Journeys and Jottings
People Make Places - Issue 9
“It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
I am reading this book right now and I can’t help but think how apt it is for the current times. The celebrated author had decided to focus on his own home in this book as he realized that he did not know much about its history. As he says, “Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.” Bryson decided to journey from room to room and discover hidden nuggets. He wants to “write a history of the world without leaving his house.”
While Bryson was then staying in a Victorian rectory in the UK, I am nestled in my humble two-bedroom apartment in Bangalore. But am not complaining. The house is my sanctuary. I am discovering new corners with new closets and cabinets, filled with memories that have been stacked and buried away. As I started decluttering, I found myself seeking refuge in memorabilia and trivia. And right now, home is not just a state of mind. It is where the body, mind and heart, and soul are.
Hello and Welcome to the 9th issue of Journeys and Jottings. We discuss Bill Bryson and his books and his views on travel writing. I would also like to share with you a post that I had written about the difference between travel writing and travel blogging. We also look at how to manage our work efficiently with the One Minute Rule. In People Make Places, we meet Gopinath Parayil, the founder of The Blue Yonder, which focusses on experiential travel and sustainable tourism.
Bill Bryson on travel writing
One of my favourite books is The Walk In the Woods. I also enjoyed Notes from a Small Island and the Lost Continent. I am now reading At Home, as I had mentioned earlier and every time I read his books, I am lost in a remote corner of the world, journeying with him. In one of his interviews, he spoke about why home is where his heart is and he also speaks about travel writing and his advice to travel writers.
Do you have a favourite place in the world?
“Home is actually my favourite place. I’ve genuinely enjoyed almost all of the travel that I’ve done – I don’t regret any of it, even the bad experiences. But, at the same time, wherever I’ve been in the world if somebody came to me and said “Mr. Bryson, there’s a helicopter waiting, we’re gonna take you home now,” I’d go in an instant. That’s what I really want to do…
Is there anything that you really enjoy about travel writing?
“Of the actual writing process itself, I would struggle to tell you which part of it I find enjoyable, but I do enjoy the life it gives me. One of the things I’m able to do is travel, a lot, generally at other people’s expense. I meet a lot of really interesting people. I’m pretty successful now, but even when I wasn’t making very much money, I had a really happy and enjoyable life. It’s a lot better than going to an office every day and sitting at a desk and essentially do the same thing day after day. One of the wonderful things to me as a writer is I get so much variety in my life and I get to meet so many different people from so many different walks of life.”
Do you have any advice for aspiring travel writers?
”I think the basic failing I see in a lot of aspiring writers is when they just assume that, because they’ve had a great experience, that it's automatically interesting… and it’s not! [laughs] It’s a real start; but just because you’ve done it, doesn’t make it automatically fascinating to the world. You have to figure out a way – either through some special talent you have, or a way of telling the story, or something – that makes it absorbing and engaging to a stranger. “
Travel Writing vs Travel Blogging
Recently a friend asked me this question – Are you a travel blogger or a travel writer? I was even asked by her to choose between the two. For a moment, I was surprised. I had not thought of them as two different careers. I have been doing both simultaneously and seamlessly for the last 15 years. The conversation led me to write this post where I decided to highlight some of the differences between the two and why travel blogging is NOT the same as travel writing. For instance
Travel Writer focuses on getting published.
A travel blogger is a publisher.
This is the most fundamental difference between a travel writer and a travel blogger. As a travel writer, my priorities are all about selling a pitch to a publication. However, as a travel blogger, my blog is the publication and therefore the priority. My blog is not just a random diary of my travel experiences – it’s a magazine by itself. There is an editorial calendar, a marketing calendar, and most importantly, a travel calendar as well. But that is for another post on travel blogging tips.
I am planning a workshop and designing an online course on travel blogging and writing and watch this space for more details when I launch them. Meanwhile, the blog has more subtle and specific differences between travel writing and travel blogging.
One Minute Rule
I stumbled upon this blog post by author Gretchen Rubin which introduced me to this One Minute Rule. I am a little wary of most of these rules but was a bit curious all the same.
I found the idea very simple. If an activity takes you a minute or even less to complete then do it immediately or as soon as possible. Gretchen Rubin wrote in her post, “Keeping all those small, nagging tasks under control makes me more serene, less overwhelmed.”
I often realize that the ironed clothes are still on the chair or the teacups and spoons are lying in the sink. I realize that a bulk of my work is just a string of small tasks stitched together which I tend to procrastinate. I am not so much of a multitasker but the rule did help me manage multiple tasks at home.
So I started listing the little things that I tend to procrastinate on and started completing them at the earliest. I used to either do them in a sequence or attend to them while waiting for another activity to begin.
-Send that invoice while waiting for others to join on Zoom Call
-Water the succulents while tea is brewing
-Wash the spoons and cups while milk in boiling
I have started feeling less overwhelmed these days after applying the rule. The important thing is that you don’t have to analyze or overthink or even prioritize them. My therapist used to say,” Actions precede feelings.” And I think the One Minute Rule reinforces the same. As Gretchen Rubin says, “With the “one-minute rule,” I do anything that presents itself, right away, as long as I can do it in a minute. “
How are you going to apply the One Minute Rule today?
