Of Writing and Travel and Travel Writing
The interest generated towards places that are on my “must travel to” (and possibly live at for a few months) list have been because of similar reasons, as well as because of how good the portrayal of said places has been in travelogues and other associated forms of literature, how much media coverage that place has received and to a reasonable extent, due to the nice way in which most televised travel programs have showcased these places.
Recommendations from trusted friends whose travel sensibilities match mine have also played a huge part in choosing where to go, depending on how much time is available at hand.
I have visited quite a few places on a whim, but there has been a reasonable degree of background research that has gone in to knowing what to do when I get to a particular place so that I have my bearings correct. In that sense, I haven’t yet tread the paths that a true blue itinerant would’ve already sprinted on.
In recent times, I have had strong tendencies to want to join the travel literature bandwagon, after reaching near-saturation levels while covering the rock and allied genres music scene in my three year (and counting) stint at RSJ. I’ve not had opportunities yet, but what I have figured out is that traveling and writing (and pardon me for stating the obvious) are both integral parts of wanting to achieve that goal.
While scanning travel literature of all sizes including what I can see in popular travel magazines, to content on travel website to reading books (that are sometimes tomes in disguise) about intrepid travelers who have had a chance to eloquently express in words the entire gamut of their numerous experiences, I have noticed a strong tendency for most to romanticize a place to make it more appealing.
The opinions of travel writers about a place and their outlook towards their experiences are what shapes their prose and makes them wax eloquent about a few locations and diss the other ones completely. I have learnt that it makes immense sense to take what has been written with a minimal amount of skepticism because the grand majestic buildings described might not be the way you imagined them to be, the cozy restaurant situated in a small cobbled by-lane might be too cozy for comfort with flies running all around and so on.
Taking someone’s worded opinions as being sacrosanct and trying to re-live their travel experiences would result in massive disappointments, especially if the author in question is a major fan boy of the place he has visited, for reasons that you would not necessarily subscribe to.
What I have managed to learn from all this is that there are a few good reasons to visit a certain place and those reasons will remain constant. A subset of those reasons would comprise what I have mentioned at the beginning of this piece.
However, your outlook and what you expect out of your travel would strongly differ from mine, or that of the travel writers’ and if this distinction in individual tastes is accounted for, then the appreciation that you have for those who write about where they go to and what they do when they get there might increase beyond you merely appreciating what good wordsmiths they seem to be.
A Weekend in Kasauli
The bright side to enduring Gurgaon weather, dust and traffic (aside from all the good times one can actually have here) is that the NCR is close to many weekend getaways and destinations. A plethora of backpacking opportunities present themselves and it would be a shame to let sloth and inertia take over and pass up on visiting all these places.
It was also time to head to the mountains, where the clean air and the breathtaking views overrode any possible discomfort endured in the process of reaching the destination.
“Are you a mountain person or a beach person?”, she asked, and I couldn’t help grinning from ear-to-ear when a question that I often posed was in turn redirected to me. The delight multiplied manifold when both our answers matched. I sometimes sit and wonder now whether this is a standard question that features in conversations between people getting to know each other.
What follows is a hand-picked set of experiences during my weekend trip. I prefer this approach to the chronological narrative version because the latter gives one the scope to ramble on much more.
One could observe the various holidaying stereotypes in the crowd – the newly wed couples, college sweethearts, nuclear families, extended families, mixed groups of guys and girls that eerily reminded one of a Desi version of FRIENDS, groups of guys checking out the girls in the aforementioned mixed groups and lastly, the odd sets of foreign travelers who would’ve no doubt been overwhelmed by the thought of what they had in store for the next five hours, as the little train chugged along through the beautiful mountains to reach Shimla.
I, on the other hand, had no intentions of being on a train filled with loud people. Were that the case, multiple Delhi Metro rail rides would’ve done the trick. One of the many advantages of solo travel is the ability to change track and not bother about group consensus at any point in time. I had to forsake the ticket that I had purchased on the toy train and decided instead to head to Kasauli via Dharampur.
As the weekend stretched past lazily in this beautiful town, I noticed how it was over-run by tourists as well during certain parts of the day. I shudder to think of how much more worse it would’ve been in Shimla.
It is also one of those places that is overrun by local tourists from Chandigarh, Ambala and other places in the plains that want to avoid Shimla to escape the other loud and boorish tourists from Delhi. As a result, getting accommodation was next to impossible. Most of the standard hotels were expensive, charging anything upward of INR 1500 per room per day.
I only had one night to spend there and I was ok roughing it up with cheap accommodation. Since the regular hotels were out of question, I went towards that part of town near the market which had guest house rooms available, and after much searching, was able to get a room for INR 400 at Shiv Guest House.
