Travel writing traps

Linear narratives, flat adjectives, too many superlatives – this piece on Matador talks about the common mistakes rookie travel writers make. But here is the thing – it is easy for seasoned writers to fall into these too. These, and the story (of the how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation essay type) supported entirely by cliche and adjectives, with adverbs sprinkled all through without restraint – of course, this is not specialty of travel writers alone, but there it is just easier.

My favourites – and yes, I have been guilty of some (all in the past, I hope) – Hidden gem (so how did *you* discover it?), I promised to be back (really, every single place you visit?), amazing (it is bad enough you use it in spoken language and really, you must be naive if you are that easily amazed), quick pitstop (that lasted four hours?), carried back a mind full of memories (one, good to know you have a mind and two, why are you not working with a sleazy travel agency yet?) and finally, lap of nature (even I do not have anything to say about this).

There, I feel better already. Nothing like a little snarkiness to spice up the day, what?

So you want to be a travel writer

I keep getting asked for advice all the time on how to become a travel writer. Now, that is a question I cannot answer easily because I hesitate to call myself a travel writer. The likes of Bill Bryson and Pico Iyer?, they are travel writers; the rest of us write on travel, sometimes sponsored by a publication, mostly not and write on our travel experiences. And if you do not understand the difference, stop right here. Go back to read Bill Bryson, Pico Iyer, Jan Morris and the other greats and come back.

So, why do I want to write about this now? For one, I get roughly an email a week on this question and I figured it would be simpler for me to write this out on my blog and start pointing future queriers in this direction. And then, I realize that I now have over seventy published pieces in my portfolio, and it is therefore time I stopped feeling like a poseur and admit that I am a writer (along with freelance, travel, whatever other words I want to add or dispense with). So here goes.

And for purposes of convenience, I think I will stick to the phrase ‘travel writer’ here but remember what I said about the Brysoneshwar and Iyernath kind of writers being the real deal.

There are two things you can do – write steadily for a magazine or freelance. What follows is mostly about the second thing. The first role is tougher to get but it means paid trips and cushy holidays, not to mention a steady income. Far greater people have written about this already; the venerable blogger-journalist zigzackly’s pearls of wisdom come readily to mind at this stage. So head there right now.

Start writing. Even if only on your blog.

Alright. So now you know what the v.b.j has to say. I didn’t want to be rude and ask you directly, so I sent you there since he has already asked this; you can write, can’t you? Really. Believe me, there is a large gap between writing on one’s blog (or free content for websites) and writing a piece that is fit for publication. So the ‘I travel a lot and I can write, therefore I can be a travel writer’ logic does not quite work that way.

Sure, a blog is a great way to start – if you feel you have it in you to be a writer, start writing regularly on your blog. Apart from bringing some discipline to your writing, it is a good way to showcase your talent. There are many editors who do not insist on previous published experience and your blog (or some selected posts) can serve as your portfolio. If you have not traveled anywhere recently, then write down stories from your earlier travels – it is a great way to bring back good memories and get writing practice.

Build contacts. Or search for them.

While writers are usually happy to share / exchange contacts of editors that they know or work with regularly, it irks being asked for a bunch of contacts –‘ I don’t know where to begin, please send me the contacts of all the editors you know’. Er, why? Most publications have a clear masthead, some of it even online and all it is takes is a few minutes of time and effort to find the right names and email ids. Spend some time also going through the ‘contributors guidelines’ to see what their expectations are from a new writer.

Get your query right.

Finding the email id of the editor is usually the easy part, I think. Getting the query right is the big thing, especially with an editor you do not know personally or are writing to for the first time. Make your query letter interesting (there are hundreds of articles on the internet on this, please spend some time reading a few of those). It works better if you send an idea or three (not more, please – and not complete manuscripts unless the guidelines specify it ) and not just a bland introduction. Remember there are a hundred other talented writers out there, so why should the editor choose you (unless she is your friend, in which case I say, good for you!) – give her good reason to.

