Readers who have enjoyed Aiyar’s travel books, such as Smoke and Mirrors and Punjabi Parmesan, and were hoping for another of the same kind will not be disappointed by Travels in the Other Place
So many topics are covered in journalist and travel writer Pallavi Aiyar’s latest book, a collection of essays titled Travels in the Other Place, that the only way I can tie them together in this review is to use the author’s own premise when she put the book together — that every experience in life is a journey in itself, making every single person on this planet a traveller, whether she ever steps out of her home town or not.
In order of appearance, the subjects Aiyar covers are books, illness, language, pedagogy, passportism, reporting, hair and grief, each of these eight words the title of an essay, and each topic, to my surprise (especially concerning the issue of hair), is indeed worth investigating the way a travel writer would examine an environment new to her: with some background research, an attitude of exploration, and an eye for the differences and commonalities between ways of life that make the world so fascinating.
The opening essay, ‘Books’, begins with a question on why the English-speaking, English-reading population of India (of a certain age) was so obsessed with the works of Enid Blyton, and takes off from there to the giant question that has tormented our minds since the rise of digital media: Why read? ‘Illness’ leads us into the land of cancer, a place with its own language, customs, narratives and myths. Closely linked to ‘Illness’ is ‘Hair’, which is not only connected with cancer but plays a huge role in international commerce. ‘Passportism’ is about the power of travel documents (and some moaning about the powerlessness of Indian travel documents), ‘Pedagogy’ compares the education system Aiyar grew up with, with the systems her two children now navigate, and ‘Grief’ is about what she went through when her mother died. ‘Reporting’ and ‘Language’ are my two favourites in the collection, because these are the most wide-ranging in terms of thoughts and anecdotes and perspectives — and parts of the latter are hilarious.
Readers who have enjoyed Aiyar’s travel books, such as Smoke and Mirrors and Punjabi Parmesan, and were hoping for another of the same kind will not be disappointed by Travels in the Other Place because as much as Aiyar emphasizes that life experiences can be seen as much the same as travel experiences, she also asserts, in almost every essay, that nothing broadens the mind as much as travel — the terrestrial kind. This means the book is packed with travel anecdotes, which makes me wonder, had Aiyar remained in Delhi her whole life, what kind of essays she might have written.
Travels in the Other Place
By Pallavi Aiyar
Tranquebar
pp. 204; Rs 599