The room was spacious, but uninviting, which meant that I would sleep there because I had to and I could use the rest of my limited time in this place to go outside and explore. The room did have its own exit onto the cobbled road in front of it.
The room seemed more like a refurbished attic, but what was more fun was that the bathroom upstairs seemed like it was the attic to this room that I was staying at. The bathroom seemed to be constructed as an afterthought, after those precious moments of realization wherein they suddenly figured out that the something that was missing was actually the bathroom.
Roughly constructed uneven steps led up to an Indian-style lavatory, and since there was no water supply, water had to be carted all the way up to the bathroom. Talk about roughing it.
But yes, the mountains, the the crisp air, the greenery, the cobbled streets, the folks that would smile and nod if you did and the proximity of my guest house to the market all made it all worthwhile.
When I went in there, the outside table was occupied and I made myself comfortable at the second table. A short while later, some chap arrived and sat at the table I was at and pulled across a small curtain to cover his seating location. My view of the outside, however, wasn’t obstructed.
A few minutes later, he was joined by this pretty girl and both of them sat there, ordered chow mein and drank coke. The guy kept glancing outside and it seemed like he was a bit worried about people seeing both of them together.
Makes sense, after all, Kasauli has a population of not more than 7000 people and given how all these honour killings have been in the news now (despite having been around for ages), being clandestine about romantic affairs is always more sensible than to be out in the open among people with a conservative bent.
What was interesting was that the guy referred to the girl as ‘Aap’, the second person plural reference used as a form of respect, usually reserved for the elders or used in polite conversation with unfamiliar people.
I spent a lot of time walking around Kasauli, and the soles of my feet and those on my shoes bear ample evidence to validate that. Sigur Ros’ music seemed to be the best suited for the outdoor ambience and the fresh clean air that I was revelling in.
I eventually switched to a mix-mp3 playlist that was uploaded by Beatzo, and to my surprise, I discovered a few tracks on it that will henceforth constantly feature on my list of most preferred tracks to listen to.
It seemed apt that one of them was a Sigur Ros track. Some of the other stuff on it included ‘Summer’ by Joe Hisaishi, whose piano hook made me play the track about fifteen times and ‘The Real Folk Blues’ by Yoko Kanno, which despite being in Japanese and hence incomprehensible lyrically, had other redeeming qualities including a killer bass line that made listening to it just absolute magic. The entire mix-mp3 can be found here.
If you’re lucky, you just end up listening to the right stuff at the right time. This trip was all about that.
Rainbow Bridge
See you at the Rainbow Bridge.
Public Transport in Gurgaon
Two months into living in Gurgaon, I realize that the feeling of wanting to buy a car has progressively increased over time.
My travel to office and back is more or less taken care of thanks to office transport, but it is for the evenings or the weekends that the need for personal transport makes itself strongly felt.
When I lived in Bangalore, I had my faithful cycle and a two wheeler that ensured that I could go from point A to point B with minimal hassle, and despite the traffic, a little music and a lot of patience tided me through most situations.
Now, Gurgaon has no public transport to boast of, save for the cycle rickshaws that run from early in the morning until about 9 at night and while they’re still alright to get around certain parts of the place, they aren’t ideal if you have to go meet friends late in the evening and such.
The Delhi metro is all set to begin operations from sometime this week and run from Gurgaon to Saket in South Delhi on the yellow line and with a supposedly decent frequency, they should take care of any problems people have faced waiting for the green or red Delhi Transport Corporation buses on the side of the Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road.
With Gurgaon having the second highest per-capita income in the country, preceded only by Chandigarh, it is ironic that nobody has exploited the opportunity to provide transportation for that target segment that can afford to pay decently but hasn’t picked up a car for various reasons (mine being parsimony and sloth, combined with the fact that I haven’t driven a car in many years now).
The average rate for a radio call taxi is INR 15 per kilometer. If someone were to privately introduce metered transport and charge INR 12 per kilometer and a corresponding increase after 10 PM, they’d stand to possibly have a thriving business and also entice a part of the home-bodies that would otherwise get back home to the office on weekdays and read.
Unless there are steep administrative hurdles that need to be overcome, I don’t see why a public transport (albeit non mass-transit) system can’t be setup here and even if it is no more than a small percentage of the volume of transport available in Delhi, it would still benefit all parties concerned immensely.
American Gods and Minor Chords
I then decided to indulge in my current favourite pastime, spending time at a bookstore. Blossoms on Church Street, where I finally went to, has fond memories that will transcend space and time and somehow, each time I visit that place and walk around in the aisles, the soundtrack of my life’s movie ends up playing ‘in my life‘ by The Beatles.
