Shortly, its going to be that time of the year again. Schools are in the brink of a vacation close. A time when children and adults alike look forward to taking a break from their hustle-bustle city lives and schedules. My kiddo cousins in the family have already started planning their winter vacation. One of the things that struck me is a trend that I noticed has caught up in a big-way as a trend in the whole concept of vacationing – holidays to foreign destinations.
I was one of the unfortunate (feel rather fortunate, in hindsight!) ones who while growing up in Chennai always had my immediate relatives and family friends in around Chennai, at the most, in and around Tamil Nadu. So, my holidays - if at all I rarely had any time for it after being done with my holiday tuitions and special classes - were mostly a trip to some of my relatives’ places within Tamil Nadu. Of course, I had great fun with my cousin and immediate sisters and our small gang of girls did have a rocking time. It helped me develop a great bonding with them all which continues till date.
Anyway, the circumstances today are very different. Our societies are increasingly getting cosmopolitan by the day. Today, its more a question of peer pressure and it is considered inferior if you do not go to a foreign locale during your holidays and share your holiday stories. It often makes me wonder – how many of the current generation kids have even visited a fair portion of their own city or acquainted themselves with the rich history that India is bestowed with. Though I cannot claim even remotely that I have visited all the “must-see” places in India, I can, with a certain sense of modesty, say that the extent to which I have explored my country only left me feel wanting for more.
In this context, I cannot help but recall a couple of recent trips I did with my family. Firstly, we had covered Southern Karnataka in March - more to fulfill my Mom’s long desire to cover some of the ancient temples that side. Karnataka, truly, is blessed with tons of natural wealth and dense forests. We got a chance to visit some ancient and famous temples each of which had a story to tell from the past. An add-on bonus was some breath-taking scenic landscapes through which we traveled. We covered about 1500 kms extensively by road in about 3 days and the hilly terrain and interior, virgin hill-stations we passed by simply rendered us awe-struck.
Ditto for the 1 day trip I did recently to cover interior Tamil Nadu (Tanjore and Trichy). My parents filled me in with their memoirs of my fore-fathers and their up-bringing in our native places. Some of these places would make for fantastic educational trips for today’s urbane school-going kids. Even the simplest and closest of them all from Chennai (the place I grew up), DakshinaChitra (www.dakshinachitra.net), was popularized to Indians only by NRIs and foreigners who flocked that place to learn about India’s rich cultural history.
But, an un-enterprising Tourism Dept. in India and lousy domestic infrastructure coupled with “I love anything foreign” attitude of parents have ensured a slow and steady burial of a whole body of fantastic history. Today, Singapore is far more superior than Srirangapattinam as a holiday destination; Johannesburg a far more exciting place to visit and freak out than Jaipur.
While its wonderful to embrace the world in all its myriad hues, cultures and continents, its also time we opened ourselves to learn and nurture the places we live in.
I have not written this piece with a closed and territorial mind-set to emphasize that India is better than ‘A’ or ‘B’ or ‘C’ – either as a holiday destination or otherwise. But, before you explore the 7 continents across the globe, doesn’t it feel proud and confident to patronize your mother country before the world. After-all, Home IS where the Heart should be!!
2 comments:
We have undervalued, not only our own places but also the valuable tradition, cuisine, music, fashion, etc. We shy ourselves to express/show our worthiness to the financially developed strangers. We spend hundreds of rupees to taste the italian pizza but hesitate to touch idli sambar with hands by spending 10 rupees. We are living in MAYA world.
What you say is very true.. even if one has an entire life time one will never be able to completely explore our motherland and all that it has stood for. At another level it is also true what ever is in the macrocosm is also there in the microcosm. Philosophically stating ..after all the external traveling at the end of it all one would realize that all along there is a vaster realm within, which was closer to us all along but never explored, which too one needs to know about.. if not more so as to the real purpose of life….
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