Travel: Nothing Like Home...!

For a few years now, we have been celebrating a sort of  ‘Tourism Interlude’ in our personal life- ‘interlude’- unless the period culminates in our getting dissolved and dissipated  in the cultural cauldron that is the North East...there is that precedent, you know… महाराजांनी पिताम्बरास पर्यटना करिता शेगाव पासून दूर पाठवले आणि शेवटी त्याने कोन्डोली ला मठच उभारला!.... पांडुरंग......असुदे! We take up the cause the Warkaris towards the end, of course...

Today, simply stated, we propose to take a hard look at the underbelly of that graaanddd idea, blessed by al-Beruni, al-Vasco, ibn-batuta...of ibn batuta pehen ke juta nikal pada toofan me, thodi hawa naak me ghus gayi, thodi ghus gayi kaan me...!

Reverence and awe for Travel Phiolsophy...

We stumbled upon the ‘traffic sources’ feature on our Blogger Dashboard and it was a revelation to discover that many of the ‘reads’ of our pages stemmed from tourist literature. As one peels off the layers of the ‘traffic sources’, and branches off into other related sites, the hidden hand of the Capitalist Conspiracy becomes apparent in its splendorous dimensions, if that makes sense to you... For instance Wine Tourism or Vintourism, launched in India by the Saint of Baramati, who cannot be named in this blog for reasons of hygiene, aims at clearing up the inventories of red-wine that are decaying fast into acetic acid on account of faulty storage practices. The drive, which finds echo in the fawning features on Red Wine appearing in the Fourth Column, also lends a helping hand to Mumbai hotels carrying these precious hordes of acetic acid. God bless them...!

Whew...

To revert to the main topic- the endless procession of stuff about the ‘intellectual wholesomeness’ or somethinglikethat of ‘Travel’, which, we readily concede, has always inspired excellent literature.....and which by universal consent is treated as respectable, being a pretentious cousin of Ms. Anthropology and Ms. Sociology…

Many a wise line has been uttered on the subject of Travel, some of which have graced and added colour to our blog as well, to recall a few, the one by T.S.Eliot about rediscovering your own abode, another by Disraeli, “Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen..”

Travel quotations form a major body of Literature, and as Tourism threatens to become a greater money spinner, travel quotes get re-discovered, re-invented and re-tweeted. We observe talks about the all-round benefits conferred by travel getting more and more strident, the cacophony getting louder and louder as travel becomes more and more packaged and structured. The explosion of quotes about the salubriousness (salubriety should be crisper) , one feels,  arises from the human tendency of parsimony. One spends and expects a bang for the buck- BFTB for short. And then the hoo-haa about the ‘transformation’ it begets, ‘world peace’ (remember the beauty contest in Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock) empathy, and some other mysterious things travel allegedly brings about. This BFTB theory to us is the Common Sense of Travel and Tourism quotes.

So- we enter the portals of Google and embark on a cyber-journey of a different kind. We begin with the premise that every particle has an antai-particle, and ergo there must be body of Literature consisting of antai-tourism views, and as we tug at one string, a torrent of contrary quotes inundates us, the choicest being:

“As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.”

― David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

“I sat on a toilet watching the water run thinking what an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile effort to recapture the comforts you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t left home in the first place.”

― Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe

“As I see the world, there's one element that's even more corrosive than missionaries: tourists. It's not that I feel above them in any way, but that the very places they patronize are destroyed by their affection.”

― Tahir Shah, House of the Tiger King

“In any case, a little danger is a small price to pay for ridding a place.of.tourists.” (*)

― Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon's Mines

(*) fits Garo Hills like a glove.

Whewww...

Being a Shillongkar, the last two by Tahir Shah, khuda aapko salaamat rakhe... may God bless you, ring true in the North East situation. We draw the attention of the reader to the following passage from a previous post:

“Boss rightly says good that there are restrictions on outsiders buying property in the hill states, otherwise bahar ke saale.. is natural beauty ko bech khaayen..that is outsiders would sell all this natural beauty for a song..Amen!(http://indrayanikaathi.blogspot.in/2012/09/leave-us-alone.html)”

Our friends Dr. Sangma and Manikda may publicly disagree, but...jaane do, apun ka kya...Khublei shibun...all the best...Godspeed to the Tourism Bug, may it flourish..!

Travellers of Vitthal-  Pandhari che Warkari:

Till matters are settled as regards the benefits of Travel, we’d like to pay our obeisance to the Warkaris. They do pride to ‘Tourism’ though people tend to misclassify them into that obnoxious category “tirthyatri”.

