A wall has been built

He promised the adoring crowds, which apparently included former readers of this blog and quite a few of my neighbors too, that Mexico will pay for a beautiful wall at the border.

We needed the wall, he said, because rapists, serial killers, and drugs and diseases were otherwise pouring into the country.



His base applauded.

A huge wall now surrounds the US.  We are all trapped within.

Yes, Cambodia!

Ishaan Tharoor (yes, a son of that Tharoor) recently tweeted:

After a lifetime of applying for visas to go virtually anywhere, my US passport arrived in mid-March. Just splendid timing. https://t.co/DZm466eQ5N

— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) July 12, 2020

The US passport is worthless, for the time being:

While coronavirus travel restrictions may vary from country to country, much of the world is united in one aspect of their current response: Travelers from the United States are not welcome.
A U.S. passport, long seen as a golden ticket to visa-free travel in much of the world, has long provided its holders with the ability to trot around the globe with ease. Now, that sense of passport privilege Americans are used to is fading.

The wall has been built by the rest of the world to keep Americans and our diseases out of their countries!

All thanks to 63 million voters!

All at sea

International travel has been upended in this COVID-19 context.  The Indian government has even suspended all visas for foreigners, which means that I cannot even go to the old country for a while.  In reality, we have no idea when countries might open up for international travel.

A worry that the son might not be able to come back in time is why my great-grandmother forbid my grandfather from taking up a job in Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then called.  (My own interpretation is this is also the larger logic behind the old Hindu tradition's belief that it is a sin to travel over the seas.)

We take for granted that life as we know it will continue forever.  Operating in that framework, we even put off visiting with parents.  I blogged about this in July 2013.  I wrote there: "I spend money to go to India because, probabilistically speaking, while I have quite a few more years to live, my parents face a much more limited horizon. ... As a confirmed atheist, all I have to figure out is whether I am at peace with the decisions I make.  I know I won't be at peace if I didn't make that trip to India"

Over the last 18 years, by my mental count, I have made 19 trips to India.  Two of those trips coincided with my sabbaticals, which meant that I spent three months there during each of those sabbaticals, instead of the usual three weeks.

I have no idea when the next trip might be, and who might or might not be around when I get there.  Or if there will be another trip at all.  Am at peace within, supported by the evidence that I went when I could.  As for the future, que sera sera.

The following is an edited version of that July 2013 post:

************************************
I had a good night sleep after an enjoyable and eventful weekend. I woke up with a clear head, and had coffee and breakfast.  I read and blogged. I had a lovely walk by the river before it warmed up.  Lunch tasted awesome--the leftovers from the Saturday cooking.

And then I read this piece at Slate: It is "a calculator to to tell you how many times you'll see your parents before they die."

Of course I had to read it the moment that kind of a lead popped up.  After all, the annual trips to India over the last decade have been exactly for this reason, even though, this travel-dreaming blogger on a limited budget could easily divert that expense in order to go somewhere else.  And, boy do I have some travel plans in mind!

I spend money to go to India because, probabilistically speaking, while I have quite a few more years to live, my parents face a much more limited horizon. In fact, it is even probable that they are into overtime.

Death is guaranteed right at conception.  It is only a matter of when.  My first lesson on my own mortality was when I was way young.  It is not that I sit around waiting for my own death or anybody else's; it is merely a realization that one day it will happen.

As an atheist, I am not buying my ticket to heaven by visiting with parents, nor do I have to worry about spending eternity in hell if don't spend that time with them.

As a confirmed atheist, all I have to figure out is whether I am at peace with the decisions I make.  I know I won't be at peace if I didn't make that trip to India and, instead, if I spent those weeks in, say, Argentina that I have been drooling to go for years.  Further, it is not that visiting with the parents is a pain--it is always a pleasure. And I will get to meet with a few friends and relatives.

Hence, I go. And, yes, I am all set with the air tickets for the upcoming annual trip, later this year.

So, I did click on the link to the site that does the calculation.  A site whose address says it all: seeyourfolks.com

As the Slate article pointed out, the site's simple interface was inviting. I punched in the data. The site had this to report:

Not a surprise to me--it matches my understanding of life expectancy at birth.

