In January 2006, literary journal Granta published an essay by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, ‘How To Write About Africa’. At one point, it was the most-forwarded piece in Granta’s history. It also became a personal favourite — satirical literary advice more eloquent (and effective) has been hard to come by.
The origins of the piece were in a long, rambling email that Wainaina had sent to the editor of Granta, responding to its Africa issue, which, in Wainana’s own words, “was populated by every literary bogeyman that Africa has ever known”. He was fed up with banal Western writing about the continent — writing that lapsed into exoticisation, was filled with platitudes, and proceeded as if “Africa and Africans were not part of the conversation.”
Here — in the context of travel writing and blogging in India — I borrow the entirety of Wainaina’s stylistic device but only half his exasperation and almost none of his seriousness or poignant rage. The reader is urged to consume with this disclaimer in mind.
Let’s start with the theme. Either you are on the “road less travelled” or “in search of hidden gems”. In the perfect pitch, you would be on the road less travelled in search of hidden gems. That would make you an “explorer” or an “adventurer”, which ties-in nicely with how you have referred to yourself in those hourly Facebook updates from your “remote” location.
Don’t forget to open your piece by describing an encounter with a native — this may be a human or an animal, depending on your location. If it is a person, have her/ him impart some timeless local lore, preferably to do with an endemic herb or an unusual tint in the river water.
Of course, you can learn from animals too. The tiger you have spied through the binoculars — more than half a kilometre away and partially obscured by the long grass — can teach you to be wild and free. Nature, in general, has many teachers you can learn from. Even the wildly growing grass of the Madhya Pradesh forests conveys lessons. Seek, and you shall find.
Oh-so-nostalgic
Irrespective of the place you are writing about, sunlight must be dappled, mountains silent and café quaint. The ideal paragraph will have dappled sunlight fall across your face as you sit in a quaint café with a view of the silent mountains.
If you are lucky enough to be writing about a European capital, the streets must be cobbled. If you are not in a European capital, you must find a part of the city where the streets are cobbled. Some India-specific advice: potholes are not cobblestones. If you have vacationed in the First World, surely you were shown around by a charming university student, preferably wearing headgear of some sort. If in continental Europe, please be surprised at how well they speak English.
Feel free to express your indignation when they wonder how you are so fluent in the Queen’s tongue. In a South East Asian metropolis, your guide must make up for his broken English with a permanent toothy grin and boundless enthusiasm. Actually, you may not need a guide in South East Asia because it is so much like India with its chaos and colourful fruit markets.
Names are crucial for they lend authenticity. Eastern Europe is full of people named Lukas and Katarina. In your writing, it would be a good idea to stumble into a cellar bar in Prague, and start a conversation with Lukas and Katarina. Readers are unaware that locals do not frequent bars that serve overpriced beer meant for tourists who have just completed city centre tours.
In India, you must write about properties, especially the ones that call themselves heritage or boutique. Do point out that the property is chock-a-bloc with sepia-tinted photographs and relics of a time gone by.
Make sure you evoke a sense of nostalgia without worrying too much about the current dynamics between the former royals and their erstwhile subjects. From the terrace of your mahal, you would have seen village folk labouring in the surrounding fields. So you must let your readers know that they are poor but happy. Especially when they are returning home at twilight or sunset.
Peddle positivity
Ah, sunset. There are special rules for sunsets. No more dappling, that is reserved for the morning and early afternoon sun. The evening sun is a gleaming red orb in the sky. When it goes down, it suffuses the landscape with an unearthly glow. Sunsets are never boring. Every sunset is better than all the ones you have witnessed before. Except the one in Venice. Because, well, Venice. What can be better than the sun going down on a floating city full of gondolas and piazzas? Speaking of Venice, never mention the musty stench that is all-pervasive. Peddle only positivity, Travel is about the good vibes.
Wait, there are some vibes that may not be strictly cheery. But you can write about them only if they can be expressed in a single foreign word that is “untranslatable” into English. By all means, after spending a night or two in Istanbul, craft purple prose about being weighed down by huzun from the moment you got off the plane.
For those of your readers who are not familiar with the work of the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk (yes, such uncultured boors exist), you should explain that huzun can be loosely translated as an inexplicable sense of melancholy or loss. The key word is ‘loosely’.
In the few hours you spend in Lisbon (as part of your nine-day trip to Spain and Portugal), it is inevitable that you will be afflicted by saudade, which may or may not mean the same thing as huzun. Write about how it enveloped you. If Portugal seems too far away, you should visit a heritage property in South Goa to experience a less intense version. Varying degrees of saudade are to be had wherever the Portuguese once set foot as a maritime power.
It goes without saying that you are a Foodie. All Travellers are Foodies, and all Foodies are Travellers who Travel to Eat and Eat to Travel. Never mind that you secretly think that your mum’s mixed vegetable khichdi is a superior culinary creation to Moroccan tagine. The golden rule is to venerate street food: the humble, unpretentious grub that the locals eat themselves. You may have been historically averse to chicken entrails but it is 3 a.m. in pulsing Manila and you live only once.
Wherever possible, you must describe the food you have eaten in excruciating detail. We could do with more gourmands and food critics — there are just not enough of them to be going around. Readers need to be spoon-fed, so please do not hold back on the metaphors, especially the ones comparing a meal to a religious experience or a passionate love affair.
If your story is about that holiday you took to “escape civilisation”, dedicate a line or two to spell out your fantasy of permanently moving from the manic, impersonal City to a vague notion of the Countryside or the Hills. It is crucial to convey to your readers that you are the kind of person that might actually pull it off, that big move to the Hills.
This is where your one-line bio (found at the end of the piece) comes in. While you are admittedly someone who feels at home everywhere and nowhere, your ultimate dream is to have a cabin in the Hills, where you will spend the days writing, doodling and tending to apple orchards.
Only organic, please
Everything is organic in the Hills. It is important to generalise and jump to the conclusion that Hill Dwellers are content with their lot. Fresh mountain air equals simplicity equals contentment. You can safely assume that young people are not interested in fleeing their sylvan, wooded haven for places offering more attractive economic and social opportunities.
It is taboo to refer to any disappointments arising out of an expectation-reality mismatch. For instance, never write that the waterfall with its paradisiacal turquoise pool — which you first came across on a friend’s Instagram — is more a glorified trickle with a shallow, muddy pond at its foot.
Never mention that there are no discoveries left to be made, no paths that have been left untrodden. Do not bring up homesickness, mediocre food and indifferent locals. It would not be wise to stress on any irreconcilable differences in ways of life and thinking: your job is to highlight the essential humanity of people everywhere. The world is one big family.
Finally, and most importantly: your closing paragraph must express the idea that Travel is Transformation. It could be a weekend trip to Lonavala or Nandi Hills, but you must come back a New Person, with a Fresh Perspective on Life. Adopt a wistful tone but at the same time look forward to basking in the internal changes that Travel has wrought.
Like the Pied Piper, with your dulcet prose, lead your readers to the edge of the cliff and let them see, in the distance, the full richness of Travel and Life. Let them fall, and experience it for themselves. Of course, as a parting flourish, you must declare that you will definitely return to wherever it is you have been. One day.
The author, a lawyer by qualification and afternoon napper by inclination, is at home everywhere and nowhere.