I don’t know why, but this time of the year foments innate desire to break free and enjoy warm sunshine to beat the winter chill. And that has to be out of station. Come December, there’s a scamper to get away with family in tow and celebrate peaking winter season. It’s become a kind of an annual ritual. Some of my office colleagues are headed for Jim Corbett Park; few friends are descending on the beaches of Goa.
Others on longer vacation have a luxury of opting for far-flung hotspots to catch that spirit of winter celebration. I feel out of place in the group. “I plan to spend time with my son at home,” I said and almost immediately felt like a fool. It looked like a quickly concocted statement for want of a better excuse. I never had any plans for this season.
The fact of the matter is, I dread going to tourist destinations during a season when the whole world is on a temporary migratory mode. Three of my colleagues would be camping with their families at Corbett between December 22-25. I am dead certain there would be at least half a dozen more from my office itself, and many more from outside world planning a trip to Corbett Park. That’s too much heat generated at such hotspots to melt the fun of winter sun.
And my enthusiasm. Instead I tend to choose ‘wrong’ times of the year for holidays and target ‘wrong’ places. I would never go to hills or coastal destination during summers and Christmas holidays, never think of backwaters of Kerala during monsoons. I tend to take winters as time to introspect about my past, see countryside, small moffusil towns and of course my own Lucknow. I get a sublime sense of nostalgia and déjà vu at such places having born and brought up in a small town.
Lucknow is my all time favourite. As you step out of Char Bagh railway station, you see a huge billboard beaming: Muskuraiye, aap Lucknow mein hain, (Smile, cos your’re in Lucknow…). And winter breeze slapping on my face lights me up. The rickety-rickshaw ride to my home negotiating the crowded traffic does the rest. A saunter through the streets of Hazrat Ganj is my way of winter vacation.
That’s about my birth place. I have been to Varanasi, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, several non-descript places like Orcha during winters and made a laughing stock of myself. Most would be unbearable during oppressive summers or messy monsoons. Winters give you an opportunity to explore these places you would never ever consciously get to visit. Who plans a holiday at such places unless they happen to be your hometown or beckon you for some family function?
That’s about my birth place. I have been to Varanasi, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, several non-descript places like Orcha during winters and made a laughing stock of myself. Most would be unbearable during oppressive summers or messy monsoons. Winters give you an opportunity to explore these places you would never ever consciously get to visit. Who plans a holiday at such places unless they happen to be your hometown or beckon you for some family function?
That’s about my birth place. I have been to Varanasi, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, several non-descript places like Orcha during winters and made a laughing stock of myself. Most would be unbearable during oppressive summers or messy monsoons. Winters give you an opportunity to explore these places you would never ever consciously get to visit. Who plans a holiday at such places unless they happen to be your hometown or beckon you for some family function?
Last winter, I chose my wife’s hometown – Hazaribagh – tucked in forests of Jharkhand near Ranchi. And loved it. Oiling my body under bright sunshine may not have done well to my thin frame, but fresh air did bring some redness to my cheeks, my friends told me on return.
I spent one full week there, mostly outdoors, sitting next to the well inside the compound staring at vast expanse of well cultivate sunflower farm sipping at Smirnoff (it ran out after three days and I had to make do with our good old Old Monk for rest of the week). Away from my mother-in-law, I can now confess that I didn’t let her know that ledge next to that well was put to such ‘dubious’ purpose.
Nothing seemed to matter in that sylvan surrounding. What more, I found time to revive my sketching skills. That’s when I realized why my wife insisted on packing my charcoal pencils and sketchbook along. There was nothing else to do. I would take a rickshaw in the evenings and scour the potholed streets of the town. I saw more open spaces in that one-week than I do through the year, in Delhi.
Today, looking back I feel I understood the concept, which is only now being articulated. Haven’t you heard noise about rural tourism, eco-tourism, pilgrimage tourism and some such thing? I have some bit of that already. So next time you plan a vacation during winters, try out one of these places and feel a part of the local flavour. And do tell me how you felt.