Get spellings right (including the editor’s) and make your pitch short and attractive. Before you dash off that query, research the publication’s style – some like descriptive travel guides without a personal voice while others look for a first hand narrative. Yet others seek not a travel story but a people story – what is special about the place, the people, their food and culture?

Find a unique perspective.

There are travel stories and travel stories; think about what will set yours apart. There must thousands of Rajasthan, or even Jaipur stories out there, so what do you have to say that is new and interesting? (And remember, you are likely to be writing not for your bunch of friends but for travel-savvy readers, many of them who may be seasoned travelers themselves).

The “big story” is one part of it, a really good travel writer brings alive the smaller stories – if you focus on the details, it will make your story seem fresh and new – for instance, local handicrafts, markets, people you meet, some new cuisine or food you tried – all these can be themes for a story…

Editors are happy to spot good ideas, just as they are quick to trash uninteresting ones – remember, the place does not have to be new (how many of us can travel to the Congo? Or Iceland?) or even interesting (I have read enough articles about the hidden gems of Bangalore to say that this is true) – your perspective, your hook has to be.

Here are a few more tips on being a travel writer from experienced traveler-writers:

~ The Seven Myths of Being a Travel Writer

~ Make Travel Itself Your First Priority

~ How to be a Travel Writer

~ The problem with travel writing is not the travel, it’s the writing

Good luck with the travel writing!

Insipid tea: Chai, Chai disappoints

Chai Chai by Bishwanath Ghosh is a book I picked up with a lot of expectations – ‘Travels in places where you stop but never get off’, is what the cover proclaims, promising glimpses into the small town India that one hears and reads about all the time but rarely thinks about.

To write about small, anonymous towns is a task that requires a lot of skill – and while it is commendable that the writer had the courage to take on such a topic, he just does not have what it takes to make it work. The descriptions of places he visits and people he comes across are all in broad brush strokes with no nuances to bring them alive to the reader.

For instance, he starts his journey with Mughal Sarai – a major station during his childhood train trips from Kanpur to Calcutta – and through this section, there are repeated references to the notoriety of this place – we read about pickpockets, extortionists and the police-criminal nexus. Mughal Sarai is full of thieves, the author says – but how so more than other towns, even in eastern UP? What about the generic brown badlands of Omkara and the Gorakhpur of Ishqiya? There is nothing to tell me what Mughal Sarai is really about – what makes it different – apart from being a large junction for trains?

Ghosh takes his brief too literally – he gets off at the places that most people see only as stations to stop and stretch their legs – but does nothing more. For instance, he is rapidly bored by Arakkonam and Guntakal and says there is nothing to keep him there beyond a couple of hours. Really, nothing? If the excuse is that he does not understand Tamil or Telugu and so does not manage to get under the skin of these towns, then what is he doing there in the first place?

The tone is monotonous and tiresome after a few pages – all the pieces all have similar narratives of alighting at the railway station at ungodly hours and spending lonely evenings inside seedy bars drinking whiskey while eavesdropping and making severe judgments on the people around. Forget differences between the towns he visits – there is nothing to say how the towns in the North were distinct from those in the deep South. For, really, South India is not so much about chai-chai but idlivadaaapppi (idli – vada – kaapi).

Ghosh shows an utter lack of empathy – and after a point, even curiosity – for the people he meets, their lives, hopes and mistakes. So he descends into banalities about the “shameless man” in Mughal Sarai and the housewife-turned-prostitute in Itarsi who “could have easily used her housewifely good looks to find alternative ways of earning money”.

For a book with such a fascinating premise, Chai Chai sadly disappoints all the way. Thanks to the indifferent writing, small town India – the towns that nobody really knows – remains as obscure in my mind as ever.