It was there that I picked up two books by Neil Gaiman, ‘American Gods’ and ‘Anansi Boys’. These were my second and third Gaiman books, after having bought ‘StarDust’ previously, thanks to the fact that I’d seen the movie one rainy sunday evening on campus last year when I had lots to do, but no inclination to.
StarDust the movie, I confess, impressed me so much that I decided to buy the book. The book in turn impressed me so much that I decided to pick up whatever else the guy had written, and I am glad I did so.
I’d strongly recommend ‘American Gods’ for its strong link to mythology and pop-culture (both ancient and contemporary) and after getting more fundas about the Gods featured in the book through this page, I’m strongly inclined to give the book another read to get a better sense of the mythological characters the book portrays.
One of the most memorable lines in the book is, “He [Shadow, the lead character] felt a pang, like a minor chord being played inside him.”
For someone who knows what a minor chord is, the sentence is truly truly brilliant in its depiction of the feeling that one would go through when one feels a pang as described in the book.
I remember back in the day when my guitar teacher had just started me off on minor scales and chords, he’d mentioned that one of the easy ways to identify minor keys aside from the technical way in which they’re arranged is that most sad songs are composed in minor keys and said association between minor chords and melancholia has been etched in my mind forever.
Back to Gaiman, a few friends of mine have read Sandman and opined strongly that the series has changed their lives. I have the soft copy for the series of graphic novels, but old school me wants to read it in the hard copy. Anyone know where in the NCR would be a good place to pick it up? I’d have asked if I could borrow the books, but I don’t lend and so, I will not borrow either.
Notes About Nothing – The Gurgaon Chronicles Continued…
Back to regular programming.
Yomance: Yomance, a word I want to take credit for having invented, is new age short-term romance that a couple willingly gets into, knowing fully well that it will not / should not culminate in marriage. Its short term romance for the yo-generation. I am too old school for Yomance and I still feel like being head over heels in love with one person forever, the trials and tribulations that go with the search notwithstanding.
So the basic classification for relationships would have to be in the following order, just to give you a sense of where Yomances lie:
One night stand << Fling << Yomance << Long Term Relationship << Marriage
Delhi Airport Fundas: I like airports in general. I like train stations too. And airplanes and trains. I detest bus stands. That is beside the point.
The Delhi airport has had fond memories associated with it. On 23rd December 2009, I took a last minute flight from there to Hyderabad to attend my first job interview at B-school.
The flight cost me a bomb and I later realized that with a little more money, I could’ve made two (yes TWO) round trips to Singapore on Tiger Airways. Sadly Tiger Airways only operates from four South Indian airports and Chomland residents have no luck in this regard.
At the airport, I pleaded with all the airlines to give me a flight ticket to Hyderabad at the earliest possible and one ticket opened up on a Kingfisher flight at the last minute. I gave the ticket lady a big hug when she handed over my grossly expensive ticket and every time I end up at the departure lounge to head out of Delhi, I feel like dropping in and saying hi, except for that she’d have forgotten or felt that I was being creepy. Sometimes its nicer to let memories remain so.
Frantic phone calls to our placement department, to friends in Hyderabad and Delhi and elsewhere, shaving without soap / shaving cream / hot water at the airport after picking up a safety razor from some shady kirana store across the road and a random conversation with a guy who had Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea decals on his backpack (I told him he’d get beaten up in every major city in the UK) later, I was on the flight.
As I’d blogged before, I made it for the interview on time and did well, but the job went to a better candidate who rejected the offer, went onto win the Chairman’s award on campus for our batch and has since been elevated to levels of studness regular people like me can only dream of.
Weather Woes: I was in Bangalore, Mysore and Madras over the past fortnight, to attend two weddings and chill out in Mysore. The weather there is so beautiful and so pleasant that I am shocked at how I had taken what I had for granted. The complete absence of a miasma-like feeling that has stifled me up here in the NCR was extreme relief.
Mundu Madness: Wearing a is the best thing one can do in the sweltering heat of Madras. My friend’s wedding was being held during the time that the place was at its hottest and wearing boxers and a mundu with a belt tied strategically to avoid any potentially embarrassing incidents was the best decision. Ever. A certain Sangram Bhalla would no doubt strongly agree.
RSJ Fundaes: Its been more than three years since I’ve begun writing for RSJ and now, most saturdays when I am not traveling out of Delhi, which is most saturdays, I have time to get to the office here and sit and get some work done towards content for the magazine. The new initiatives for the year ahead as envisioned by RSJ are promising and will certainly do a lot for the music scene.
I had a few posts in mind, but they require a lot of time and a lot more contemplation for proper construction and presentation. In other news, I just read my last column post on RSJ only to realize that I’d made a mention of ‘Strategic Innovation Management’ in passing. I don’t remember writing this column because it was in between exams during my last few days on campus and I guess the content in the piece is a reflection of my state of mind then.