So, why create such a site?

We believe that increasing awareness of death can help us to make the most of our lives. The right kind of reminders can help us to focus on what matters, and perhaps make us better people.

Exactly!  This has always been my understanding of life, and death too.

When we realize there is only a limited amount of time, we are then able to easily rank some as important and others are not worth even a tiny second of our lives.

If the latter, we stop caring for sports in which people get paid gazillions to entertain us. We stop caring for movies that are formulaic.  We don't care for unprofessional colleagues. We end marriages and we divorce. Life is way too short for these.

I would rather spend time, and money, on what truly matters. I prefer humans who are genuinely happy to give me a minute or more of their lives. I travel to visit with my love. I visit with my parents. I read. I think. I help students think. I share ideas with people. I walk by the timeless river.

I blog about all these.

This is all that matters.

Source

To be happy where you are

I have not been on multi-day cruise ship vacations.  I hope that I won't ever do it.  Or, in the worst case, it will happen way, way, way later in my life.

For one, I hate to be stuck with no exit.  It is tough enough to fly all the way to India.  In the plane for hours that feel like days!

And then the all you can eat whenever you want to eat.  A big pile of food in front of me is a huge turnoff.

The forced, staccato, conversations with strangers will drive me insane.  To disembark at touristy places with their touristy gift shops and their touristy cafes and their touristy people to serve will make me want to take the final plunge from the tallest deck!

Dana Gioia has authored a poem in The American Scholar, in which he writes about the cruise-ship carnage.  He writes that it will give him mal de mer.

Gioia has more to say.  Something more profound.  The poem is not merely about cruise-ships.  It is about happiness.

Gioia writes:

I feel no need to vacate my own existence.
Isn’t the point to be happy where you are?
But so little in life is about being happy.

"So little in life is about being happy."

In our daily lives, very little apparently gives people happiness that travel is to get away from it all and to seek that happiness somewhere in the middle of the ocean, while drooling over:

iced pyramids of rosy shrimp and crab claws,
slabs of smoked salmon, lattices of fresh cut cheese,
ripened tomatoes, artichokes with aproned sous-chefs
slicing pink roast beef

"Isn’t the point to be happy where you are?"

If one is not "happy where you are," then the end of the vacation will also be a shell-shocking return to the reality of unhappiness.  On the other hand, when we are happy where we are, travel makes life that much more enjoyable.

My horoscope says that there is travel happening in less than a month.  But, it won't be on a cruise ship. No mountains of food. But, it will be plenty of fun and memories.

"She" sells ... by the sea shore!

Take a look at the image below:

Source

A woman in a two-piece swimsuit, staring at the ocean with a drink in her hand.  Right?

Now, imagine a man in his swim trunks staring at the ocean with a drink in his hand.

Unless the image of the woman is needed because it is a part of a story in which women are the focus, the story can be told with an image of a man, yes?

If the story is not really about women, or a woman, then why the graphic of a woman in a two-piece swimsuit with a drink on her hand?

It is the old saw of objectification of women. Sex sells!

BTW, the writer is a guy.  All the more then why a graphic of a guy in his swim trunks is more appropriate, I would think.

The story for which that graphic is a lead-in has the byline "one of the best ways to reduce stress while traveling is to just plan less and let spontaneity take over."  Tell me again why you need for this a graphic of a woman in a two-piece swim suit with a drink in her hand!

And, this is in the NY Times!

Oh well ...

As for the content?  I largely agree with the point that he makes: "I strongly recommend considering planning less, even if that’s leaving just a few days open."

Surely there are other graphics that will work to get this point across, don't you think?

Race in the new year!

"Where did you travel to?"

"India."

"For how long?"

"Three weeks."

"To spend time with family?"

"Yes"

"All good with everybody there?"

I was stunned by that question from the immigration officer.

In all my years of returning to America after a trip to the old country, I had never ever been asked anything even remotely close to that question.  Not even once.

"Yes, thank you."

"Welcome home."

"Thank you."

As I picked up my passport and walked towards baggage claim, there was one aspect that interested me.  Was that immigration officer so awesome towards me because he was not white?