Chola! and thanks for all the bronze

I had sent this titled – Chola! and thanks for all the bronze… it appeared on March 14th in HT Cafe as Temples of a dynasty… Here is the original version.

Long after I returned from Thanjavur, I kept telling friends, the cholas were dudes. Most predictably gave me strange looks but there were a few who understood; like me, they had travelled to Chola territory.

Take a look at the Big Temple in Thanjavur. Ask anyone in the city for the Brihadeeswara temple and chances are you will draw a blank look, as I do. The big temple, I clarify quickly, and the auto driver nods his head in immediate comprehension. I catch sight of the gopuram towering at a height of 216 feet (about 70 metres) and know why big is barely enough to describe this temple.

The kalasam (dome) on top of the temple sits heavy at over 80 tons and historians believe that it was hoisted to the top on a 6 km long ramp – an ancient Egyptian technique adopted for the building of their sacred pyramids. I personally like to imagine that someone had taken a swig of the magic potion, like Obelix from the Asterix comics, but that is neither here nor there.

Legend has it that Thanjavur is named after a demon – why that is so in a country with enough gods to name each town and have some left over, I cannot say – the rakshasa Thanjan who lived there. As with all self-respecting rakshasas, he terrorized the people, who implored the gods to save them. Lord Vishnu duly heeded their prayers and destroyed him on the banks of the Cauvery. Why he should, again the story does not explain but the Lord granted the dying demon a boon and the city Thanjavur – thanjai in Tamil for refuge – was born.

If it was a demon who gave life to the city, it was a great ruler Rajaraja Cholan (ruled 985 – 1014 AD) who gave it form and flesh and made it the Thanjavur we know today. Born Arulmozhivarman, he went on to conquer large parts of South India, to be called Rajaraja Cholan, the king of kings. One of Tamilnadu’s favorite works of literature, Ponniyin Selvan features the big temple as a dream in the young prince’s sleep.

When we enter the temple through the main gate in the early evening, there is nothing dreamlike about it.

The atmosphere is very earthy, with the smell of the ground washed by the mild rain mixing with the heady fragrance of burning camphor. The temple elephant is busy blessing passersby and pilgrims for a few rupees. The massive Nandi statue is being bathed with milk and honey and all things sweet, in a monthly cleansing ritual, with a hundred odd people seated in front of it, unmindful of the wet mud.

The big temple is not painted in bright garish colors in the manner of other popular temples in the region. It stands stark but welcoming, its walls washed clean by the unseasonal rains. The rain water has formed small puddles all over the sides of the temple, catching broken reflections of the tower, with all its intricate carving. With this temple, there is a grace and fluidity in every corner that is not normally associated with ‘big’. This paradox was described best by art historian Fergusson when he said of the Cholas that they ‘conceived like giants and finished like jewellers’.

We then sit in a corner, watching the local crowds in their best Friday evening temple attire, our senses in overdrive, as the sounds of the priests’ uniform chants reach us in a low buzz, while the temple bells ring out periodically to signify the beginning or end of a particular ritual. Three young locals are sitting next to us and exchanging not so subtle notes in Tamil about their teachers in college. An old woman prostrates herself in the direction of the main temple and when she gets up, her eyes are brimming over in a moving display of emotion called kanneer bhakti – worship with tears. As it gets dark, we head out in search of dinner; at the gate the temple elephant is still doing brisk business, taking and handing over the coins to his young owner, kids shrieking in terror and delight as he brings his mottled trunk down to their heads in a blessing.

The next morning we head out of town, in search of the ‘other big temple’, built by Rajendra Cholan. The junior Chola outdid his father Rajarajan in his conquests and marched victoriously all the way to the shores of the Ganges (West Bengal today), earning himself the tongue-twisting sobriquet of gangaikondacholan (or GKC as I took to calling him fondly, and conveniently) – the Chola who conquered the land of the Ganges.

