to, we always do end up talking about. She says, hope the crab tasted good because everything else, to be honest, was unpalatable, But the mention of sea food has already transported us to the Russian market in Phnom Penh; the humidity and the overpowering smells. Unmindful of the rain she opens the windows. But we are already talking about Phnom Penh and of course, the Russian market.

However, we know that the discussion has been salvaged. For we shall talk about Mekong and Tonle Sap- the beautiful water bodies. The boat cruises, the Japanese tourists, the monks and the sunset, the butterflies and the children. Once we get to the children, Cambodia will overwhelm our hearts. And soon we shall run out of words. The children of Cambodia leave such an enduring impression.

So we did talk. It hasn’t rained in two days. The sky is an astonishing shade of blue behind puffed up white clouds.

I went to Goa

and this is what I did see;
Goa of the sea

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea
-e.e. cummings

Goa of the beaches

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.
-Rachel Carson.

And more beaches

where everyone has to be!

Goa of the sunsets

A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.
-Claude Debuss

Goa of the Churches

and their equally ancient companions, the beautiful rain trees.

Goa of the old houses

waiting to be torn down and rebuilt as grotesque multi-coloured, perhaps 'neo-Mediterranean' styled, high rise apartments.

Goa of the rivers and the green hills beyond

and a constant to and fro of barges carrying iron ore.

Goa of the Banyan tree

To study a banyan tree, you not only must know its main stem in its own soil, but you must trace the growth of its greatness in the further soil. Only then can you know the true nature of its vitality.
-Rabindranath Tagore
Interestingly, Tagore was comparing Indian civilization to the banyan tree. With every square foot of land being mined for money, I wonder how many banyan trees are being planted now. And what does that say about the 'vitality' of our civilization.

Goa of the birds

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.
-Robert Lynd

The other Paris

And so we begin our search. We are looking for the ‘other Paris’. Not the kind that Carol yearned for in the story called ‘The Other Paris’ by Mavis Gallant. Quite on the contrary we begin looking for Paris that is far removed from all its association with romance and literature and art. In fact, the Paris that exists after every layer of imagery bestowed by imagination, artistic or otherwise, is exfoliated.

For what does one do when one has swooned over Paris from atop the Eiffel tower, and Paris on a clear day as seen from Montmarte, and Paris as seen from a boat ride in the Seine, and Paris at night, and Paris that exists in the museums and the boutiques, and Paris of the cafes and churches, and Paris of the movies, and Paris that is every tourist’s fondest dream. Then one simply goes looking for the other Paris.

Sometimes one finds it in the patisserie next to Gare de l’Est, where it gets communicated through a mixture of mispronounced French words, scattered English and imaginative hand gestures. Or sitting in the corner bench opposite the tree laden with mysterious orange fruit, as the sparrows come and peck at our shoes while old men throw them crumbs. Or during breakfast in the rooftop garden among blooming lavender where the honey jars have to be shut tightly lest they attract bees. Or in the eyes of the woman who sings as the train rushes past decaying tenements into the heart of Paris. And in the dragging feet of the little boy whose mother pulls him away even as his eyes are transfixed by the photographs from Antarctica exhibited on the outer walls of Jardin du Luxembourgh. And most poetically expressed by the man who sits with his back to the Eiffel tower as the lights come on.

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird

“I dreamt up of bears so vividly that I woke up with a furry death-hug at my throat, but feeling quite refreshed.”

If ever you want a travel companion or simply someone to sit with and talk about strange far away places then there will be few as highly recommended as Miss Bird. Even the Spectator admitted in 1879, “There never was anybody who had adventures, as well as Miss Bird.” And what adventures they were!

In her solo journey from San Francisco to the Rocky Mountains, Miss Bird details, in her letters to her younger sister, her passage through isolated wilderness teeming with wildlife, pioneer settlers and newly fledging small towns. Her words bring alive a “truly grand” land with some of the most spectacular vistas; “velvety colouring in crimson and violet; such an orange, green, and vermilion sky; such scarlet and emerald clouds…For colour, the Rocky Mountains beat all I have seen!”

But the objective and astute observer that she is, Miss Bird notes the diminishing number of wild bison, land swindles, politicians buying votes, the fact that, ‘Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining destroys and devastates; turning the earth inside out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing’ and that, ‘An American is nationally assumptive, an Englishman personally so.’

The benefit of hindsight makes some passages seem prophetic:

‘The Americans will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian is extinct.’

