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It
was a sentimental evening for travel lovers at
the American Centre Delhi on February 19, to spend
an entire hour up-close with legendary travel
writer Paul Theroux. And it certainly was a close
encounter – partly because of the tiny auditorium,
spilling over with people; and partly because
of the legendary author’s open and intimate
style of interaction. |
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Here
was a man who has authored 43 books (most of them
best-sellers) and has practically re-defined the
genre of travel writing in modern days. And he
was casually sharing his life’s experiences,
views on politics and philosophy, and of course
memories of his journeys across the world. |
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Theroux
spoke on “Time Travel – the
Return Journey” and set many of us
lovers of travel books thinking deeply.
In his charming extempore talk, he gave
examples of many travelogues starting from
classics by Henry Thoreau to Grahame Greene,
Peter Fleming and more modern authors like
Bruce Chatwin.All of them had written celebrated
books, but most were based on a single trip
to the country, which stood ‘frozen
in time’. Questioning this, Paul Theroux
explored the possibility of the ‘Return
Journey’ where an author re-visited
countries after a couple of decades and
recorded the sweeping changes in society
there.
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Sixty-seven
year old Theroux now seems to be undertaking several
‘Return Journeys’ to all the countries
he has written about. He has gone back to Vietnam
and been captivated by the calm forgiving spirit
of the people (especially towards Americans);
he has traveled through the new countries which
have emerged from the USSR. In Siberia he visited
a former prison at Perm (notorious for incarcerating
political prisoners). Now it is a museum (!) standing
testimony to an entire era that is past.
What was the most significant change in India
– the country he captured in his “Great
Railway Bazaar’? The changes were so enormous
that he summed it up in one humorous example -
in 1973 he had managed to speak to his wife on
the phone just once in all his four and half months
of travel, not even from Delhi, but after he reached
Tokyo. Today he could probably do it from any
remote village in India. |
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Another
funny memory of his travel adventures that he
shared was being ambushed by robbers in a bus
in Kenya. As he crouched under his seat and said:”
I don’t want to die!” his neighbour
sardonically commented “They don’t
want your life bwana, they probably just want
your shoes.”
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What
does Paul Theroux enjoy the most in India? The
reply was loud and clear – not the glitz
and glamour – “I was shown a Mumbai
billionaire’s 20-story mansion and I just
turned my head away in disinterest,” he
said. What he loves to see are vignettes of rural
life, women in traditional costumes with mud pitchers
on their heads (which take him back to Biblical
imagery), and other everyday experiences. Theroux
is definitely a man for “overland travel”
and thus his fascination for the great train journeys
of the world. He looks forward to many more such
epic journeys and would probably like to do a
return journey by waking up in Dibrugarh one day,
and saying “Hey, I want to find my way overland
to London from here!”
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