Gangaikondacholapuram is a dusty non-descript village; it is impossible to imagine that this served as the Chola capital for over two centuries. It lies forgotten, even by locals many of whom stare at us in surprise before pointing in the general direction. We take a tentative turn off the main highway leading towards Chidambaram and Chennai, and follow the path that seems to lead nowhere. And suddenly, the driver veers sharp into a narrow lane to the left, and the temple appears in our view, quiet and forgotten, a lesser loved step-child.

In structure and size, this temple is similar to its more famous counterpart in Thanjavur. Almost. For, GKC apart from being a victorious ruler, was a respectful son. The main tower is made of fewer tiers – eight – as compared to thirteen, making the structure shorter at 185 feet (although the Shiva Linga inside is larger, both in height and circumference). This temple too is dedicated to Brihadeeswara, though in general considered more ‘feminine’ than the other temple, thanks to the curves on the tower in place of sheer straight lines alone.

The atmosphere too is more relaxed here; a few families are picnicking on the neat lawns inside the temple complex, their kids teasing monkeys with scraps of food. Near the entrance, a bunch of boys have found a rusting wheelbarrow to play with and pose for my camera even as the care-taker runs towards them waving a stick in a threatening manner.

And then on to Darasuram.

If the temples at Thanjavur and GKCpuram are grand and elegant, it is the one at Darasuram near Kumbakonam that can be called pretty, a term rarely used to describe places of worship. Built in the mid 12th century by Rajaraja Cholan II (not the original dude but a later-day successor), this temple was neglected for a long time. It has been renovated by the ASI recently and sits wearing a new coat of life that is charming. It is late in the evening as I walk into the temple premises, and the sun is setting low in the sky, casting eerie shadows on the row of nandis sitting on the wall all around the temple complex. There are a few worshippers here too though most visitors including locals seem to be there for what I can only describe as the experience.

The presiding deity here is Shiva as Airavateshwara, because he was worshipped at this temple by Airavata, the white elephant of the King of the Gods, Indra. The front mandapam (hall) of this temple built to look like a chariot, resembles the one at Konark several thousand miles away, in shape and type of architecture. As I walk around the main temple, the carvings on the wall call out; apart from the usual suspects of gods and goddesses, there are interesting ones of dancers with limbs twisted in impossible positions, and combinations of animals, including the yaazhi (a mythical animal combining the features of a lion and an elephant) at several places, yet another similarity with Konark. In the fading light, it is difficult to sort out which limbs begin from where and belong to what, and I soon give up.

General Information

Take a flight or train in to Trichy (Tiruchirapalli), the nearest large city – Thanjavur is 55 km away on a good highway. GKCpuram is 61 km from Thanjavur and Darasuram 34 km in the other direction, though if you hire a car, it is possible to visit all three temples in one day. In Thanjavur, Hotel Sangam is overpriced but the only large hotel for tourists and close to the Big Temple; a better option is Ideal River View Resort, just outside the city.

A pocketful of history

Published in the February edition of FlyLite, the inflight magazine of JetLite. (not all these photographs were published in the article)

A few years ago, Anantashram, the only restaurant inside Khotachiwadi went temporarily out of business. While most loyal patrons were dismayed at the news, I knew a few who felt that it was only a question of time before this happened. A friend of mine who eats there frequently said – I think the Anantashram waiters are trained to ignore you. He went on in this vein, complaining of what he thought was their indifferent attitude towards patrons. They just live in a different world, he ended, shaking his head in amazement.

That actually describes Khotachiwadi itself.

Khotachiwadi must be one of modern Mumbai’s best-kept secrets. One minute I am in the midst of the din and chaos that is South Bombay and the next, as I turn off the main road into the narrow alley, I am in a different world. A more colorful but quieter world. Without really intending to, I find myself speaking in softer tones, the only other sounds there being that of a group of children playing with their kites.

