The Mind Traveller
India Today|April 10, 2017

“The seasons and the skies sing the same lesson, in perfect harmony: nothing is writ in stone.” - Pico Iyer.

Moeena Halim
The Mind Traveller

Picture Pico Iyer walking into a room full of people. There’s a billionaire, a Bollywood actress and a man shouting to himself in the corner. There’s a good chance Iyer would be drawn to “the mad guy”. “Because listening to him may not be comforting or pleasant, but it would certainly be fascinating,” says the 60-year-old novelist, best known for his travel writing and his most recent book The Art of Stillness: Adventures of Going Nowhere. Iyer uses his “mad guy” metaphor to explain his travel choices too. Each place has a character of its own; picking the right destination is the same as recognising who you’d like to spend your time with. It’s why Iyer has been choosing North Korea or Cuba over Bali and Hawaii in recent times and why he decided to visit the world’s poorest places 20 years ago. “I figured that whatever happened there (these destinations) would give me something different,” says Iyer.

This story is from the April 10, 2017 edition of India Today.

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This story is from the April 10, 2017 edition of India Today.

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