Flitting To Foreign (Shores)

“You don’t need magic to disappear, just a destination”, what an interesting observation! But what about the more hapless of us who wish that they could disappear when they reach the destination? Welcome to the world of this traveler’s travails which can degenerate into wails in the blink of an eye.
I think I must have a bit of nomadic blood in me for I love to travel. Planes, trains and automobiles, I have done them all. Ranging from rickety old cars, even ricketier old buses, trains which rattled every one of the two hundred and six bones in my body and airplanes which looked like they might drop out of the sky. Nothing much can faze me when it comes to solo travel, having undertaken many a wacky and wonderful journey by myself, ranging from the renowned US of A to the relatively obscure but supremely peaceful town of Ghataprabha.

With the ever- changing wheel of time, ‘tourism’ is now the hot new word in the lexicon. Roads developed, low- cost airlines soared high carrying the minds, bodies and dreams of a large section of the population with them, everyone and their aunt became either a ‘hotelier’ or a ‘restaurateur’ at the very least and tourists from foreign shores have started flocking to even relatively obscure Indian destinations in droves. The converse is also true. Indians proved to the world that they were determined to ‘go global’ in the truest sense of the word.
Indians now flock to foreign shores en masse, backpacks and bacchas in tow, families and food finding their place in the sun. And this is where the intrepid traveler, (read me of course) began to experience unprecedented travails. Planning a desi trip though tedious, at least offered the comfort of the familiar and if I did not dare voice my dissent in having to endure a bumpy car ride with the FM radio wailing in the background and a relatives’ relatively scary haunted house in the Konkan awaiting to greet us in the dead of the night for the umpteenth time did not mean that I did not chafe and gnash my teeth in secret about it.

Many Machiavellian manoeuvres later, I had convinced the family about the benefits of visiting foreign shores, the first of which of course was that they would not have to commit me to a mental asylum and visit me every week, my mind unhinged from lack of a change in scene. Add to this the fact that following this week of unabashed lazing, I would be a relatively docile and hardworking (haha!) creature for the rest of the year and they were sold. Mentally patting myself on the back for my sharp skills in salesmanship, I went so far as to consider a career in marketing, when it suddenly dawned on me that the entire onus of pulling this caper off rested on my rather fragile shoulders!

I knew something was amiss when I began checking famous travel websites for inspiration. I was bedazzled by the sight of lonely beaches, lofty snow- covered peaks, quaint streets, smiling families and the like. If anyone is laboring under the misconception of thinking that these sights materialize out of thin air, you better give up now, especially when saddled with a spouse who thinks that sharing his schedule in advance is akin to giving away state secrets. Prising from him the exact dates of his vacation made stealing secrets from the Prime Minister’s office seem like child’s play while my constant nagging had the effect of him donning his ‘don’t-you -have -anything-better-to-do-I am-busy’ look on a near permanent basis. But, with the persistence of a leech, I managed the feat even as he slumped in defeat.

Little did I realize that my nightmares had just begun. On my rather timidly breaking the news that we would have to visit various consulates in search of visas brought about the kind of Satyagraha which even the Mahatma would have been proud of. Ergo, I began to do it with the air of Savitri, determined to follow Yama to the end of the world in search of her husband’s life! When the visas finally deigned to arrive, it was a hard -won battle but I was still miles away from winning the war. My life was taken over by lists, of airplane tickets and food, clothes and medicines, of foreign currency and multiway chargers. You name it and I had a list for it. If I had had a mere hint that planning a holiday was such hard work, I would have put my rather fertile imagination to good use, planned a staycation and bought myself a sparkling diamond necklace with the money saved (in my dreams of course).

Ah! When realization set in (rather late), nothing could be done and it was a mere case of setting off, nodding my head to the ditty of ‘yes Sir, yes Sir, three bags full!’ And thus, I traipsed through quite a few countries, spouse, offspring and venerable ones in tow, many a times wishing that I was safely at home instead! Adventure upon misadventure followed me across the world of holidays bringing me to the conclusion that I was prone to inexplicably madcap capers no matter where I went to escape them.
If it was not the offspring binge-watching in- flight entertainment and nearly giving herself conjunctivitis on the way to an island paradise, it was the spouse and myself slipping on ice in a snowy haven and nearly giving ourselves broken bones. There was the food saga in a famous island city, where the South Indian Thali ordered by the spouse made us consume enough rice (to prevent food wastage) to feed the denizens of a small African nation and then put us off rice for the next few months. A bright sunny sky in a quaint European town made the spouse leave his jacket behind with a supercilious air despite my voicing my misgivings (when will they grow up and listen?) and then found him ducking into dark and draughty cathedrals in vain efforts to keep warm. Our adventures also found us getting totally lost in an even quainter town and wandering around with rather fast beating hearts and dry mouths until we were able to hop aboard a friendly bus which bore us back to our destination, slightly older, but unfortunately not much wiser for we promptly repeated the feat on our next holiday, the low wailing of the offspring providing background music!

Given my true Indian penchant for all things thrifty, I have often committed the serious mistake of hiring apartments in foreign lands with the delicious dream of setting up a cozy ‘home away from home’ without thinking things through in my usual headlong rush. Well, the home away from home bit has worked wonderfully, with me womanfully manning the stove and the dish washer and the provisions a task which I could have performed perfectly well in my own kitchen without having to put myself through three thousand kilometers of travel in airplane seats which seem to get progressively narrower the wider I grow! The spouse and the offspring of course revel in setting courses diametrically opposite to each other whether it is the food to be eaten or the sights to be seen and I am invariably left wondering whether I signed on for a holiday or for the UN peace keeping force in let’s say war torn Syria!

This wanderlust has had its more than fair share of near disasters, mainly involving the offspring and me, bitten as we are with the adventure bug, while the poor hardworking spouse prefers to snooze in peace leaving us to our madcap ventures with a sad shake of his head and a lugubrious look. “While you were sleeping” has taken on a whole new meaning with the offspring and me setting off in the wrong direction on an adventure trail in an island resort, freezing our noses off in Alpine subzero temperatures with only our scarves and a flimsy umbrella to keep us warm, getting lost in narrow cobbled streets in search of summer palaces and souvenirs and almost meeting a black bear face to face a la Goldilocks while wandering aimlessly down what looked like a wooded path but was in reality a forest trail on a secluded coffee estate near the equator.

I like to think that we have created memories. Enough to last us through the current times. Now that we haven’t travelled for a couple of years, they seem all the more precious and have borne home the fact that we have led a privileged life as far as travelling is concerned. Travails notwithstanding, I am ready to dust off my well-worn shoes and hit the road once again, for someone once rightly pointed out, “Travelling in the company of those we love is a home in motion!”