Perhaps the Chinese-American officer understands immigrants going back and forth between the new and old countries? A simpatico?

I re-checked my bag and then joined the serpentine queue for security check before the final flight segment.  The agent looked at my boarding pass. Then my ID.  She looked up.

I wondered what the problem might be.

She handed back the pass and the ID, and with a smile said, "early birthday greetings!"

I laughed and thanked.

Did she say what she said because she was not white, but was Hispanic (or maybe mixed)?

Have trump and his 63 million voters messed me up so much that I now see whiteness, and acutely feel my otherness, wherever I go and wherever I am?  Is it because of the trump effect that the non-white officers were also extra attentive to non-whites like me?  Have we all gotten messed up by hair fuhrer?

Thus began my new year in America!

The economic geography in proximity versus proxy

There are a few simple guidelines that I use to understand the world.  Like, I will believe corporations are people the moment that Texas executes a corporation, or, MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) will be the future if and when a majority of Harvard's students graduate after taking a whole bunch of MOOC classes.

Texas will not execute a corporation because, well, no corporation is a human who can be sent to the chair.  Students do not go to Harvard in order to take online classes.

Sure, those are big issues.  How about a "smaller" truthiness that we can think about?

Take business travel.  We are long past the days of the phone alone--we have email, video calling and conferencing, and whatever else is out there.  Yet, the suits travel, even if only for brief meetings.  The day this travel dies out, I will change my mind and agree that proxy beats proximity.  Until then, I refuse to budge from the idea that proximity rules.

Am I talking in the abstract?  You need data and trends to make your own call on this?

a country with a per capita income that is 100% higher than another receives 130% more business travelers and sends 170% more people abroad. This means that business travel tends to grow more than proportionally with the level of development.

Get that?  Despite all the communication technologies at their disposal, richer countries generate and receive way more business travel than the less-affluent countries.  Why so? "why do we need to move the brain, not just the bytes?"  Why do the business people need that proximity when there are all those proxies?

First, the brain has a capacity to absorb information, identify patterns, and solve problems without us being aware of how it does it. That is why we can, for example, infer other people’s goals and intentions from facial expressions, body language, intonation, and other subtle indicators that we gather unconsciously.
Second, the brain is designed to work in parallel with other brains. Many problem-solving tasks require parallel computing with brains that possess different software and information but that can coordinate their thoughts. That is why we have design teams, advisory boards, inter-agency taskforces, and other forms of group interaction.

 So, what do all these mean?

The fact that firms incur the cost of business travel suggests that, for some key tasks, it is easier to move brains than it is to move the relevant information to the brains. Moreover, the fact that business travel is growing faster than the global economy suggests that output is becoming more intensive in know-how and that know-how is diffusing through brain mobility.

Therefore?

Rather than celebrate their thrift, countries that are out of the business travel loop should be worried. They may be missing out on more than frequent flyer miles.  

We are humans.  Without the human-level interaction, it is not easy to get ideas across.  Newer ideas are how we have gotten to where we are from the vast African Savannah.  Businesses are built on ideas, which means that travel becomes a necessary expense.

That human-interaction in order to learn new ideas is also why I enjoy the real-world classes way more than the online ones.  When we humans are together at the same time and in the same room, the diffusion of ideas happens way more and way better than when I merely exchange bytes with students.  But, then I don't get to set the rules.  Hence, I, too, teach online classes, and corporations are the most powerful "people" ever on this planet!

Cocktails and tears

"Is this shuttle bus going to Gate 44H?" the forty-ish blonde asked with a tone of panic.  It is not that she didn't have reasons to panic.  American airports are going from worst to worstest ever and asking customer service folks for clarification will only make one panic even more.

The younger man standing next to me assured her that we were all headed to the same place.

"Are you also going to Phoenix?" she now asked.

"No, to Eugene."

"Hey, I am also going to Eugene" I joined in as the bus jolted to a start.

"Oh, Eugene is a fun city" the blonde said loudly to make sure the bus noise did not drown her out.  "More than twenty years ago, I went there when I was a teenager.  The Grateful Dead were performing and my friends were going. I asked my mother to pay for my airplane ticket.  From Montana, which is where I was then."

