Wanderlust

In a globalised and digitised world, where tribals own Facebook accounts and resorts offer 'autherntic' village experience, how do you 'discover' a place where there might be nothing to be discovered?

- Anjuly Mathai

There is a scene in the book The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri in which the protagonist’s father, Ashoke, is sitting reading a book in a train compartment. The annoying man next to him starts a long spiel about all the places he’s been to. So Ashoke, absorbed in his book, says: “My grandfather always says that’s what books are for. To travel without moving an inch.” That was true of an age, when you imagined faraway places through descriptions in books and movies. Those days, travel probably was an indulgence rather than the imperative that it has become today. I remember, in my parents’ time, travelling for leisure was a novelty. The first time they went to the US, more than 20 years ago, preparations went on for months altogether. Upon their return, presents were distributed to every member of the extended family.

Today, when there is Airbnb and budget hotels, very few travellers stay with relatives. No one bothers with bringing back presents for the entire family as everything you get abroad is probably available at your local department store. Travel has undergone a sea-change. It is no longer the luxury that it once was. Airhostesses are no longer the exotic creatures they once were and no one really opens the foil on their plane meals like they’re seeing food for the first time in their lives. When I’d gone to Australia more than 15 years ago, I was asked whether I rode to school on an elephant. You’d have to be incredibly dumb to ask that question today.