Backpackers no longer travel to pursue spiritual awakening or picturesque landscapes only. Travelling today entails much deeper and significant purposes than that. ANANYA BORGOHAIN meets some eccentric travellers — across ages and countries — and shares the fascinating stories behind their journeys
“In the middle of the forest, there’s an unexpected clearing that can only be found by those who have gotten lost.” — Tomas Tranströmer
As I wait at the lounge of the Mumbai international airport to board my connecting flight to Delhi on my way back from Kerala, a young, lanky Colombian joins me and introduces himself as Juan Pablo. I couldn’t resist telling him that that’s the most stereotypical Colombian name one could imagine and he points out how India being a land of contradictions, stereotypes are a natural byproduct of misplaced judgements. Juan is in his early 20s, he is educated but not employed, and neither has he found any meaningful direction in his life that he wants to pursue. In order to break the monotony of life, he set out towards India, almost 16,000 km away from his home, after a terse exchange of words with his parents. He is on his way to Ajmer Sharif and then to Haridwar, to seek refuge in the confines of spiritual guidance, to find the answers that have evaded him. As his flight announcements are made, he jokes, “Going back to stereotypes, it is good to see a young Indian girl such as yourself travel alone, because stereotypically, you should have been married by now, noIJ”
Juan’s questions are difficult to escape. But with travel, they are easy to answer too. We travel in the quest for a turf that we feel is our own; to enhance the boundaries of our mind and heart beyond the presumable notions and established norms. We travel to find every shred of peace that otherwise dodges us in the cacophony of a world laden with ignorance and intolerance. We travel to explore the counties and countries that have coloured our imagination vividly through their folktales. We travel to fall in love and to nurse the broken heart; to marvel at the picturesque splendour, to read, write, or at times, to simply post photos on Instagram. We travel to strengthen bonds with friends as well as to talk to strangers and collect their stories, preserving them in a happy place that cocoons our intimate aspirations.
On my first solo tour to Kerala in 2013, besides the enthralling landscapes and riveting cultural fiesta that the State has to offer, I remember meeting Dr Chaya Ostrower from Tel-Aviv University, Israel. She was there for an international conference and was scheduled to speak about the kinds of laughter and sense of humour revolving around the Holocaust. Still a naïve student back then, joking about the Holocaust was beyond my capacity to imagine. Dr Ostrower then explained that humour was used as a defence mechanism during the Holocaust. The only way to survive the unbelievable and infinite agony that the victims were put through was to crack self-deprecating jokes at one another. It was during this trip that I learned about the social and political functions of humour and I continue to talk about them even at assignments when I am working on an idea that revolves around dark humour.
What I intend to underline is that travel serves myriad purposes for all. For some it’s just a luxurious but peripheral sense of experiencing scenic beauty. For some, it might be work, an obligation they have to professionally clear, while for others it might be something as clichéd as ‘finding oneself’ or to satiate their spiritual inclinations. But the concept of travel has today evolved into a more defining pursuit.
This year in January, on yet another solo tour, I met three such interesting women whose worldview have irretrievably reconfigured mine. lin Cheng was 21 and from Taiwan. She was a student of Spanish and wanted to travel all across India. What was remarkable about her was that she was totally on her own in a country whose languages she couldn’t speak, and that included English. We were putting up at the same hostel and shared the women’s dormitory. I remember seeing her wake up the earliest every morning (we were seven occupants in the dorm), freshen up, take out a map of the city, Google its famous spots and then take off to explore them. She was unfamiliar with words such as Facebook or WhatsApp and she could only speak monosyllables in English. It was an incredible experience to find someone with the fortitude to travel under such circumstances in India. I have not decided whether it was silly or bold on her part to take that risk but she sure reshaped the image of a traveller in my mind. Her chase was to overcome the fear of treading unexplored paths and confronting strangers. Through our gesticulation and scribbled notes, we managed to talk about how travel made her more confident and more aware of her surroundings. She said that it compelled her to have an active presence of mind and every day she turned less gullible. And she did it triumphantly, as she showed off her certificate and dupatta which she designed after a day-long block printing course in the town we were in.
One of my other dorm-mates was a Canadian, Kory, who had always been an avid traveller, mostly exploring the world with her partner. After their break-up, she travelled alone to Thailand to nurse her broken heart. At the airport, she met a priest who surprisingly figured something was disturbing her. Kory recalled, “My eyes might have welled up with tears because he approached me and enquired what was upsetting me. He held my hands and prayed to God that I find someone who holds me in high esteem. I think that was very overwhelming. I am not religious at all and I may have giggled at his prayers. But honestly, it felt reassuring to have a complete stranger tell you that everything will be alright. Travel has made me ponder and be more communicative with and trusting of others. It has taught me that while I have the right to be cynical, I also need to open my mind to prospects of being contradicted by experiences.
“Soon after this incident, I reached Nepal and that is where I met this guy, a fellow traveller and we bonded really well. We spent quality time together and felt a sense of belonging towards one another. He has moved on to explore Australia now and I might join him there after covering my India tour.”
Interestingly, one of the men in our hostel had taken a fancy to Kory too. He was from England and had endearingly volunteered to join her for the rest of her journey. When I left, she was in two minds about both men and I told her I will always wonder if she landed in Australia or England eventually! Another attribute I remember about her is that it was Kory who took me to the tiniest local stall that served delicious local beverages. I also remember giving up on my plate of spicy curry, which was apparently her favourite. “The spicier, the better,” said the white foreigner who I had assumed would otherwise develop rashes on having to eat anything remotely spicy.