Ah, yes, the Deadheads. In Eugene. Tie-dye, and all.  Made for each other.

"My mother bought me a one-way ticket. I reached Eugene with a twenty dollar bill.  It was before cellphones."

By now she had moved closer to us and I got a strong whiff of alcohol breath.  The shuttle reached Gate 44 and I was separated from Ms. Cocktails.

At my gate, a young woman, perhaps edging close to twenty, was sobbing away while trying to get a few words across to whoever she was talking with on her iPhone.  A torture the separation from a loved one is when young.  The world seems to come to an end.  Even this old curmudgeon can easily recall those old teenage days.

It was time to board.  No hurry.

As she passed me, the sobbing young woman was now only silently weeping and drying her eyes with tissue in her hand.

I was the last one to board.

As I reached my seat, it was Ms. Tears next to me.

I sat down.  I reached for my seat belt and saw that she was looking in my direction.

"Are you ok?"

She nodded her head.

"I noticed you crying in the terminal ... I just want to make sure you are alright."

"Thanks. I am just having a tough time saying bye to a dear friend."

"Let me know if you think I can be of help" I said as I reached for the copy of The Atlantic that I had saved for this leg of the travel.

I imagined a young Ms. Cocktails twenty years ago sobbing away, and her mother spending her hard-earned money to pay for the daughter's airfare.  In my mind, I wished Ms. Tears a life of happily ever after.

"மெட்ராஸ்ல மூணு வாரமா?"

"You will most likely use kiosks at immigration" came the announcement as we were preparing to land at Chicago.  "There will be staff to help you with the touchscreen" she added.

I was utterly disappointed.  Not because I don't like those touchscreen systems.  For the most part, I love to use those machines.  And, in the case of immigration, I can then even avoid the gazillion questions from officers who think my brown skin and a beard and traveling to a neighbor of Pakistan's adds up to a huge red flag.

I was disappointed because despite the poker-faced, stone-cold, officers, I hope against hope that I will encounter a warm and friendly face who will scan my passport and say "welcome home!"  No kiosk can provide that kind of a warm welcome.

The neon-art at Chicago's O'Hare

I stood in line after we deplaned. It looked like a crew of trainees or college interns guiding us to the kiosks.  She saw my US passport and pointed towards a machine that looked like an ATM.  Perhaps at the end of the transaction it will even dispense cash?  Nah, this is the US--no free money! ;)

I went through the questions, which were the same ones as in the form that the cabin crew had given us just in case it was not going to be the kiosks.
I was asked to look straight into the camera.
Click.
My photo appeared on the screen, and the system asked me to confirm the image.
I did.
I grabbed the receipt it printed, which included that photo, and walked to join a couple of others who were in line.

I noticed that the officers were merely checking that the photo in the passport matched the person carrying the passport and the photo in the receipt.

It was now my turn.

The officer gave me the widest grin a human--not merely an officer in uniform--could have given anybody.  He looked like he, too, was from the old country.  His badge said "Philip."

"Where were you in India?" he asked me with a smile.

"Madras" I said.  I know, I know, it is Chennai.  But, instinctively I always say Madras.

"மெட்ராஸ்ல மூணு வாரமா?" (three weeks in Madras?) he asked me in Thamizh.

I could have hugged him right there, but I didn't.

"That's not a typical South Indian name" he said, obviously referring to my last name.

"Yes, I was K. Sriram back in India ..." and he finished it for me with "oh, so you made it Sriram Khe."  I smiled a yes.

"Welcome home!" he said as he waved me through with the best smile ever.

I wish I had given him a hug.  Nah, this is the US--you would never have heard from me had I done that ;)

I grabbed a salad before boarding the connecting flight to home, sweet home.

So, why blog about it now?  So many days since I wrapped up the India blogging?

The answer is plain and simple.  I thought Philip deserved a special, a very special, post.

Have we made this world a boring place?

The world was a mysterious place to me when I was a kid.  It was, after all, the prehistoric era--no television, no phones, and--most of all--no internet.

