On Tuesday evening (Feb 5), the tables got turned. Up on stage at the David Sassoon Library, discussing travel writing, were four people: Naresh Fernandes (editor of Time Out Mumbai) moderating, Sarayu Ahuja, Hartosh Bal and me.
Naresh got the wagon rolling with excerpts from various ancient travellers/writers, mainly focussing their keen eyes on the chiquitas. Then he asked the three of us to read bits of our writing, to give our audience a flavour.
About now, a scrawny kitten climbed the stairs leading to the stage, but stopped at the last step.
Sarayu read first, a bit from a book she wrote with Dom Moraes, about the travels of a British writer. Hartosh had earlier confessed to me that he was a product of my college, BITS Pilani, where he studied Mechanical Engineering. He was at Pilani a few years after I graduated. His reading was from a book in progress, about a journey around the Narmada river. Mine was a short piece about a tiny place that touched my heart, Cayce in Kentucky.Naresh asked us about our favourite travel writers — Pico Iyer got two mentions, including from me. He also asked about the charge that travel writers are not held to the same standards that others are, and they are prone to making broad generalizations about societies based on limited encounters of the fleeting kind. What did we think?
Well, it’s a fair charge, but speaking for myself it’s not one I spend too much energy caring about. I don’t mean that in any dismissive sense, because I certainly believe that I need to be careful with everything I write. When I write about my travels, it’s because a certain snapshot in time and space touched me. It’s my challenge to translate that snapshot into words that give my reader something to think about, chew on.
About now, two more kittens — not so scrawny this time — climbed the stairs, also stopping at the last one. The first kitty tumbled off and went wandering among the dozens of audience feet.
Speaking of which, there were several questions from the audience. How do travel writers get published, how do they know what’s worth noting down for future use and more. Over dinner three nights later, a friend who had been in the audience said she had wanted to ask about our worst travel experiences, but didn’t get a chance. Mine would have been the one that included a couple of sturdy cops thrashing a skinny teenager, I’ll leave it there. The last question that someone did ask was about our best travel experience. Mine was from a tiny picturesque town called Santrampur in Gujarat, I’ll leave it there too.
As I got off the stage, I noticed: no more kittens.