Sue, our third roommate was a Caucasian entrepreneur from South Africa. She was 40, a keen photographer and travelled to keep herself busy. She would tour across the country, learn various arts and crafts, buy materials that are required in manufacturing those artefacts, go back to her village in South Africa where she taught the women whatever she learned to make during her travels. She takes travel as a mode to perpetuate women empowerment. It develops her business acumen and sanctions her community to fare better. Sue was also full of productive ideas. In fact, she gave me the idea to start a women’s website in India and said, “Next time we run into each other, you are telling me that you have your own women’s web portal, okayIJ”
We have fortunately reached a time when travel is seen positively, as a catalyst to reach a fruitful end. With the growing popularity of tourist hostels and travel cafes, modern travellers today are facilitated by multifarious agencies willing to aid their thirst to explore the unknown. Another helpful emergence of our time includes the travel clubs that organise national and international tours for keen travellers. To cite some examples, Delhi’s Kunzum Travel Café at Hauz Khas Village is a one of its kind coffee shop where travellers from all over can meet each other and discuss their ideas and pick each other’s brain on how to design itineraries. Or The WOW Club is exclusively for women where they design the trips meticulously.
At Kunzum’s Travel Mixer that happened recently at the India Habitat Centre, women came forward to discuss what travelling means to them. There were stories about two grandmothers — whose children have battled depression and alcoholism — in their sixties in Varanasi who run a home-stay for travellers from all nations and ages, all on their own. There was also a cancer survivor who went on a trek to the Everest Base Camp and is covering Siachen Glacier in August to celebrate Independence Day. Yet another traveller emphasised the essence of conservatism and eco-friendly tourism. She discouraged obliging children who beg for money/food and sought to promote organic products and local artefacts, citing the example of the tribes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Another young lady went on a trip as harsh and eccentric as one to Antarctica; while some quit their jobs to only travel, some others stressed that one does not have to necessarily leave working to plan trips. Along with the Indians, there was also the account of a foreigner who came to explore India for three weeks after a heartbreak but hasn’t left even after 10 years.
Similarly, I am sure we have all read about Katy Colins who was on the verge of an emotional collapse after being left at the altar by her longtime boyfriend. Colins quit her job, sold her house and booked a one-way ticket to Asia and at the end of her solo backpacking around India, Nepal and Thailand, she fetched herself a book deal about her journey.
In the same spirit, Tushar Agarwal and Sanjay Madan are two names that have set the highest standards for the Indian travellers. Tushar’s unique book, The Great Indian World Trip, which will be released today at 6 pm at the India International Centre, documents their unbelievable story of driving around the world in their own car. Over a period of 15 months, they drove 70,000 km across six continents and 50 countries!
This book is a gateway to stupefying stories of languages, practices, foods, challenges, beauty, people and much more. Along with Sanjay, he created a Guinness World Record in Australia, “drove from Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world in Argentina, to Dead Horse, the northern most point of Alaska.” But their travel account goes beyond merely driving, as they write about learning the tango dance in Argentina, eating a crocodile in Africa, and driving on the Death Road, the world’s most dangerous road (in Bolivia).
While Tushar has spent the last 10 years travelling to more than 70 countries, Sanjay has led numerous expeditions in Bhutan,Tibet and India. In the book, Tushar writes about driving on The Great Ocean Road, ranked as one of the most beautiful drives in the world as well as the world’s largest war memorial (WWI). The road was built by soldiers and the project was initiated to rehabilitate and employ soldiers who were survivors of wars. He also writes about running into Indians in these foreign lands, excited expatriates approaching them after seeing a Delhi car and inviting them over to their houses for refreshments and also equipping them with whatever they could for the rest of the journey. From spending time with an Indian priest in Chile to eating raw oysters to a stranger telling him something that he says will stay with him (“learn to make people happy”), Tushar has chronicled his adventures with great details, interesting anecdotes and in a very reader-friendly approach.
Their fascinating journey also led to the creation of The Great Indian World Trip, TlC’s travel show. Travelling with just one cameraman, the duo set off in their Toyota Fortuner from India Gate on September 22, 2013. From there, they reached Myanmar through Manipur. After covering Thailand and Singapore in Asia, they moved to Australia where they set a Guinness World Record for the longest trip taken by car (17,000 km). The trip also stretched to Africa, South America, North America and Europe. They ended the trip on November 11, 2014, in Turkey. What is enthralling about their journey is that they did not use a GPS, but only road maps and a compass to guide them!
Now co-founders of Adventures Overland, a company that specialises in driving experiences, Tushar fondly remembers his memorable experiences in the book — about the sheer kindness of strangers, hunger and financial crunch, or car breaking down in dangerous spaces.
A fact that they realised throughout the journey is that people are all the same. Their appearances may differ and they might speak different languages, but the human tendencies and responses are the same everywhere: “Smiles return smiles, love returns love, kindness returns kindness and happiness returns happiness.”
This reminds me of one of Reese Witherspoon’s films, Wild. Feet chafed in dirt and blood alike, arms stretched in both enthusiasm and over-exhaustion, all of us travel to break the monotony of life. And it is remarkable how backpacking, more so on India, has changed over the years. Far distanced from the Western civilisation, this exotica of myths and mysticism is no longer the hub of intoxicated lures (read smoking weed on the banks of the Ganges) or spiritual awakening (on the same river banks!), but serves a much deeper and significant purpose.
ananyapioneer@gmail.com