A Walk In The Neighbourhood
Globally, the time of the grand world tour is at an end, at least for now, thanks to the pandemic. Instead, we are beginning to return to a time of intimacies, of short trips planned with friends and family from across the town, or on our own. The Northeast is waiting to be explored in this new scheme of things.
Siddhartha Sarma
We are reminded of some traditions only in their absence. For many of us, the late autumn used to be the season of guidelines. You know what we are talking about: friends, acquaintances or colleagues would write in about somebody they knew who was planning a visit to the Northeast, and could we just explain a bit, preferably in short sentences, about stays and travel and paperwork, all those little things which, we were told, kept people away from the region? An occasional visitor from elsewhere in the country, perhaps even a foreign tourist, would have some questions the embassy hadn’t feel obliged to answer. A season of introductions and explanations.
Around this time last year, in the middle of the anti-CAA protests, we were explaining how the inner line permit works for each state, and what had changed or was about to. Of course you can visit, we were telling well-meaning strangers, in the middle of explaining why we were not ethno-fascists or whatever it is we were being called back then. Our argument, we said, was not with visitors. Not the temporary kind.
But that was AnteVirum. It seems like such a long while ago. In the time of the Virus, the season of guidelines no longer exists. But there will be a PostVirum, and much will have changed. How we negotiate this change will decide the future of the Northeast, or at least how we see one another.
Much has been written about the pandemic as portal to a different world. We suspect much of this new world will be the same as the bad old one because, well, that’s how it is. But one area in which we can’t go back to the way things were in is how we see the neighbourhood. This much, at least, is in our hands.
With an economy in a very bad shape, uncertain employment prospects, pay cuts and savings being hit, it might appear a little odd to consider how travel will have changed by the time you step out again. But from the wreckage of the tourism industry, something else is emerging.
For the longest time, we have had a generation that saw travel in terms of the exotic, the far away, the bigbudget. The spectacular. But after nearly a year of watching the paint literally dryon the walls and the dishes pile up in the sink, single travellers and families are starting out, when they can, on different journeys.
The near future will be about weekend trips to quiet places. Of overnight journeys, perhaps to the grandmother in the village, or to places recommended by friends. To the small town across the state border, or the little village you had always been meaning to visit. To homestays and small hotels which do not make grand claims but where you will always be welcome.
Travel within the Northeast has been and will continue to be more than just tourism. It is about rediscovering and engaging with the neighbours and with ourselves. To look beyond inter-state politics and grievances (and let’s face it, most of those are built up because our politicians need to earn a living).
This is the time for such journeys. For informative and engaged posts on your blog, or videos of music and cuisine rediscovered, of relationships rekindled. Of the many joys to be found in this neighbourhood filled with infinite attractions.
We will not be alone in this. Globally, the time of the grand world tour, the journey budgeted over a few years of savings, of those long flights via duty-free warehouses is at an end, at least for now. It just doesn’t seem worthwhile or even advisable. Instead, we are beginning to return to a time of intimacies, of short trips planned with friends and family from across the town, or on our own. The Northeast is waiting to be explored in this new scheme of things. And if in the process we begin to understand each other, to have some kind of informal dialogue with our neighbours, it could be a new and welcome beginning.
Our Instagram feed may even end up thanking us. Instead of yet another photo with an actor at Madame Tussauds, we could have the opportunity to make more intimate, more meaningful memories. Besides, the affection of neighbouring people and communities is a gift that keeps giving. Because viruses come and go, but goodwill is for ever.