Category: Travel Article

Learn to trust the journey even when you don’t understand it
–Lolly Daskal

By the mid- eighties, I was a tweenager. Such things didn’t carry much weight back then as they do now, when children are the most opinionated people in the household. But things had changed. The first was the advent of television in the small towns, leading to the “Small town Girl” aspiring to bigger things, especially after ‘Looking Beyond’ with an irrepressible couple called Hugh and Coleen Gantzer who were the pioneers of travel shows on Doordarshan, the national and only available channel. Next came the revolution in how India travelled. The cars of the earlier era were heavy and tank-like. They roared along, churning enough dust and belching enough smoke to leave a hazy trail, much in the manner of the Death Eaters leaving the dark-mark in the wake of their nefarious activities. In addition, they, in the manner of politicians (guzzling moolah) through the ages, guzzled fuel like it was going out of style and were moody at the best of times, taking offence and overheating given the smallest chance. The only excuse you could perhaps make for them was that they initially started out as gentle, kindly machines, but the roads made them the monsters that they were, jolting and jerking them beyond recognition!

All this was set to change however, with the advent of the Maruti Suzuki, the common man’s car. This was no less than the Second Coming. The Japanese were here to change the way India traveled and they ushered in A(utomobile) Revolution which had far- reaching consequences. Bitten by the travel bug, thanks perhaps to my incessant whining on wanting to go on a PROPER holiday, my father jumped on the band wagon to become the proud owner of a Maruti Suzuki Omni in the late eighties and we began our tryst with a few states, instead of just two.

Dad now had his eyes on the distant horizon. Perhaps he had always seen himself as an adventurer, an explorer (he had undertaken a couple of distant and daring trips during his youth and had quite a few adventures including a session of eating whole chilies in Andhra Pradesh) and he decided that we were going to reprise the route. Now that he saw himself in the role of explorer- in-chief, Dad with the air of Christopher Columbus, out to scout new lands, put us to work. The trusty Omni was the Nina, the Maria and the Pinta all rolled into one, and better stocked with necessities than all of them put together.

Back then, most things had to be done the hard way. The road was indeed less travelled, a mystery which revealed itself only to those who ventured along it. The best one could come up with was the road map, which infuriatingly refused to be a tattle tale and gave up information grudgingly, if at all. Hotels, circuit houses, traveler’s bungalows, local sights, shopping et al were things to be discovered by serendipity. This was thanks to the fact that the only mouse we knew was the one we chased away with a stick and not one which revealed information at a click! Suffice to say that OYO was met with a resounding “AIYYO!” Prebooking involved lots of trunk calls and money orders and was a process so tedious that it made most give up the idea of travelling.

Since Google itself was a distant dream, Google maps was even more so. The only thing we knew about satellites were of course the moon, the maddening picture of Aryabhatta, the first artificial Indian satellite which we had to draw in school at random intervals and Indira Gandhi, the then PM talking to Rakesh Sharma on his maiden flight to outer space asking him “Aapko Bharat kaise dikh raha hai?” and his reply “Saare Jahan se accha!” (What was the poor fellow to say? Stop asking silly questions woman, I have no time for this while I am spinning like a top?). But I digress. The point to be conveyed here is with no satellites, there was no GPS, that guiding and guardian angel of the modern traveler. We traveled, singing “we three kings of Orient are” hoping that the star would appear over the horizon for us as it had done for the kings, guiding us safely to wherever we wanted to go! Crossing into another state was like crossing the heliopause, the sphere of your linguistic achievements no longer exerted its much- needed influence and with the air of Voyager 2 proceeding into deep space with a wistful backward glance, you proceeded into the deep unknown on your wheels and a prayer.

We could of course, always stop and ask for instructions, but the only common language we had with the locals was the sign language and it literally did not take us very far. Questions like “Where is the temple?” were answered by long tirades which could mean anything, much grunting and hand whirling or the one phrase we picked up in Kerala, “Nera Poekuka”, which means straight ahead, the length of the ‘ne’ syllable indicating the distance of said destination from where we happened to be. To add to our woes, the milestones and the signs were painted in the local script, which meant no amount of squinting at them gave you a single clue as to your whereabouts. Akin to Columbus, you could have set out for Kochi and found yourself in Kanchi or Karachi.

