Hotels and travellers

A genuine traveller is not put off by the quotidian squalor and musty smell of budget hotels.  He is drawn by the place and its people.  Luxury hotels are not the place.  And people are not found in them either.  Take a place like Shimla, for instance.  The winding roads, crowded bus stands and cubicle-like tea shops are as fascinating as the mountains that circumscribe your view all around, the temples that stipple those mountains and the Mall Road that crowns the town.  Life thrives on those crowded roads and little cubicles.  The real people of the town are seen walking up and down the shortcuts that link one road to another, one mountain to another.  Those who seek their accommodation in the high-end hotels are alienated from real life.

A little girl who caught my fancy outside Shimla (2014)

Until a few years ago, I was a lover of travelling.  My travels took me to all sorts of places especially while I worked in Delhi.  Quite many of those travels were part of my profession as a teacher which entailed taking students on tours.  Along with students, I travelled to cities and historical places where we usually stayed in luxury hotels because my students came from affluent families.  Occasionally we also went on trekking expeditions in the Garhwal Himalayas where we stayed in tents or cheap hotels in transit camps. 

The inconveniences of the accommodation seldom bothered me except when I took my wife on private journeys.  The accommodation is merely a place to keep the baggage and perform the obligatory functions of the body.  Travel is about exploring the place and the people, not about staying in a hotel room. 

Having travelled quite a lot, I recall the mountains I climbed, the rivers whose rhythms soothed my soul, the cities whose crowds taught me varied lessons, and a whole lot of things.  I really don’t recall the luxuries of the hotel rooms or the inconveniences of the same. 

However, there is one resort in Uttarkashi where I spent two nights and a whole afternoon along with students en route to Gangotri, the final destination of our trekking expedition.  The resort continues to haunt my memory years after our stay there.  It was a conglomeration of huts - which were in fact permanent structures that looked like huts - on the bank of the Ganga.  Sitting inside our tents, we could listen to the rippling music of the holy river.  In the night some dam upriver was opened and the river roared like an angry monster.  Both the music and the roar of the Ganga still haunt my memories as a traveller. They would have had the same effect even if I had stayed in some cheap hotel instead of the expensive resort. 

A traveller should not be concerned with comforting illusions of luxury accommodation.  A journey is a lesson.  Its travails are ephemeral while the lessons linger on.  Isn’t life just a protracted journey?

PS. Written for IndiSpire Edition 193: #HotelStay