Summer is not my favourite time of the year. I feel the stifling heat in India does little to improve the already insufferable disposition of her citizens. Everybody is at their worst when they schlep off on vacation with the extended family to supposedly affordable places that are filled to bursting with everybody else who had the exact same miserable idea. The hope is we will manage to recharge our batteries and rejuvenate the spirit during a life-affirming experience that will tide us across the many dreary hours we are going to spend with our noses to the grindstone.
A laughable aspiration but we refuse to give up on it. So, we smoulder in sullen dissatisfaction with none of the sexiness and swag of Dwayne Johnson, as we are packed tightly into various modes of transportation choking on exhaust fumes and fresh farts to be bundled and trundled away to chosen destinations. We check into over-booked resorts where overworked staff who are sick of temperamental customers sport tight smiles that hint at the possibility of you becoming an unknowing consumer of spit-flavoured room service or partaker of the fly-infused buffet.
The rest of the vacation is spent standing in endless queues waiting to experience the vaunted joys of trending tourist attractions recommended by travel vloggers who have usually been paid to sucker in the unwary. Of course, it is never worth it. But that does not stop you from clicking selfies with the damn thing in the background hoping your followers think you are having more fun than they are. Meanwhile, bad-tempered people elbow you in the ribs with unnecessary violence while infants wail into your ear, as others attempt to jump the queue, viciously abusing those who dare to question their democratic right to behave as badly as they please. You do your best to distract yourself with the latest viral videos featuring the disintegration of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard union while all around the hoi polloi do their best to conduct themselves even more disgracefully than that deadly duo.
While over-indulging your taste for carbs, caffeine and chocolate, you think fondly of a quiet place sitting serene and pretty in the lap of nature that hasn’t yet been despoiled with plastic, garbage, human detritus and more plastic. Is there a sylvan spot left in the whole world where you can read a book, soak in the silence, enjoy the peace and go for a dip in a silver stream which is not overrun by tourists armed with selfie sticks on a quixotic quest to document their enjoyment of hellish holidays?
Sighing in frustration, you bite into a chocolate-glazed doughnut which you hope has no phlegm in it as you wonder if the dream of ‘Incredible India’ will ever be realised given that so many Indians are committed to being idiotic and persist in bulldozing their way through life. And holidays.
Anuja Chandramouli
anujamouli@gmail.com