Those days, even a place that was a hundred kilometers away was a mystery.  America was somewhere out there.  And in that somewhere was my father's friend, who was a professor in a place called Pullman.

Once, he sent as gifts two sets of pencils.  One set had my name printed on each pencil, and the other set of pencils had my brother's name.  My brother and I thought it was the greatest gift ever.  The irony was that those pencils did not write well on the paper that we had in India, and we practically never used them.  But, we cherished them nonetheless.

The Pullman professor then topped that with a National Geographic gift subscription.  Glossy like I had never seen before.  Large sized maps.  Strange names of countries and peoples.  Stranger were the animals and birds.  And, hello, America was sending spacecrafts called Viking?
.
Against that kind of a backdrop from my much, much, younger days, there seems to be very little that is a mystery anymore.

Back then, we had to go different places in order to taste different foods.  Because, we did not know how to make rasgulla or the local market did not carry the ingredients or both.  It is a different world now.  We seem to get everything everywhere.  Even worse, increasingly every place looks and feels and sounds similar to every other place.  Commenting on the New Yorker's cover, the artist notes:

“I used to have to go to Rue des Rosiers to get a bagel—now you can get one anywhere in Paris,” says Charles Berberian, the Parisian cartoonist who painted this week’s cover, “Out and About.” Berberian’s image shows a couple at a café terrace in Brooklyn—or is it Paris?

The small town here in Oregon where my college campus is located has a bagel shop. Everything made right there.  And tastes pretty darn good too.  It's name?  "New York Bagel and Bistro."  There you have it--the confluence of NY and the French all in one shop name here in small town Oregon.

“New York has infiltrated Paris, and vice versa,” Berberian says. “The ambience in the street, the way people dress. The stores are the same now in Brooklyn and in my neighborhood, the 10th arrondissement. Ideas, trends are communicated instantly. Remember when you used to send packages by FedEx and had to wait two or three days?”

Everything is everywhere. And if not there at that very moment, can be had within a matter of hours.  Affluence has made life a tad boring.  Of course, I will take this affluence any day over the prehistoric era when ignorance was not bliss by any means ;)

The "superfluous man" travels ... Indeed!

The evening prior to flying out to Costa Rica, I was at an event where I met a guy who had done quite some traveling himself.  We talked, among other things, about VS Naipaul and Paul Theroux.   Not unusual at all for people with wanderlust to have read Naipaul and Theroux.

We wondered who, between the two of them, would be a more pleasant person to chat with one evening.  From what I have read about Naipaul, having tea with him is not how I would prefer to spend my time.

It seems like accomplished writers are not necessarily the most pleasant people around.  Snarky, backbiting, egomaniacs they often tend to become.  But, boy do they have insights on life!

So, I set aside the messenger and focus on the message, of which there is plenty.  Even in this short interview with Theroux.

Consider this take, for instance, on traveling itself:

When I’m traveling, I feel small. You see how big the world is, how small you are, how you don’t really matter, how you can’t effect much change, you can’t bring something back.

Exactly!  If ever students ask me what I gain from travel to places that are very different from what I am used to, I tell them it is one humbling experience.  As Theroux himself said in a different context, which I noted in a post a few months ago:

A traveler may have no power, no influence, no known identity. That is why a traveler needs optimism and heart, because without confidence travel is misery. Generally, the traveler is anonymous, ignorant, easy to deceive, at the mercy of the people he or she travels among. The traveler might be known as “the American” or “the Foreigner,” and there is no power in that.

Traveling is one heck of an educational experience about life; it certainly gives us that perspective which might be hard to gain when we stay put in our own respective villages where we have the identity, the influence, the power.

Travel is a phenomenal way to understand how much we don't really matter in this cosmos.  I mean, if I go to Costa Rica and feel that way, then imagine how we humans ought to feel about living on this planet, which is, as Carl Sagan so poetically put it, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Theroux notes:

At least I can say “I put in an effort and I tried to see it.” To see things as they are makes you free—to see things as they are, not nostalgically, not as you wish they were. Just to see them.