‘The "almighty dollar" is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. "Smartness" is the quality thought most of… Smartness is but the initial stage of swindling, and the clever swindler who evades or defies the weak and often corruptly administered laws of the States excites unmeasured admiration among the masses.¹’

“Americans specially love superlatives. The phrases "biggest in the world," "finest in the world," are on all lips.”

It is due to her boundless energy, courage and a dash of daring that she survives getting lost in the snow, learns the art of "being agreeable" to the Chalmers family, gets by even as her ink freezes in sub zero temperatures and even prevails over Mountain Jim, her “dear desperado”. In a journey of nearly a thousand miles in high altitude on horseback, often spending the night in less than comfortable quarters, her rare complaint is that she, in keeping with her station as a lady, has to ride sidesaddle when in town. Or that people may find her “Hawaiian riding dress*” non-feminine.

However Miss Bird’s writing wouldn’t be half as lively if she hadn’t had such an eventful and exciting life, especially when viewed from the distance that nearly two centuries bring. At the age of twenty-three years Miss Bird set off from the shores of Victorian England on a voyage to America and the first taste of freedom. She wasn’t one of the pilgrims. Her journey was a prescription for “nervous debility”, a condition marked by low spirits, depression, insomnia and back pain; common among women of intelligence and high spirits restrained by the iron clamp of docility and convention. Not surprisingly on her subsequent return the symptoms resurfaced.

It was only in 1872 at the age of forty when she sailed to the Antipodes that the sickly clergyman’s daughter got transformed into an intrepid traveler miraculously cured of all nagging ailments. She became the second known white women to scale the Muana Loa, the world’s largest volcano. And traveled to Australia, India, Tibet, Japan, China, Korea, Persia, Kurdistan, Turkey and Baghdad; traveling with the Berbers when she was nearly 70. And wrote some of the greatest travel books ever. And became the first women to enter the Royal Geographical Society. But most importantly she took the circumstances that life sent her way and, being the lady that she was, “found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh.”

*pictured on the cover of the book. In the second edition of the book she added a note and a rough sketch of the costume "in consequence of an erroneous statement in the Times" that had said, "She donned masculine habiliments for greater convenience."

All quoted text in italics is from the book.

(Afterthoughts on books: part 13)

Kindness of strangers

All that remains is two glasses on a vacant table. One half full and the other empty. And the echo of parting words, “Enjoy the best years of your life.” They are gone. Poof. They almost vanish in thin air and you wonder did it really happen, where they even there. And then you see the two glasses on the vacant table. By and by the entire interaction, even the minutest gestures walk in to firmly establish their place among the memories of people you meet for a few minutes in some obscure corner of the world never to forget again.

They travel in the bus with you. Or occupy the seat next to yours in the airplane. And sometimes they are just people whose conversation you eavesdrop upon as the train whistles past vast blue skies filled with fat cotton ball like clouds while the hay bales roll by. They could be talking about the trenches of the first world war revisited and the horrors relived while the border collie travelling along struggles to get up onto the girl’s lap to press his nose against the window pane. Or they could be debating the finer points of theoretical physics in a village pub only to pause for the young waitress to serve them their pints. And sometimes you meet them as you struggle for breath at the end of a long trek to the top. With a smile, a laugh and a nod they admit you into the communal experience of shared emotions and exhilaration.

So you stare at the two glasses, one half full and the other empty and recollect a man amused by his struggles with his memory and a woman joking about warmer climes and appreciate a life fulfilled. The culmination of all tribulations and happiness. That elusive secret passed onto two complete strangers who wait for dinner to be served. Invoking a blessing. May they enjoy the best years of their life.

This random kindness of strangers and moments of bliss shared with people unknown. This sudden uplifting of spirits and the calm light that enters the eyes. Hope makes an elegant entrance and chooses to grace us with its presence, even if it is only for a while.

Forgetting to start again

(All Photograph by Anvita Lakhera.)
On an impulse we get off the bus at some village that we can’t even recollect the name of just because as the bus had twisted and turned its way up the mountains we had chanced upon that pond half obscured by trees with a duck house and the proud homeowner swimming blissfully close by. 20 Villa Duck 08 said the inscription below its roof. So naturally we stopped for a while and admired the housekeeping skills of the Mallard before continuing our hike back to Grindelwald.