Under such circumstances, the car was much more than a mode of transport. It was a little slice of home which carried us to our destination. It was a tiny restaurant, a hardware cum clothing cum haberdasher store. It was the mother ship, a safe haven in the unlikeliest of circumstances and it was stocked likewise. Ask any Indian about the most important content in their baggage and apart from money, the answer will definitely be food. And so, the car was stocked with tins of food which could keep well for at least a week, theplas and masala pooris, mathris and chaklis, sev and namkeen, all found a place in the boot, topped off by a large jar of pickle. In addition, there were random odds and ends including a bucket, coils of string, soap, washing powder, screw drivers, a large hold all with bedding and the like, with our clothes stuffed in like an after- thought. A place of pride was reserved for the large trusty Eagle water cooler and the first thing we did at any halt was to top it up with ice if possible.

Our first and most memorable trip took us all the way along the west coast, beginning with where else? Goa of course! And ending at Kanyakumari. The only advantage of any road which called itself a national highway back then was that one could expect its surface to be covered by a thin veneer of tar and respectability and not shrapnel and susceptibility. Two cars if small enough could travel abreast in the up and down lanes, but if you chanced upon a larger vehicle, the smaller vehicle had to descend onto the shoulder (nothing but a fancy name given to the ditch by the side of the road from which one had to extricate oneself with a lot of scraping and grinding of gears and perhaps a punctured tire). Since this was the time of the old regime, plans for new roads remained what they should be, just plans by the planning commission. Why the unnecessary and unseemly haste seen these days? Life was slow and majestic and roads developed at glacial pace, if at all with said glaciers made of molasses for good measure.

When I try to recall that trip, memories flash in and out. The scenic drive, (since most of NH 17 hugs the west coast), fresh sea food, wonderful circuit houses which readily housed us, even though we had nothing to do with the government, majestic temples at Udupi, Guruvayur and Thrissur, Kalady, the birth place of Shankaracharya, the Padmanabhaswamy temple of Thiruvananthapuram (no, I did not get a chance to visit the famous vaults which remained firmly shut then, probably because people were busy leading their lives instead of meddling in affair which did not concern them) the musical pillars at Suchindram, capped by the famous rock memorial and the calm visage of the Goddess, eternally waiting at the cape.
It was not just a pilgrimage, a la Goa, and Raja Ravi Varma beckoned with his startling artistry as did the Chinese fishing nets of Kochi. Golden mounds of banana chips which had us hovering over them sniffing an all- pervading smell of fresh spices and coconut. Thekkady, with its tea gardens and the Periyar national park is memorable for a scrape with a few demanding monkeys (what is it with me and monkeys?) who did not see why they should not get equal shares in the packet of Bourbon biscuits which I (who they, rightly according to Dad and wrongly according to me, mistook to be close kin) happened to be devouring at the time, and an early morning boat ride which almost saw a rather well- proportioned woman take an unplanned morning dip in the Periyar lake after missing her footing.

There were mellow sunsets and waving palms (trees, not hands, what did you think?), a spectacular sunrise at the cape and miles of golden beaches, though Kovalam was awash with huge waves bent on wreaking mayhem, ambling elephants and backwaters, synagogues and science museums, coconuts and coir factories, kathakali dancers and karimeen and pepper and endless rice paddies. There was the warm hospitality of some family friends who lived in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Nagercoil. Above all, there were the ever- expanding horizons and the feeling that nothing was impossible.

An epic fourteen- hour drive from Calicut to Belgaum was the befitting conclusion to this trip which reminds me why Kerala is still called God’s own country, it was the first of many memorable holidays in a car named adventure, looking beyond and discovering a life beyond the mundane. It made me a life-time fan of road trips. Because sometimes the journey is a destination by itself….

