Those semi-precious stones

So, the rule is not to roam as a tourist, but to stay as a resident - that alone gives you the right to actually claim the badge of ‘seeing’ a place. Cosmetic tripadvisor-ed tourism is like eating the first starter course - okay, you have seen the Eiffel Tower and its golden spangles at night-time, and have clicked the must-have selfie in front of the Mona Lisa - but ask yourself, have you actually walked on Parisian streets late at night and seen snowflakes of winter descend to start the first strokes of a white heaven? Besides the tick mark on the Louvre, could you actually go to that old rundown yet delectable house of a Rodin or a Delacroix and imagine the artists bubbling in their creativity ages back? If no, then you have seen but a fleeting glimpse of her veiled face, you have not even brushed her hand, forget about the passionate lip-lock. There is just so much more hidden in the jeweled box of every city that a fast paced week-long stay does little justice - yet, in the timeless truths of limited money and limited time, sniffing the aroma is still better than the full course. Alas, that’s the least at times, and yes, it’s still better than not even stopping for a sniff.

But there is so much that we miss! Think again, all those secret romantic getaways or hidden happy places or local dhabas that (thankfully) never get splashed on tourist brochures that you know at the back of your hand in your home town - which no tourist will ever get to know. As a local, doesn’t that give you that special joy akin to knowing a question which you have secretly traced will definitely come in the paper tomorrow, but which other students are ignorant of? But as a traveller, doesn’t it make you a sucker of sorts? Imagine then, coming to Mumbai and taking a carriage around the Gateway, but missing a medieval Portuguese fortress or a splendid golden pagoda built in the style of Myanmar’s famous Shwedagon right in the city? Or clicking hundreds of photos at Sydney’s Opera House but being completely ignorant of a historic governor’s house just 15 km away (yes, believe me, tourists come nowhere close to the latter even if it is a UNESCO World Heritage listed site!)

Sometimes, I feel it is a joy to be able to explore and walk around these places, these semi-precious stones, as I call them, that are often more valuable than the diamonds framed in gold, all because of a brush with history or due to their inspiring geography. Whatever be the reason, it makes one feel ever more intimate with a city, as if one took extra efforts to really know the place beneath multiple layers of the past. I remember having spent 3 months in a remote town on the India-Bhutan border called Phuentsholing - despite being a very small sleepy town, it was so opulent in its riches - marvellous monasteries bedecked with tankhas in technicolour, artistic gateways, amazing thukpa eateries, karaoke bars, and even a seedy piracy market across the border in India. I had spent so many evenings after work exploring its many pages, even using my weekends to explore the many national parks and sanctuaries on both sides of the border - and yet, on my last evening, I was amazed to find a beautiful series of temples beautifully decorated with Bodhisattva images that I had missed in the past. Imagine then the hidden delights of a sprawling cosmopolis like a Mumbai or a Milan! 

Which then brings me to the point that we actually get to know so little of this big, beautiful planet of ours - so many countries, each enriched with so many cities, cultures, cuisines and chronicles! And we spend our tiny blip of our lives anchored to one place, often not even making the effort to know our own backyards. And even if we do, there is just so much fry that slips out of our wide nets of too little time or awareness. (Even after 4 years in Mumbai, I missed a rare Ashokan edict that was once erected by the emperor in Nalasopara 2000 years back!) 

There definitely is value then in studying more about your own city or hometown - even if it has not been archived in say a Dalrymple or a Theroux, read whatever you can lay your hands on. If not anything, at least scroll through Google Maps and see what’s around the corner. If the lockdown’s limitations have not imbibed this habit within you yet, go grab your phone. You might end up learning about Nonya cuisine or discovering secret creeks and wetlands harbouring endangered frogs as in my case - all within 5 km of unexplored territory! 

This is an easy fix, the few within reach - the harder truth are the so many beyond: those that will go unexplored. All those cities and sleepy towns that will remain unseen, all those river flows that will not stir the poet’s soul, all those boulevards and boulangeries, bistros and bazaars, those semi-precious stones that will remain in the casket, the world’s do-not-knows that will remain do-not-knows! Lucky are the handful fews who are first able to cross their hometowns for whatever reason, and are then wise enough to realise this even if the new world is the next hamlet. How many times have I not contemplated the joys of living for a few months in North Island, or teaching English in a tiny school in Okinawa or Buenos Aires, or even being a digital nomad traipsing across South East Asian islands whose names don’t even ring a bell to the average geographer! Ah, those hidden gems, semi precious stones of their own accord! 

Truth is, the life that society helps us understand and undertake is an onerous one, replete with tendrils of money, and mortgages. We get busy - for all the right reasons - but often with all the wrong balances. And as we get busy, we end up forsaking our own curiosities and interests. (As in one of my most favorite movies ZNMD, the artist asks of his long ignored son who creates content in a marketing agency, ‘All the work you talk about is great, but what do you write for yourself?’ In the banality of our mundane lives, what then do we really do to enrich our selves? If you have a respectful answer to that question, be proud and carry on!)

Well, we can’t move from Bali to Budapest and expect the same levels of certainty - the rolling stones theory and all the moss that we have been made aware to gather! But what we can do is at least be curious of the world around us, and make an attempt to refine our views of it. Who knows what we may uncover - whatever it is, we will only come out of it a richer man! Take a thorough relook, maybe go check that 50 year old monastery, or better still climb that hill that you always pass by and get a few steps closer to the pensive clouds which may spark a haiku inside you. Each of those semi-precious stones has a glitter and a sparkle, but are you willing to pick them in your fingers and look them in the sky?

24th October’2021

Cover Image - The 'other' Statue of Liberty, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris (author's archives)