Only to meet the Kleine Freuden Baume (Small Pleasure Trees) waving their multi-hued branches in the soft mountain breeze as the flutter of paper birds and gentle rattle of painted tin cans contemplated what a small pleasure really looks like. At least when seen from the eyes of young school children and aimlessly wandering travelers.

As life and light started to pack up for the day we sat at our hotel porch looking up to the overwhelming North face of the Eiger till it seemed to move inch by inch closer to us when our eyes caught the diminutive (in comparison) range at its right side, at least from where we looked. Quite appropriately countless seasons of snow and rain had carved into the thick, dark rock Winnie the Pooh with his nose tilted up seemingly mesmerized by the play of cloud and wind against the blue sky but more likely to be sniffing in search of honey. Watching him watch the sky we were almost certain at any moment he would ask, “Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”

Around forty eight hours after spying Winnie the Pooh in the Swiss Alps we find ourselves in a Lebanese eatery in South Kensington surrounded by facile comments about the world economy, white wine and the Indian Navy budget while the lady who loves to dance, blissfully but unsuccessfully, matches the belly dancer step for step.

The distance between simplistic and simplicity is probably more daunting to ascend than soloing the Eiger North face in 2 hours, 47 minutes and 33 seconds.

We stop to think but prefer to forget to start again.

The Inevitable

Once again you find yourself inside a plane and looking out of the window you watch clouds floating over an undistinguished brown and green landscape. You could be anywhere. But you are here. Inside this plane. The man seated beside you is sleeping. Oh! You know him. In fact, you are travelling together. And it has been a long, strange trip.

The yellow pencil in your hand taps the open page. Annoyed by the sound you close the dairy and catch the small print. Wood-free. Recycled. Handmade paper. How pretty the golden zari border next to the binding looks. It reminds you of your mother’s maroon sari with a gold border that you wore to the “Hostel Night”. How pretty we all were then and how naive! But that was long before we’d search for each other on Facebook and send friend requests and then promptly ignore each other after the mandatory, “You look just the same.” A chorus begins to chime these words in a not too melodious manner.

And then the lights are turned off. Damn these forced bedtimes on airplanes! But your fellow companion doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he hasn’t noticed a thing. Blissful are the ignorant or is it ignorance is bliss? And so another day crawls towards the inevitable just like everything else around you.

Defying the stern announcement you push up the window blind and watch twilight gather the dying rays of the sun. And for a brief moment the window is illuminated gold. Could this be the moment? Could this be the day when luck changes? Pushing down the window blind you sigh. Maybe that too is inevitable.

In Vienna

As we walked towards Michaelerplatz on a European summer evening when the days seem truly blessed and radiate with the resultant warmth and glow, the sounds of the cello wafting from a dimly lit third floor room of an old building gave us company. And we imagined enormous crystal chandeliers, faded red velvet and the smell of antiquity encompassing it all. We were still a few minutes away from the appreciative audience of mixed nationalities applauding the Chinese girl on her tiny piano, perched in the middle of the street close to a Dolce Gabbana outlet, paying homage to Mozart while young men and women in powdered white wigs and ruffled white shirts tried to entice us to attend a performance of The Marriage of the Figaro or Don Giovanni. Or so we believed for our knowledge of Mozart and opera begins and ends with these few words.

But that was still a little way off because we chanced upon a bookshop. The tiny bells jingling as we pushed open the door announced our entry to witness the closing seconds of a farewell scene. A man was putting on his coat and then he picked up his hat and brown leather suitcase and kissed the lady goodbye with the words, ‘I’ll be back the next time I am in Vienna’. Embarrassed at interrupting an intimate moment between friends we began looking at books but much to our disappointment they were all in German. So we picked up a couple of Moleskines and quickly paying for them exited from the same door as we had entered.

As I opened my diary a postcard fell off. Inscribed on it were the words SCHREIBEN followed by a poem in German and a name signed below: Emily Dickinson.

I looked at you as we stood on the roadside surrounded by the fragrance of freshly baked apple strudels and coffee and horses and recollected every moment since you handed me a little volume of Emily’s poems just before those terrible exams, with a ditty about Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim and life, ending with the words ‘she’s so you’. And then once again the cello started a new solo and we walked on to meet up with the cheering, applauding crowd. Imagining why people always want to come to die in Vienna.

Last light

(All Photograph by Anvita Lakhera.)