So, why the " "superfluous man" in the title?  Over to Theroux, again:

There’s also a Russian expression that my son passed on to me, the idea of being superfluous. Not temporary, but the “superfluous man.” It’s a 19th-century concept that you don’t really matter. You’re just drifting, like a ghost figure....
If I don’t have something that I’m writing, something to think about, something to direct my attention, then, yeah, I feel temporary and superfluous.

Aren't we all temporary and superfluous drifting along on the grand cosmic stage!

I travel because ... Google Earth and iPhone are useless!

"What country are you off to next?" asked a neighbor as we both approached the mailbox station at our street.

I laughed.  For somebody who blogs a lot about various personal stuff, it is strange that I don't seem to always want to give direct answers when I am asked about those very issues in the real world.  It is difficult understanding myself. And I want to understand my fellow humans?  Especially the female kind?  What a Herculean task!

I asked him whether he had been abroad recently because I hadn't seen him for a while.  He and his wife are way past the retirement age and they often travel to different countries.

"We went to Utah" he replied, and we both laughed again for the foreign country that state is, especially when contrasted against this part of Oregon and Southern California from where he and I had moved.

Some day, I will visit that foreign country that is next door.

For now, I need to prepare to meet with my love.

I sometimes wonder how and why a lot more of my fellow humans, particularly those with a lot more money than what I don't have, aren't anywhere as peripatetic as I am.  As much as I intellectually understand that we are individuals with our own likes and dislikes, I can't help wonder why people with more disposable incomes than me don't travel way more than I do.

I would have thought that the photographs and videos that people share on the social media will make them want to travel that much more.  But, does the abundance of those images and sounds end up dulling that desire to go experience new places?  How can that be?  Maybe that is enough for some, as much as my small television set is enough for me?  Different strokes for different folks, yes.

In the age of social media, how does the traveler-extraordinaire, Pico Iyer, adjust to travel writing?

I have to find things that prose can do, that no iPhone can do better. This usually has to do with memory, reflection and the silences between things.

Yes.  That's it.  In my versions of travel and travel-writing, that's exactly what I engage in: "memory, reflection and the silences between things."  Damn, these writers can convey the ideas so well.  No wonder they are the writers and I am but a reader!

Travel is not merely to click a few photographs as some kind of a modern day conquest.  I find travel to be humbling in so many ways.  It is such a humbling experience when I am a nobody in a strange place, especially when I know not the local language.  No special treatment because I have a PhD. Nobody cares. I am like anybody else.  Travel is a phenomenal way to understand and appreciate how insignificant I am in this universe.

As I noted before:

यस्तु संचरते देशान् यस्तु सेवेत पण्डितान् ।
तस्य विस्तारिता बुद्धिः तैलबिंदुरिवांभसि ॥

- सम्योचित पद्यमालिका

He who wanders various countries and serves wise men there 
will expand his knowledge just like oil on water.

- Samayochita Padyamalika

source

The same idea reflected in the old adage that travel makes a man wiser?

And then when I re-enter the US after a trip abroad, it is truly wonderful to appreciate what G.K. Chesterton wrote:

The object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country

 Yes, to set foot on one's own country--hopefully all the wiser.

And that wisdom, I am confident, can never arrive via an iPhone.

Some day, I will travel to the abode of the clouds ... Meghalaya

For a couple of minutes, I simply stared at the following photo, from The Hindu:

If you are like me (well, I feel sorry for you if that were the case!) then you already dreaming a vacation to this place, to get a feel for the people and their culture and the landscape and ...

It is, apparently, the time for winter harvest festivals in Western Meghalaya:

During the festival, the Garo — indigenous residents of the sub-tropical hills in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Bangladesh — offer produce from the first harvest to Misi Saljong, the giver or the Sun God, in a ritual called Rugala. Nokmas or village chieftains lead troupes of male drummers and female dancers in a parade, accompanied by buffalo-horn trumpets and flutes.

Of course, I have drooled about this part of the world earlier too--three Novembers ago--and there I had included this photo, also from The Hindu:

Source

Thanks to my American citizenship, I will need an extra level of government clearance if I want to visit these areas in India!  Wikipedia reports that Protected Area Permits will not needed if I want to travel to Meghalaya, but will need one for Nagaland.

