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I was walking along the only road in Aihole and exploring the endless number of temples dotting the village. There were temples everywhere – to my left, right and ahead, and there were temples that I had left behind. At some point I came to a fork and was wondering where next. As I looked around, I heard voices of children near the bend. One of them ran into me and asked me, with a beaming face –
“What is your name?”
I answered. A few more kids shouted the same question to me from behind a fence. They were playing cricket. The typical Indi-street cricket – with a rubber ball, a stick for the bat and a few bricks for wicket. I think they found me friendly enough, I was invited to join them for a game. I could have done with some break from all the temple trotting and readily jumped in. Nice guys they were, they let me bat.
Cricket is not my favourite game and it has been a few years since I have played. I fumbled and stumbled but picked up a bit after a few minutes. And let me admit, the kids were good and some of the deliveries zipped off taking me by surprise. But I had my time with the bat too. After sometime, I started feeling guilty about monopolizing the bat, and opted out and fielded a bit. I also had turn with the ball and shared a few overs with another kid.
I must have played for a good half hour before I decided it is time to leave. I patted some of them for their brilliance and walked out of the tiny ground. As I moved into the road, a man walking nearby greeted me, and started with the usual question of ‘where am I coming from?’ I started answering him and heard the kids shout from behind – “Watch out for him, he will ask you for money”. In that last thirty minutes, we were friends already.
Next: Aihole
I always had this impression that writing a guidebook like Lonely Planet is the most painful task that anyone would have to do. Imagine being able to go to exotic(and also touristy) places on someone else’s money, and while you are there, instead of having a ball you are expected to run around hotels and rate them, find out eating places in the town without just being able to eat at the best places, and figure what is pleasant and unpleasant for your readers than hangout where you want to. And your deadlines probably keep you on the tow all the time, making you keep running. After all they have to bring out a new edition every year(or two years). So you go to a great place, and what did you see, do, experience? Nothing but collecting data for others.
So when someone told me a year back that it would be nice to have an travel guide book for India with a perspective for Indians, and if I can consider working on such a book, I realized it is not my cup of tea and declined the offer. And today, I read from the horse’s mouth – the ordeals of writing a guidebook – as told by a lonely planet author.
Some excerpts of an interview with Simon Sellars, a Lonely Planet author on travelhappy.info
It’s a good job but let’s be realistic: it’s more a case of being paid to collect brochures and bus timetable info — and to crack the ice-cold nerve of concierges the world over. We are info dumps: much of the job is gathering facts and figures and updating perishable and non-perishable information…
…I feel one of the biggest misconceptions about Lonely Planet is that the company pays its authors to swan around on holiday and then do a bit of writing as an afterthought. The reality is that you are on your feet for twelve hours a day, during torrential rain or baking heat or whatever testing conditions you’ve parachuted into: coups; insurgencies; dealing with the horror of warm beer in Britain. There’s very little time for actual sightseeing. It’s actually hard work.
via worldhum
How much ever I tell myself not to plan things obsessively, dreams pop up and things shape up. 2008 will be a year of travel, a time to reflect, a year to pursue things in life that I have always wanted to do and make an attempt to get wiser, simpler and better. Time will tell on the realization of all these but I know that it is time to rejoice, may things work the way I want or otherwise.
Here is my travel wish list for 2008
* Rajasthan
* Cambodia
* Spiti Valley, and may be Leh/Ladakh
* A few monsoon journeys along the Sahyadri
* Valley of Flowers and surrounding region in Garhwal
* temples of Tamil Nadu – Madurai, Tanjore, KK. Missed then this year.
Obviously not an exhaustive one, but you know what happens when one tries to include the world. 🙂 Seems like a short list, but I know it will take a good lot of my time. The winter months are unplanned and seeing how far they are, I should let them be so.