If this is "fading"
Oh let me immediately "fade"!
If this is "dying"
Bury me, in such a shroud of red!
If this is "sleep"
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
Good Evening, gentle Fellow men!
Peacock presumes to die!
(Emily Dickinson)

On laughter

The toddler in the seat ahead of mine in the airplane laughs with pure joy. The sound possesses a rhythm and a flow and a memory. I recall neither Proust nor Kundera but that forgotten moment when laughter– abandoned and uninhibited– bound us together in an amorphous construct called family even as it set us all free. At least in that moment we were.

I scribble these words hastily while the pilot mumbles about altitude and speed or maybe he’s raising a toast to this and other such flights. But my mind is not quite focused on his words because I am distracted once again by laughter of two women in the row diagonally behind me. A quick turn in their direction furnishes the following details: female, around fifty, probably English, a little tipsy, going back home from an all women trek around Annapurna. The last bit I glean from the emblem on their T-shirts. But one cannot trust these conclusions I make for I am no good at such deductions and am often off the mark as far as age, height, and nationality are concerned. It is gender that I generally get right.

But there is still a good 7 hours to go and I try to obliterate all thoughts of the present and of the recent past from my mind. Of the long gone past I hardly have any concrete memories. And before I can complete that thought there is more laughter from diagonally across followed by more giggles from the front.

After 8 hours enclosed in a narrow steel tube, I gladly escape, and not a moment too soon from the manacles of laughter. Suffocating and all consuming.

For Spiderboy, stay happy and stay safe

We often talk about Cambodia. For undoubtedly there must be no person dead or living who has been to Cambodia and then never thought about it again. Cambodia is always there somewhere. Possibly stored and neatly catalogued in some recess of your memory. And then on one grey, melting winter afternoon as you sit with a cup of coffee and look out of the window it resurfaces unannounced. And a small little voice starts to sing, “Lady, lady 3 for 1 dollar.” Thus scattering the catalogue, throwing all neatness off course. Leaving you with a rush of memories that your brain tries to unsuccessfully restore to some semblance of order. And with a shake of your head you wonder how do you deal with Cambodia.

How does one gather all these strands wandering off into numerous directions and reconstruct the web of experiences that is Cambodia. When all the while your mind replays the voice and it’s hypnotic refrain of something, something, something one dollar. And all you want to do is sit in some small restaurant under a gigantic banyan tree with the voice and listen to it going on and on till we are all transported to that safe place which exists only in our childhoods somewhere between before the light is turned off and the prince and princess lived happily ever after.

Thus you move onto other things and other memories but the unresolved question about Cambodia gently nudges you. And you promise to one day gather all the threads and weave together a befitting portrait. But until then you let this little voice of innocence predominate the narrative as it chants on and on that every childhood should be safe and all its memories sweet.

Of empty handed homecomings

(For more photos click here)

Sometimes traveling is not about the things you bring back but what you leave behind. The flaming red rhododendron that fell from my hand on a slope near Cloud End. The look in your eyes as we were treated to an October sky pierced with a million stars while the bus rushed down the mountain on its way from Nainital to Delhi. The scarecrow dressed in red and white beckoning us from the lush greenery of Goa and its twin we were to meet some years later in Mukteshwar.

The twinkling fairy lights as the sun went down on an almost magical evening at St Paul da Vence. The old couple carved in wood smiling in a corner of a bar in Dusseldorf, where we drank to the sounds of an off key 'Knocking on Heaven’s Door'. That one dilapidated and nondescript tombstone among the millions in Zentralfriedhof where we stopped to have our little argument. The imagined smell of freshly brewed coffee and warm croissants while we walked along the Seine on a rainy November morning laughing and loving every bone-chilling second of it. The sounds of the cello from a dimly lit apartment in Vienna too real to even contemplate carrying it away with us.

And then we arrived in Venice. Here we discarded our sense of purpose, our fatigue and our helplessness while we watched a bleeding city held captive in the unblinking gaze of the television cameras for nearly 3 days and nights. Appropriately we left behind the first virgin snows caressing the slopes of some unknown mountain peaks as our train hurried away from it all into another long, dark tunnel.

And finally under David’s defiant gaze we immersed in the placid waters of the Arno our admiration, our aspiration, our inspiration, our creativity, our pride, our ego and spent the remaining week of our Roman holiday running after cats and chasing starlings. Thus suitably empty handed we returned home.

In all the places that we have passed by or stayed for a while fragments of our being lie torn, tossed and forgotten. Never to be found again. With every homecoming the baggage sits a little more lightly on our shoulders. And this one consideration makes traveling worth all the effort.