Armchair Travel

Ralph Waldo Emerson said -

“Traveling is a fool's paradise... I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there besides me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”

I have recently been wondering why we travel for pleasure. Do we want to travel to escape from something (work, drudgery, boredom, monotony, etc)? If this were true, why do we start comparing everything during the trip with what we have at home? Why do we start looking for the same restaurants or things that we are familiar with at home? Why has traveling been always associated with romanticism? Is it just another 'grass is greener on the other side' phenomenon? Or is there really an innate desire to explore new places, the joy to lose oneself in newer locations, reenergise the mind and body, etc?

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." -Anatole France

Wandering, it must be clarified, is different from travel. Wandering on a 6-month long trip to Northern India without a solid travel plan was my dream trip when I was in India. I never got around to it. My father traveled alone for over a month to Northern and Eastern India during his college holidays in the late 60s. Just a return ticket from Delhi was all he had. So could go essentially anywhere, stay anywhere, not make plans for the next day, extend stay at Konark, skip Agra or anything he chose to. He went to some of the usual sightseeing places, some of the other local places that interested him then, hitched a ride to the next town, took a bus or a train or just walk if you felt like it! Those were also the days when you could find cheap and safe dharmachatras, youth hostels, etc. True places and retreats are meant to be explored on one's own. As Herman Melville rightly said,

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

But everyone who has traveled comes back with several gripes. Something did not go according to plan, or the trains weren't on time or the view at the end was not what was promised in the travel brochure or the way National Geographic showed it! We try to escape from work or the mundane sufferings that we put up with in our daily lives but encounter the exact same problems in the travel. You fall sick, or the food doesn't agree with you or the shower nozzle at the hotel is not to your liking or you start craving for home made food two days into your vacation. The same places that everyone goes to during long weekends, not finding parking, high airfares, etc all work in tandem to spoil the fun. The best place to go to unwind may be the park right behind your house or the hike on a nearby beach, but discovering something that suits you is difficult. So a typical travelogue usually includes several complaints, annoyances, fights and dissatisfaction leading to the conclusion - was the travel worth it in the first place? What puts off traveling? I am stymied by the most mundane activities that it entails—choosing dates, buying maps, checking air or rail fares, and packing a suitcase. These things lead to tensions, frustrations, etc. According to me, traveling should not have a fixed plan; instead it should instead be a journey into the unknown.

Perhaps, the only thing that can beat travel is  Armchair Travel!

Loss

I happened to read an interesting article in last Sunday's issue of the Los Angeles Times. It was by Pico Iyer on libraries titled 'Sanctuary amid the Stacks'. I am a huge fan of the US public library system and frequent the local libraries borrowing books as if there is no tomorrow. The Orange County Public Library system has 33 branches and allows you to borrow books from any of its branches for free. Even the Auburn Public Library had a really good collection I think I used to the fullest extent possible. Other public libraries I have frequented include the City Central Library (South End Circle, Bangalore) and the Indian Institute of World Culture in Bangalore. In the LATimes article, the author laments the demise of several public libraries here in America. He says:

Saving money by reducing library services is like trying to save a bleeding man by taking out his heart.
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But if the library disappears, then we're really in trouble. A library is much more than a collection of books; it is a sanctuary, a symbol and both a model for community and its encouragement. Even those who make their living by nonverbal means know, as Keith Richards once declared, that "when you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is the great equalizer."
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A library is not just a place where many have lost themselves (as it's hard to do in the increasing clamor of a bookstore); it's where countless souls — and surely a good percentage of students — slowly find themselves.

The only alternative to a public library is the personal library, a sanctuary to which you can retreat to on any day, irrespective of the time of day and not worry about a laptop or kindle to read the book wherever you want to. It has been my dream to build a personal library of books that can last a generation, books that you can read again and again and still learn something new every time you read them, books that can educate you, guide you and enlighten you.

Reading this article compounded the grief of my recent loss of over a hundred of my invaluable books, a loss which, according to me, can be equated to possibly very few other sorrows. I lost my entire collection of Kannada books that were shipped here. Aside from the monetary value, there were books that were close to my heart; among others a few Vedic/Upanishadic texts, works by Bhyrappa, Kuvempu and over a dozen works by DVG, a Sandhyavandane book given by a very very close relative during my upanayanam, an anthology of Kannada poems autographed by the author over 40 years ago! Moreover, I had spent several trips to India to get those books to the US hiding them between clothes to prevent my parents from looking at them, lest they force me to exchange them for saarina puDi (ಸಾರಿನ ಪುಡಿ), huLi puDi (ಹುಳಿ ಪುಡಿ), eatables, etc. Also, I lost 3 boxes of technical/miscellaneous books purchased in second hand bookstores, library sales, etc over a period of 5 years.

Life makes you start over again and again when you think you are getting somewhere.