Well, at least not a concern for now!

A final note from The Hindu:

Alva Sangma, the editor of Achik Songbad, a Garo weekly, offered this reporter a lift from Tura. Alva, a former rally driver, drifts past the hairpin bends through the hills with terrifying ease. Rod Stewart keeps her company from the stereo. “Garos are confident drivers and musicians.

Maybe in December 2013, equipped with a whole lot of dramamine?  I have an inalienable right to dream, right? :)

The idea of travel has me drooling because ...

यस्तु संचरते देशान् यस्तु सेवेत पण्डितान् ।
तस्य विस्तारिता बुद्धिः तैलबिंदुरिवांभसि ॥

- सम्योचित पद्यमालिका

He who wanders various countries and serves wise men there
will expand his knowledge just like oil on water.

- Samayochita Padyamalika

source

The same idea reflected in the old adage that travel makes a man wiser?

Oh wait, it is "travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse?"  That might explain my misery :)

When I re-enter the US after a trip abroad, I love it when the immigration officer finishes the processing and says "welcome home."  I truly appreciate what G.K. Chesterton wrote:

The object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country

 Yes, to set foot on one's own country--hopefully all the wiser.

The wisdom comes because I am often heading into the unknown.  Unknown in many ways and full of paradoxes.  As Paul Theroux wrote:

[The] world has been made more restless, more volatile, more impatient through the Internet, and it has robbed people of contemplative solitude and introduced a new solitude, a sort of loneliness induced by a buzz of information. But these very alterations in culture, far from diminishing curiosity, have made much of the world less predictable, more dramatic and accessible, full of paradoxes that have to be seen to be believed.

 Already looking forward to the trip in December.  And then the one after that in June.

 Wish me well, dear reader :)

Dawning of a new day in an old world of Quito

“Are you going to a garage sale?” asked the teller at the local bank when I asked her to provide the money that I was withdrawing in ones, fives, and tens.  “It looks like there are a whole lot of garage sales this week” she added.

“No, I want smaller bills because I am traveling” I replied.  For some reason I didn’t want to volunteer any additional information on my plans.

But, the teller was curious, I guess.  “Where you going?”

“To South America. To Ecuador.” 

“Oh, in that case you want me to give you newer bills?  Because in foreign countries they don’t like bills if there is any small tear, right?”

By now I decided that there was no point holding back with the young woman, who, for some reason, reminded me of my daughter, and was genuinely interested in the satisfaction of this customer.  “No, that won’t be a problem at all. Ecuador uses American dollars.  They don’t have their own currency.”

She got visibly excited with this piece of information that was entirely new to her.  “Really?”

I thought about my student, "R," commenting that travel is easier when there is no need for funny money, and we can simply use the dollar bills instead.

“Yes, there are a couple of countries that operate this way.  Which is why I want the smaller bills while down there, which I can then use for expenses like food and taxi.”

“Wow. Something new every day.”

Transaction ended and she wished me bon voyage.  I had to check myself from automatically saying "you too."

The next day, I was off to Quito.

I didn’t have any plans on how I was going to spend the six days in Ecuador.  Of late, this has become my approach to traveling.  I did the homework though by reading the Lonely Planet guide and a bunch of websites, and had in the back of my mind the key things that I would watch out for once there.  But, the plans will be worked out after landing in Ecuador.  

All I had was a hotel reservation in Quito.  Everything else was to be ad hoc.

I didn’t even have to worry about the transportation from the airport to the hotel—I had pre-arranged for a ride, through the hotel. The confirmation email from the hotel noted:

Our representative, Trans Rabbit, will meet you at the airport the day of your arrival, when flight of AMERICAN AIRLINES 967 reaches Mariscal Sucre airport at 22h00.   It will be very easy to find him as he will hold a blue sign with your name (Mr. Khe) on it.

He held a black-and-white sign, not in blue.

It was past eleven in the night when I got into the room.  A spacious room with an old model television set that distorted the colors at its edges, and with quite a large sized bathroom.

