Nagpur: City businessman Vilas Kale was only 20 when he and two of his cousins embarked on a hitchhiking trip from Nagpur to Middle East, Europe and back. A travelogue detailing this impulsive journey was released by him on Saturday evening at Crossword, Civil Lines.
Titled 'It was a happy trusting world, then', the book traces Kale's three months journey, made on a shoestring budget, and the ways the trio adopted to sustain themselves through places including Beirut, Germany, France, Lebanon, Iran and Turkey among others.
Introducing his father's book, Rahul Kale shared how his cousin and he found Vilas Kale's diary to be an interesting read, and were surprised by the 'innocence of observations'.
Vilas Kale, opening the floor for questions from the audience, said, "Everyone first asks me, 'how did your aunt let a 17-year-old girl travel along with you?' she had faith in us. Throughout the trip, we met several people we didn't know, and they didn't know us, but they let us stay with them, or gave us rides. It reinforces one's faith in humanity," he said.
Vilas Kale then shared how their low budget made them go on hungry some days. "We had a budget of Rs 4,000 per head and couldn't afford to make calls to our family. So we wrote to them and would receive their letters through family friends' addresses. At some places, we were offered free visas when we told officials about our hitchhiking trip," he shared.
Kale and his cousins Vidula (17 then) and Kumar (19 then) travelled from May 2 to August 1, in 1971.
Advocate Anand Jaiswal released the book and shared the experience of reading it. "When I first saw it on the book shelves in Mumbai, I thought of calling Vilas to tell that someone was writing under his name," he laughed, adding, "Forty years ago, it was a revolutionary idea to travel alone, and couldn't have been imagined by anyone in Nagpur at least. Moreover, Kale's observations were recorded at the time itself through his diary. It very well captures the reactions of a 20 year old, the disappointments as well as the curiosity."