Playing

As soon as I enter, I come face to face with a shrine to Jesus, and I remember a sign that used to hang in front that read, don’t park here, for god’s sake. The tone of this board seems to be in tune with the wry humour with which the inhabitants have taken to looking at their own world, and the larger world outside. The house next to the church has a colorful mosaic of tiles on its walls and floor that calls out to the passerby. As I stand hesitantly at the gate, the man sitting inside on the stone stool invites me to come in and have a look. He points out the birds and the fish, proudly showing off the newest entrant, the parrot all the way from Nepal. The house belongs to his nephew, and the family had moved to Mumbai from Goa many many years ago. By the time we leave, a small crowd has collected around us, the local residents wondering what the fuss is all about.

Inside

Girl

The origins of Khotachiwadi

There are several wadis in Mumbai, such as Bhangwadi, Popatwadi, Dabholkarwadi and Khotachiwadi. Wadis are typically defined by the cultural flavours of the dominant ethnic groups who live there. The ethos of Khotachwadi has been shaped by two major communities: the Pathare Prabhus and the East Indian Christians. Inside the narrow lanes of the wadi, the informed eye can spot the unique architectural and cultural symbols of both communities. Other than the wood used as the primary building material, the typical architecture elements include large overhanging balconies on the first floor and winding staircases in front of the house.

Seat

Steps

The name Khotachiwadi can be traced to the original Mr. Khot (land owner) – it literally means the hamlet of the khots. The khots leased the land out to the East Indian community, whose forefathers worked with the British East India company. Members of this community who had so far lived in the Northern districts of Mumbai, such as Gorai and Manori, moved up to this part of Girgaum and built their houses. These houses with their wooden balconies and latticed windows today sit there, with the feel of museum pieces, forgotten and neglected by the larger world of skyscraper concrete. Others before me have compared it to a piece of old Goa, even a forgotten piece of Portugal. But Khotachiwadi is inherently a piece of Bombay, as a conversation with any resident will make clear.

As I walk into Khotachiwadi, I am suddenly reminded of the fact that Bombay was once nothing but a collection of villages. The leisurely pace of life inside Khotachiwadi is reminiscent of a different – to my weary eyes, better – way of life. I remember a question a journalist friend had asked in his essay about the original Bombay villages – When in its life-cycle does a place, a locality, make the transition to cliché? The same clichés he had written about flow fast in my mind before I can stop them – old world air, time stands still, and so on.

Waiting

There may be a sense of anachronism inside the space that defines the limits of Khotachiwadi, a fairy tale feeling to the bright yellow and blue houses and cheerful balconies. However, it is not true that Khotachiwadi is caught in any kind of time warp. The residents are only too aware of the pace and style of life in the Mumbai that they go out to work in everyday.

In 1995, Khotachiwadi was declared a heritage precinct and is today a ‘gated colony’ fighting to keep going in the face of modernization. It was again in the news a few years ago, when the Khotachiwadi Welfare and Heitage Trust was formed, to fight in a more organized manner against proposed “development” of the area by builders. That only means one thing – the demolition of these heritage structures and concrete monstrosities in its place. At present, only over twenty of the original bungalows survive inside the colony, and even among these only a few wear fresh coats of paint. And the battle is getting tougher; more and more residents ready to give up their land for a more convenient and economical dwelling.

Ideal

Today Anantashram is back in action and is just the same, with customers willing to ignore the grumpy waiters and strict timings (it remains closed on Sundays!) for the famous Goan – Malvani food it serves. However, who is to say what the future holds – both for Anantashram and Khotachiwadi?

General Information

To go to Khotachiwadi, take a train on the Western Line heading to Churchgate and get off at Charni Road station. Just down the road, at St. Teresa’ Church, turn towards Jagannath Shankatsheth Marg and ask for Khotachiwadi.

Bombay Heritage Walks conducts walking tours inside Khotachiwadi. For more details, visit their website [http://www.bombayheritagewalks.com] – or call them at 91-22-23690992/ 26835856.