Residing at Parel Village, Mumbai 400 012 in 2006, we booked a cab for Hari Hareshwar, intending to depart by 6.00 AM for our little holiday. The cab was nowhere in sight, and we were constrained to call the intermediary Digamber Kadam. Nahi nahi saheb, tumchich chuk asnaar, bagha ki jara khali jawun- warkari aahe saheb driver...you’d better be sure Sir, the driver is a Warkari...! The tribe whose public face is the Sigma 6 Dabbawalas of Mumbai! Warkaris of Lord Vitthal of Pandharpur, who faithfully undertake on foot every aashadhi ekadashi  the 250 km. journey from their remote abodes, nacheez proposes, are the real  substantial Travellers of our times...

In the angrezi section above, the idea and purpose of Travel- flows from  the Destination to the Traveller- while in case of the Warkaris, it originates from the Traveller, and flows to the Destination- Vitthal’s home. Who are the real Travellers, I sayyyy...!? According to the neat Travel Literature, the Mega Spenders, no? People on a 7 and half day Tour, who’d rather capture the sights on Handycams for posterity rather than enjoy the here and now...?

Just undertake a wari with the guys from Indrayanikaathi...the REAL Marathis, farmers who would rather swallow poison when their lenders were distressed, than cause losses of crores to Public Sector Banks- you know, Purti Group- promoted by that overweight featherweight from Nagpur... tondaat shen bharun haklawa lagla... punnha ugawala...

Warkaris are the real inheritors of Dynaneshwar  Mauli and Tukaram Maharaj...the Warkaris who care little for the ideology of our Marathi arm-chair intellectuals- the 2% middle classes who jalaoed ghee ka diyaas when a humble ‘protected’ monument was pulled down in presence of 88 aspiring PMs of our land! 

The 2% is more concerned with the hygiene issues inevitable with so many people congregating... that's what they pretend during the chaityabhumi festivities also...what better occasion could there be to test your PM's mobile-washroom theories I sayyy...seems we're selective about our amnesias too...

Our blog has boldly gone ahead, unbeknownst to humanity, renaming the faithful rhythm addressed by that ungainly and infelicitous term ‘theka’, as the ‘warkari’. Mince we’d rather say ‘warkari teen-taal’ than ‘teen-taal theka’.

TAILPIECE:

How do they do it- these Dabbawalas of Mumbai- sigma six of course allows only 3-4 wrong deliveries for a million deliveries. Digamber has a nice anecdote to relate:

This dabbawala friend was once faced with a perplexing situation- somebody spilled paint on some of their colour codes of two tiffin-boxes- ‘dabbas’. He was left holding two dabbas with identical looking codes as a result of the snafus. But he intelligently delivered the right dabba to the right owner- how..? “Mya ughdum bagitla, eka dabya mandi methi chi bhaji hoti ani mal thawuk hota ki Shevde sahebanchya dabbyat baryachda methi chi bhaji aste…- ani Phlumare sahebanchi baayko bahutek batatich deti ”-  I simply opened one dabba, and finding methi- chi- bhaji in one of them, concluded that it should belong to Shevde saheb, for I know it’s often there in his dabba, while Phulmare saheb’s wife usually serves him potatoes…!

              THE REAL MARATHIS: HER REAL SAVIOURS: I MEAN  - मराठी अस्मिता:

मराठी अस्मिता 

HISTORICAL TRUTHS

This  January end we  do a John Denver. Our destination on this journey is Indore M.P.,  for the periodic appointment with our dhanwantari and we lament the neglected looks of the roads and दरिद्री  looks of the spaces which are almost clad with discarded plastic carry-bags. Indore is a pathetic and poor city inhabited by  rich people because  of  the fondness, not just tendency, of the public to look the other way when bureaucrats and politicians pocket public funds meant for civic facilities. Agra Bombay Road cannot be widened on account of a temple, a masjid and a gurudwara coming in the way. Kyaaaa bhiyo...?

But all said and done, the Mother of all Homes, that is Mother’s Home is @ Indore and the gutsy lady is quite cheerful. Lot of furniture work got done by her. She’s 80. Missus asks us to delve into the piles of paper, says थोडं मंथन करा त्या कागदाचं ....परत तो घोटाळा नको , return ची कॉपी इंदोर  ला राहिली कि बंगलोर ला कि गुवाहाटी ला कि पुण्या ला , .... वगैरे वगैरे ..

We discover something startling, which we thought was lost treasure- a yellowing envelope from ‘Bennett Coleman and Company’ which yields tidings of a Rs. 1,000.00 (Rs. one thousand only) cheque ...and a 1999 newspaper cutting from the Sunday Chimes of India, an article written by Carl von ‘Bailiff under the pseudonym Sanjiv Bokil, God bless him- the context is a PIL filed in the SC by none other than Fali S. Nariman, a closet shair, just like YT, and bears  repetition:

THE TRAIL OF TWO TOMBS

It is heartening to note that the Supreme Court has turned its attentions to historical monuments like the mazaars of Mirza Ghalib and Zauq and one hopes their greatness will be resurrected form the dead. Godspeed to the SC. And here, hangs a tale.