People Make Places
I met Gopi or Gopinath Parayil, Founder of The Blue Yonder, at a conference where he was one of the speakers. He had just started his experiential travel company and was focussing on local communities and sustainable tourism. His flagship itinerary across the River Nila that flows across the three districts of Malappuram, Thrissur, and Palakkad has won more than 20 international awards including the Conde Nast Travel World Savers Award.
Gopi also comes from a two-decade-long background in community-based palliative care and is a trained disaster manager from the Royal Military College of Science in the UK. His team has been one of the first responders in major disasters ranging from earthquakes in Gujarat and Nepal, Cyclones in Eastern India to floods in Tamilnadu and Kerala in the past fifteen years. His most recent intervention includes the Climate Change Resistant food initiative around Pokkali and co-creating Chekutty – a beacon of resilient Kerala following the 2018 Floods. A mentor at IIMA, he is presently working on 'Resilient Communities & Destinations', a global platform that repurposes tourism to address challenges of the climate crisis and ensuing disasters. Excerpts from an interview I had with him recently.
Introducing glove puppeteer to guests
1. How did it all start?
Sheer coincidence I would say. I had just returned back from the UK after having taken up an assignment in disaster management when my father passed away. For many of us, Bharatapuzha ( River Nila) is where we do the requiem for the departing souls. More than the pain of witnessing his death, the state the river was in was what struck me the most that day when I went to do rituals for my late father. Even by December in 2003, the river was in a bad shape, devoid of its beauty, filled with trucks carrying fine sand from the river bed and it looked like it was struggling to breathe.
A river that wasn't even good enough to do a requiem was the title of a local newspaper when we came out of the river that day. This made me think and helped me find my path. I set up a not-for-profit foundation to know more about the river and commissioned a study for the same. This became an expensive affair and while exploring the possibilities of raising funds, the idea of The Blue Yonder hit me.
2.Tell us a little bit more about the Nila Trail.
We wanted to celebrate the river, its cultural richness, narrate stories. But to engage the locals we needed to clearly show how their engagement would not only help sustain local traditions and culture but also how it would bring in a livelihood for them. This resulted in us designing various initiatives with a focus on triple bottom line sustainability, probably it was the first time an Indian company moved into responsible tourism.
Meeting master potter Gopalan
Thoni cruise along Tirur River was about providing an alternative source of income for those who were smuggling sand river. The Musical trail was about shaking the caste system that was prevalent in the music scene and showing how creatively designed content can engage even a foreign traveller. Folk expressions ended up documenting various local folk art forms from the region while ensuring mesmerising experiences to a traveller. Legend trails introduced the concept of interactive storytelling in the travel business. Unassuming locals became proud storytellers highlighting what made their region so unique.
3 . People Make Places - anyone who has inspired you in the journey
So many hundreds of people in fact. But a lady comes to my mind - who during the floods in 2018 in Kerala became a viral sensation after one of our posts about her conduct.
She was one amongst 1800 people who were stranded in a Govt School during the floods. Once the rescue team from The Blue Yonder and local fishermen reached, we started evacuating them in batches to safety. She was the last to leave and when we asked her earlier why she doesn't want to get into the boat, she responded that this school has been her home for the past 4 days and she will not leave that place unless it's clean. 'Do we ever leave our house dirty?'.
It was people like her that helped us launch a beacon of resilience called Chekutty. We wanted people like her to be celebrated, though we all had our scars and stains from that horrific flood, it was the confidence and empathy shown by individuals like her that helped us go through the crisis and think about rebuilding a better Kerala.
4. What are the various projects that you are working on now ?
Our flagship itinerary still is what we conceived 16 years ago. River Nila in central north Kerala. It is one of the most unique experiences I would say anybody can offer anywhere in the world.
However, we are now focused on co-creating resilient communities/destinations. The humanitarian sector and tourism sector with a focus on sustainable development and climate adaptability can do wonders creating synergy from various strengths they have.
Properties, presently we are managing only one farmhouse in Wayanad on our own, though we have a vast network of unique homestays that we support through our business. The property in Wayanad is called Moovatty, set on three hills with mostly coffee plantations. We have just announced a martial arts residency for two weeks for performing artists as well as beginners here.
A workshop for guests
5. How can people help communities given the current situation?
There are innumerable ways we can be of use to communities near or far. During a discussion about how stressful things are becoming for various households during the lockdown, it came to our attention the plight of families with differently-abled children. This resulted in us setting up a not-for-profit called Gifted Children & You, which prepares training modules for teachers and families and even community members on engaging such children through arts. We just concluded an online exhibition of paintings done by such kids in our village in Kerala.
Gopi and The Blue Yonder can be contacted here and on Instagram
Until we meet again
I do hope that you enjoyed reading this issue. Stay safe, stay at home, and get vaccinated at the earliest. Looking forward to your feedback as always. We are going to keep the flow of conversations going and I would really appreciate it if you will share my newsletter with your friends and family.
See you soon! You can also read my travel stories on my blog and follow me on my social media
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Loved reading this one Lakshmi!