With age comes wisdom, they say. I don’t think I am really qualified to comment on this, but I know that age definitely brings nostalgia. Of late, with travel reduced to a bare minimum, I have found myself getting increasingly maudlin about the journeys of life, especially the ones undertaken in the past when I could safely ensconce myself on a comfortable lap or wedge myself into the narrowest of crannies by the window of a vehicle, all set for a road trip. Whether or not India has made vast strides in the tourism department in recent times, travel in the past was fun in a way difficult to describe. Although the destinations were few, stretching to the homes of various relatives, the journey itself created precious memories which had a flavor all their own.

I grew up in an India which if known for tourism was a mere backpacker’s destination, with the Taj Mahal being the first name which sprang to the mind of at least the well-heeled Western traveler. Needless to say, the roads were narrow, winding and lonely and many of them existed only in the minds of the map-maker, having disintegrated into a pot-holed morass many a weary kilometer from their destination. The vehicles used for said journey were of course in a class of their own, and of such unprecedented vintage that the original designers themselves had forgotten whether they had had a finger in the dubious pie of their manufacture. The denizens you met on the road were weird and wonderful and surprising, ranging from bullock carts to pedestrians, dancers to caravans of donkeys and everything in between ambling at their own paces and to their own sweet time. Rules of the road were non- existent. No wonder, my cousins visiting from the USA, that land of rarified road safety rules called our trysts with the roads in India an ‘adventure’ instead of just a pedestrian ‘drive’! The number of breakdowns the cars suffered enroute, and the way we packed ourselves into them like so many sardines in a tin make me wonder as to how we managed to reach our destination at all, without leaving any vital part of ourselves or our baggage behind!

The earliest memorable childhood journeys then include several road trips to Goa, Sawantwadi, Vengurla and the like in our vintage Ford 1947 model, accompanied by sundry family friends with wailing little kids, relatives of all shapes and sizes with personalities and voices to match and what stands out the most in my memory, a strange Shikari Shambhu kind of character carrying a large gun. I think I had found the answer before the popular question of today ‘Kahan se aate hain ye log?’ was dreamt of!
While half the population of India now seems to descend on Goa like a swarm of locusts with the advent of Christmas and New Year, we descended (literally, since it was only a descent of a mountain away) whenever we felt like it or when familial occasion demanded. Our trips to Goa were strictly in the pursuit of spiritual succor (the state popular for golden beaches, golden tans and golden drinks houses the many golden temples of our family deities, so termed because they have golden cupolas. Not to be confused with THE golden temple of Amritsar) and thus my association with this tiny haven remains quite puritan. Much later, I attended an award ceremony for the better half in Goa, replete with wine and song. Old memories die hard and the first thing which sprang to my mind when I heard the choice of the venue, was “how on earth are they going to party in a temple?”

Added to this was the fact that half my family IS from Goa, all possessed of a remarkably religious bent of mind and thus even though I cudgel my brain, all that comes to mind is days spent in the dark, humongous sancta sanctora of temples, clad in silk clothes trying to quieten a tummy wailing in hunger while it awaited the completion of various rituals, living in the rather scary rooms of the agrashala (temple choultries) with their moody taps, moodier mattresses, teeming with bugs of all kinds or the Goan style houses of various aunts and uncles.

The latter packed their own punch by way of large hall-like rooms, odd shaped staircases, heavy doors and windows and strange bathrooms located quite a distance away from the house, the path to be traversed to get to them teeming with reptiles of all sizes and shapes. However, nothing could beat the feeling of bonhomie with which our entourages were enthusiastically greeted, whatever the time of the day or night and delicious meals of fresh fish and rice were served up in a jiffy, making me wonder at the skills which these domestic goddesses possessed given the fact that their kitchens were manned the old fashioned way with wood fired stoves, mortars and pestles made of stone and other quaint equipment which might make modern pretenders swoon with ecstasy but must have been a nightmare to use in real life. The banter and insults traded by the large extended family was our way of bonding, of staying in touch in the only way we knew, bereft as we were of artificial intelligence like Whatsapp, Facebook, Snapchat and the like. Life like the roads on which we travelled was riddled with potholes, unvarnished and rough around the edges, but it was real.

