Tag: Travel

  • Traveling – in & out

    I borrowed the title of the post from a book I really loved – for exploring what travel could mean. Inward or outward, both of which I have experienced quite a bit this year.

    One step back. For the last few years, we have been taking two international vacations a year. That just fits our annual travel budget, and the leave calendar at work. But who doesn’t like to take vacays more frequently? So this year, we stretched to fit an additional vacation within India – to Mussoorie. This also came from a feeling that we were being unintentionally snooty by ignoring our own backyard these days. 🙂 (more…)

  • Home Outgrown

    On our way to the airport, for what would be one of our shortest trips to Kerala, I told D that I didn’t see myself making this journey a decade from now. At least not framed in the way we do it these days – a trip home. I was wrong – it happened way sooner than a decade.

    It wasn’t a comment made lightly – after all, to borrow a phrase, I was referring to a city which had all the places that made up a couple of decades of my life.

    What does one go home for? The obvious answer is easy – to spend time with people who matter in one’s life. To note – even that changes during one’s lifetime. But if I have to dig a bit deeper, Rana Dasgupta’s words make sense – when one becomes homesick, it is not a place that one seeks, but oneself, back in time. And when one does that, the props matter. The places, the faces, all reminders of different phases. When they no longer exist, the place is no longer a cure for homesickness. (more…)

  • Project Happiness

    Our “big” annual vacation typically happens around May-June. But at least six months of preparation precedes it, and my levels of preparation (which D has now been almost coerced into) might be considered way too orchestrated for practical purposes. My defense is that in all probability, this would be the only time we visit the place, so I’d like to make it as hassle-free as possible. Also, the fear of missing out.

    As a species, we are uniquely capable of projecting our future in our own minds. My plan is supposed to make us happy. The expectations are already set. And that means that things can go wrong in many ways. For instance, things might not go as planned because of events outside of my control. Or we see other possibilities once we’re in a place but we’ve already committed to our plans in terms of time/money/emotions! (more…)

  • Kindred @ Kottayam

    The predictability of the biannual trips to Kerala has been on the wane the last couple of years. To the extent that this year we have made only one visit, and it does seem the count will stop there! This year, our more extensive plan, which involved a cousins’ get together, was reasonably wrecked by the announcement of a nationwide bandh on 2nd September. A few of us though, decided to have ourselves a hartal holiday, and thus D and I found ourselves in the world’s first solar powered airport on the first day of September. The pre-arranged cab would take us to Kottayam, with a pit stop to pick up a cousin and his wife.

    As we veered off NH 47 on to HMT Road, I realised I hadn’t been on this road in this millennium! NH 47 is apparently called NH 544 now, but I refuse, citing old age as an excuse! HMT stopped ticking earlier this year, I wonder how long the road will be a reminder – probably until local or national pride finds what they deem a worthy recipient. Meanwhile, the only landmark I could remember was at the beginning of the road – Food Craft Institute, which my mother used to visit for baking classes in the 80s. I looked around for the Toshiba Anand factory, remembering the replica of a giant Toshiba battery on a tower that could be seen from afar. Seems I was seeking a world that had been erased more than a decade ago. My last memory of the place was a staff quarters (I can’t be sure if it was KSEB or HMT itself) – we had relatives there and a kid, slightly older than me, had the only clockwork railway I had ever seen. Yes, it was a big deal in the 80s! I glanced around excitedly and then wearily, hoping for a few more tokens of the past, but the place had changed much, I really couldn’t remember anything more, and it was a painful reminder of how fickle, and out of one’s control memory is. After all, to quote Julian Barnes, “memory is what we thought we’d forgotten.” (more…)

  • The Great Railway Bazaar

    Paul Theroux 

    Across Europe and through Asia in the mid seventies! Now that’s what you call travel – time travel for the reader. The journey begins in London, and after a bleak journey on the Trans Siberian express, ends there as well. There are thirty trains in this amazing chronicle, and they are as much about the travel experiences as they are about the culture of the age and the milieu of the countries they pass through. There are some excellent quotes I could identify with too eg. One always begins to forget a place as soon as it’s left behind. At one point, he also begins a short story that I have read in his later works!

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