A little after 6:30 the following morning I stepped out of the hotel for a quick stroll before breakfast.  I had barely walked a few steps when I realized how close the hotel was to one of the main plazas in the historic old town area—Plaza Santo Domingo.  I knew this from the homework readings, but still was quite a revelation.  A simple example of the textbook knowledge versus experiencing things firsthand.

My excitement levels quickly shot up when I turned the corner and caught a glimpse of the statue of the Virgin, up on a hill.  I walked a few more blocks until I got a good view of the statue.  I knew I was no longer in the good ol' US of A.   “Maybe I made the right call, after all” I told myself.

It was not even seven in the morning, and there was not much of any activity.  Furthermore, it was a Sunday morning, which was another reason for people not to hurry up.   

After circling a few more blocks, I walked up to the top floor of the hotel for breakfast.  I carefully separated out the ham from the scrambled eggs--I am yet to develop a taste for most animal products--and hoped that the refreshing guava juice would calm down my anxieties about visiting alone a new place with a foreign tongue as well.

And thus began my first day in Ecuador.

The stranger: Not Camus, not Joel, but Theroux

Paul Theroux articulates so well the various jumbled thoughts that run through my head and which I am simply incapable of transforming into meaningful and powerful sentences and paragraphs.  I am, therefore, not at all surprised that Theroux knows exactly how I feel when I travel to any strange place:

It is hard to be a stranger. A traveler may have no power, no influence, no known identity. That is why a traveler needs optimism and heart, because without confidence travel is misery. Generally, the traveler is anonymous, ignorant, easy to deceive, at the mercy of the people he or she travels among. The traveler might be known as “the American” or “the Foreigner,” and there is no power in that.

It is quite easy to stay in our respective villages and feel connected and important, and not be a stranger.  "Where everybody knows your name" as Cheers told us.  But, then it is a huge world, and it will be awful not to find out more about it. By ourselves. As strangers. 

Why we travel ... even more so in a rapidly shrinking world

As I read this Paul Theroux essay (is there a better contemporary travel writer around?) so many thoughts flashed through my mind.  I can still recall my excited feelings when I stepped into a "jumbo jet" for the first time in 1987, which was when I left India to come to the US to attend grad school in Los Angeles.  It was a Singapore Airlines flight, and when I stepped in, it felt like I had entered into a huge hotel lobby.  And there was a staircase, for the business class, of course!  Unbelievable it was.

I reached my seat, which was quite in the rear of the plane, only a couple of rows ahead of the "smoking section."  Yes, the brilliant minds of those days who saw no problem with people lighting up in such a constrained space.  It was on the same flight that I tasted the real thing--Coca Cola--after a few years.  During my younger days, the Indian government, in all its infinite wisdom, pushed out a whole bunch of multinational corporations, including Coke.  And all we folks then had were the awfully sappy Thums Up and "77 Cola." 

Quite a few flights later, I am always ready for the next one.  Reading about places, and looking at photos and videos, has become so easy with the web having everything I would ever want to know, and more.  However, this all the more fuels the desire to go check those places out, and experience the places.  Yes, it is the experience--not any old idea of new and exotic.  In a world where we can get pretty much music and food and arts from any corner of the world, it isn't a whole lot of newness that I am after as much for simply the experience of it all in the "original" environs.

Plus, there is a sense of more vibrancy than before.  A village in India in the 1970s might not have looked all that different from how it looked in the 1960s and 1950s.  But, a decade now brings about a lifetime of changes in many places around the world. I liked this aspect of Theroux's essay in particular:

the world has been made more restless, more volatile, more impatient through the Internet, and it has robbed people of contemplative solitude and introduced a new solitude, a sort of loneliness induced by a buzz of information. But these very alterations in culture, far from diminishing curiosity, have made much of the world less predictable, more dramatic and accessible, full of paradoxes that have to be seen to be believed.

Indeed.  More so for travelers like me, who are more interested in observing and understanding peoples and their societies, they have to be seen to be believed in the fullest.

All the more excited am I am by the upcoming trip to Ecuador.  Wish me well, dear reader!