Notes About Nothing – The Gurgaon Chronicles
Anyway, the notes about nothing series continues to document my wonderfully mundane life up north.
Mobile Connection Woes: It is horribly tough to get a mobile phone connection here, unless one has proof of residence. As I had said on my previous facebook status, its thanks to these stupid stinky ass terrorist bitches that one has to undergo extensive address proof related problems and when the Airtel guy finally showed up at my place on saturday to verify my residential address, I was so overjoyed that I did not curse him for having interrupted me when I had just stepped out of the shower and was toweling myself dry.
Of Electronic Goods and EMIs: The other catch-22 level situation that I find myself in is with respect to furnishing the necessary local proof of residence in order to get the EMI schemes to purchase electronic goods (read superawesome flat screen TV and a 1.5 ton air conditioner). While the telephone connection operator idiots finally showed up and told me that I was who I claimed to be, these guys need additional proof and the fact that I am willing to make a down payment of 50% of the amount and furnish a letter from my firm’s HR department wasn’t enough to satisfy their stringent requirements necessary to make a sale.
I am sure a stupid MBA grad thought of this process in order to ‘streamline orders’ and ensure a strong reduction in write-offs that companies would otherwise have to resort to in case of errant customers. The fact that I would chase them down to make the monthly payment, thanks to my being the owner of a conscience that works overtime is unfortunately not something those retards are privy to.
This situation was what I experienced when I went to some electronics store. When I went to Big Bazaar to pick up a TV, the salesperson categorically informed me that unless I have stayed in the NCR for a year, I was not eligible to purchase items on an EMI scheme. I wanted to ask him if it was a rule that people can’t watch TV as initiation into living in Gurgaon, but he looked like a chap whose response to sarcasm would be physical because his that part of his brain allocated for coming up with witty responses died even before he was born.
Bacchus Worship Overdrive: On the other hand, the Haryanvi equivalent of a ‘wine store’ in Karnataka is referred to as a ‘Theka‘. A good friend of mine told me that you could die of not receiving medical attention due to drug stores being closed during certain times of the day, but that you would never ever ever ever ever be able to die of alcohol deprivation in Gurgaon. Alcohol is slightly more expensive here than in the booze stores in New Delhi, but is available round the clock sans any problems from the cops.
Friends and Acquaintances: While I am living alone and have no problems with extended periods of out-of-office solitude (read months), I’ve had a decent time here in terms of how many friends and acquaintances of mine are living in this part of the country. As more people from the ISB class of 2010 restart their professional lives to join the earlybirds like yours truly, the office complex where I work in could as well have its own ISB alumni chapter.
Power Situation: There have been times when I lived in Mysore and Bangalore when I would complain about how KPTCL (formerly KEB) was such an inefficient organization because of daily load-shedding for a couple of hours and would lament the absence of electricity in our living spaces. I am sorry for having done that. KPTCL, I love you. Please forgive me for all the times that I called your assistant executive engineer as a teenager, pestering him about how many minutes it would be before I could get to watch the rest of the cricket match.
The electricity situation in Gurgaon makes me realize what luxury I used to live in.
Having said all this, while I do maintain that most of my post has comprised of major cribbage, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t having some fun times in the heart of Hindi heartland! More to follow in the days ahead.
Stooping to New Lows
Winning this competition gave one of the participants considerable pride and props in the eyes of the other person. Think of it along the lines of a slow cycle race where the participants battle it out such that the last person to cross the finish line wins. Its not quite the most competitive of head-to-heads, but a reasonably entertaining one for both participants nonetheless.
Back in 2008, I had won the competition by telling my friend about the fact that sometimes I’d wake up late at night if I got real hungry, discover that I had absolutely no food to chomp on and then eat jam from a bottle thereafter. Heck, I even finished the jam bottle one night when the hunger pangs were particularly intense.
I did something to top that last night. I firmly believe that between the two of us, I will now be the all-time champion. I was flipping through channels on the TV in the temporary guest house accommodation provided to me in Gurgaon while waiting for sleep. While channel surfing, I saw this channel named “PTC Punjabi” and I sat and watched it for 30 minutes continuously.
There were some cheesy low production Punjabi music videos that didn’t make any sense, but I was so mind-numbed in the first place that I sat and saw it all anyway. I don’t think anyone can stoop to any lower than this, unless I am able to come up with newer stuff when I move into my own place that I have zeroed in on in a quaint little location about 2 km from my office.
Let’s see, only time will tell.
Additionally, I have more stuff to write about regarding my first visit to Gurgaon and living here, but that will happen once the initial settling has been dispensed with.
