Travelling, on holiday

Ever since the heady days of childhood silliness ended, I have always been quite sure that if you want to really enjoy a cricket match (as distinct from the primitive tribal intoxication of participating in artificially stirred-up crowd madness), you should watch it in your drawing room - or, better still, bedroom - on TV. You will get closeups, and multiple angles, and expert commentary (with the added blessing of being able to turn that off anytime they get on your nerves), without ever stirring yourself, or having to jostle with hordes of noisy and sweaty people, getting your feet trodden upon, your shirt torn or your pocket picked or your bottom pinched if you are female. If you are watching a pre-recorded video, that is better still, for you can pause it when you are bored or have something urgent to attend to, then come back and resume where you left off when it suits you again.

Visiting the Taj Mahal for the fourth and, I hope, the last time, I had exactly the same feeling. The crowds are getting more insufferable by the decade; videos on YouTube give you the same tour without the expense and the hassle, and any good coffee table book (there are hundreds available) will offer you a treasury of beautiful photographs most of which you will never be able to see with your own eyes, and certainly not in one visit - such as from the air and from the river, at dawn, afternoon and on moonlit nights. Likewise, thanks to some old boys, I have been seeing lovely photos of several different countries, including, most recently, Serbia and Austria, and while I am thankful to them, I am quite sure that I'd not like to spend several lakhs to visit the same. For me, pictures and videos are good enough: one who can see sees with his mind. It's like people telling me that you can't really enjoy watching TV unless you have a jumbo flatscreen. Just because they can't doesn't mean that I can't either. As for the 'been there done that' crowd on Instagram, they can keep on entertaining their own little captive audiences: I know for a fact that that usually means only family and a handful of office colleagues, unless you are a serious celebrity. And visiting someplace like the Vatican City (see this video) is worth it - for me, at least - only if I were some VVIP or super-billionaire, for whom they would make exclusive arrangements, no ordinary tourists allowed while I am taking in the sights... if I simply want to stare hungrily and worshipfully at Michelangelo's Pieta, to my mind the greatest sculpture ever made bar none, I can do it here well enough.

At Itimad-ud-Daula's tomb, the real attraction was the tiny museum, where they have set up lovely videos that show you everything much better than walking around the campus can. In fact, the mausoleum looks much better on the screen than in reality: evidently all the renovation and refurbishing has been done only digitally! What made me sad was that all the squirrels have vanished.

Sikandra made me sigh, as always. That fellow Akbar speaks to something truly deep in me: it's like reading In Search of England. Never fails to bring to mind Kipling's magnificent poem. That one, and Gunga Din. And the novel Kim, and the incredible short story titled The Miracle of Puran Bhagat. But I must live in an age when asses with PhDs know that Kipling did not respect India, and Dickens was such a pathetic misogynist....

It would be remiss of me if I did not mention Sandip Solanki, young owner of Indian Homestay and garrulous biker. Though ma and Shilpi rolled their eyes when he claimed that he too has been a teacher of English in his time, I loved the way he and his wife Asha hosted us. God bless. If Durgapur had been a hot tourist destination, I certainly would have run a similar facility on the side.

Pujo has been wonderful. Because I didn't have to see or even hear any of it. Pupu, who is just back from Kolkata, has said দূর থেকে কল্পনা করতে ভারি ভালো লাগে !

P.S., Oct. 09: Another of my dreams fulfilled. I had a wonderful time today, hosting lunch for Pupu and her lovely young colleagues at their office. Ma and Shilpi were there too. My cup runneth over...

Oh, and do look up what my daughter wrote recently about 'Adulting'. I have written about lots of things in my time, but never about this. I somehow became adult without ever finding time to think about it :(