One of my cousins married into a Goan family of great repute and the journey for her wedding was a free-for -all carnival of sorts with vehicles of all shapes and sizes in a strange kind of convoy, racing each other on the single lane tar track road which aiming at greater things, called itself National Highway 4A. The residents of the forests of Anmod and Londha must have been driven from their green beds due to us strange creatures who kicked up enough dust to give them the allergies of a lifetime.
The wedding in itself was pretty memorable, taking place as it did in the grand hall of the temple of our family deity, with family priests and other heavy weights in due attendance. All I remember is the post wedding dance performance, totally unsolicited and impromptu which a couple of cousins and I (all ranging in age from 3 years to 6 years) performed in front of the palanquin of the family deity when He was brought out of the temple in procession as was the custom every Monday. It was a performance which must have remained etched in and permanently scarred the collective memory of the temple for the rest of the time to come. The head priest must have lost a decade of his life and is probably still shaking his venerable head over the fact that the parents of the day had allowed young innocents to get high on the local brew which has given Goa its reputation (good or bad entirely depending on whether your glass is half empty of full) before dancing wildly before the Lord of Dance himself. If you are looking for someone to blame for the trend of wild dancing shenanigans which we see under the name of Sangeet now-a days, look no further! Mea Culpa!

Another trip which stands out is the annual ‘Maghi Poornima’ trip (somewhere in the months of January or February) to the temple. The annual temple fair and the ‘Rathotsav’ (carriage ceremony) took place in the wee hours during this time and the scenes of the long road lit only by the flickering glow of the headlights of the car on the mad midnight four hour dash to Goa still sends a delicious shiver down my spine. There is of course the time when we housed ourselves in the verandah of the local school with impunity, since everywhere else was chock-a-block with devotees and also the time when everyone fell over themselves (literally) to prostrate in front of the advancing palanquin of the Lord. There were visits to the beaches, but more in the fashion of something which had to be done as a formality, rather than the purpose of the visit which is what happens these days. The memories are too many to recount and though the visits may have dwindled over the year, the memories linger still, made all the more precious with the passage of time.

The recent visit however brought home the sweeping changes which have crept in since the days of my childhood. Dotted with resorts, beach shacks, adventure sports, plantation trails and everything else to lure the well- heeled traveler, Goa is now a universal destination. But old habits die hard and despite the better half’s busy schedule, we still managed to find our way to the familiar comfort of the temples for an hour if not for the entire day. Pricey resorts, exotic food and the cool formality of professionalism may have replaced the sylvan land of my childhood, but, despite its new avatar, Goa remains in my memory a golden land, a beacon of piety, spirituality and hospitality, a land of magic in that magical time called childhood!

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Almost two years have fled past and travelling plans for most folk have unraveled at the seams, thanks to the little tyrant of a shape shifting virus lurking just beyond the safe confines of our respective front doors. While enjoying a peaceful holiday at home for the first time in many years was a novel experience for many, the dragging pandemic has left most of us bereft of one of the better experiences which enriches our lives, the bite of the travel bug.

All of us were nomads in the distant past and this atavistic trait still lingers in latent form. There must be very few who don’t feel a thrill of excitement at the mere whiff of an outing in the offing. Throwing all caution and better sense to the winds, most people have flocked to the great outdoors whenever the pandemic has showed the least sign of receding, like so many sheep let out of a barn. I don’t mean to sound judgmental or preachy, I have been one of them.

Joining this great migration got me thinking. Perhaps it was time to revisit those memorable journeys ranging all the way from childhood to the golden middle, and write a travelogue with a twist. Humor to bring back the bright shades of happiness that the pandemic has temporarily snatched away. I am being pompously presumptuous that wit can replace the want which makes us travel for there are those who live in foreign lands and have not been able to visit their near and dear ones for a couple of years now. But I hope that my bit of buffoonery can from the comfort of your armchair, at least rekindle fond memories of journeys past and make the wait for new journeys to begin again seem that much shorter. Ibn Batuta, the famous Arabian traveler must have foreseen what was to come for he rightly pointed out

“Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a story teller”.