It was about a decade back. My friend Najmi Haidri was visiting Delhi, our home-town. Alone at his hotel on a Sunday, he called me over the phone. Let’s go sight-seeing, but added, not the usual places. Since he happened to  be a history and shayari buff, my choice fell upon two sites unseen by me- the tombs of Razia and Mirza Ghalib. My companion being holed up at Hotel Ranjit,, Razia’s resting place was naturally the first port of call. In those winding lanes of Old Delhi, you would ride only a cycle-rickshaw, or  a bicycle or a two-wheeler. So armed with that giant map of Delhi published by the Surveyor General of India, astride my rickety blue Vijai Super, we left on what turned out to be a little voyage of discovery.

Our journey began opposite Hotel Ranjit, at Turkman Gate, one of the 14 gates to the old walled city and literally a gateway to History. The map showed a meandering road leading upto Empress Razia’s tomb. Reality, alas, it turned out, was vastly more complicated than that excellent map. Sitting on the pillion, Haidri had an issue with the map which was aflutter like a wayward dupatta. “Hum to janaab in cheezon se katraate hain”, I still remember the words so aptly chosen, “aap hamaari taaz poshi karen aur lagaam hamen thaamne dein....”. So the helmet was placed on his head, and the map fell in my lap. And “maps tell you everything except how to fold them back”, someone had said...

Our scooter sputtered along steep narrow lanes, filling them up with metallic decibels. We were quite a sight we suppose, two prim gentlemen, the one on the pillion, with head buried in the giant map. It was a hopeless mess, and even getting out of the tangle of lanes would demand a lot of direction. So we parked the scooter and started with pooch-taach. “isse aasan to jannat me unse milkar aana hota..” said Haidri...”wahan se waapsi ki koi tikat nahi hai huzoor” was the obvious reply.

With his chaste urdu my friend struck instant rapport with the public. There was no kabristan in the area, we were informed. And who was this Razia ? She was a historical figure we said. Razia Sultan and her mazaar did exist somewhere around here, at least according to this map. We were taken to a senior citizen who told us and our local guides that the place was behind bulbulkhana which was a stone's throw away.

I would advise Delhites to really go and see the place. It is a stark courtyard paved with grey stone. A blue Archaeological Survey of India board stands sentinel at the narrow entrance, followed by a short stone inscription. The rough hewn tomb stands forlornly though with an unknown companion, in the middle without even a tree for shade. She was on the wrong side of the ulema when she was killed, my friend explained. It was a tale in stone which spells despair.

How the past brushes shoulders with the present in those narrow lanes of the walled city! Children had drawn three wickets on the platform below the tomb and a regular cricket match was in progress, God bless Razia... Of course the children didn't know whose tomb it was or indeed, who was Razia Sultan. Hema Malini's film had not been made by then...

Our next destination was on the other side of the city. There was a wager between the two of us- how tough will be Quo Vadis?  The map was folded back into its original folds with great difficulty and put away, for after all we had simply to reach the dargah of Nizamuddin Aulia and anyone would show us the way to mazaar of the greatest of shairs or so we thought. But we, the bhardralok, it seems, live in a world apart. We parked our scooter at the entrance of the dargah but no one was able to tell us where the mazaar- which we were dead sure was only a minute away somewhere –lay. Of course everyone had heard of Ghalib, he had starred in a number of movies. His mazaar was at Agra one lad in skull cap informed us much to the chagrin of our shair. “shakl-o-surat se tum Muslim bachche dikhte ho, itna to urdu shayari ke baare mey maloom hona chahiye...!” he exclaimed. A few steps away, fortunately, we spied a board saying ‘Aiwan-e-Ghalib', and entered its precincts. The mazaar was beside the building, but was locked. By the ‘Government' we were told. Of course we were free to look over the gate and pay our respects.

My friend sadly surveyed the decrepit tomb and the dilapidated structure, vegetation appearing from every crevice. Fali S. Nariman had quoted the ‘huwe mar ke ham jo ruswa' couplet in the petition to the SC. The one uttered then by my pensive friend was just as apt, written by the great shair with foresight and characteristic impishness:

“Ugg raha hai dar-o-deewar pe sabza Ghalib, hum biyabaan me hain aur ghar mey bahar aayi hai!”

Greenery sprouts on the walls, on the doors Ghalib, we trudge in the wilderness and spring it is at home...!

(PS: 1999 vs. 2012: minor changes in style noted, foremost, sun sets over first person singular)