The Revival of Cultourism

CULTURAL TOURISM ISN’T something new but it is something that India is discovering all over again. Be it the Jaipur Literature Festival or the Nagaur Sufi Festival or even the Hornbill Festival, more and more people are travelling to soak in as much culture as possible.

Which is why my word for this kind of tourism is CULTOURISM. Tourism with a clear cultural angle: you do of course remember the year-end concert in Vienna or for that matter Andrea Bocelli’s annual concert at Lajatico. We in India did have this as well until we were so consumed with malls, not museums. To this day, more people visit the Louvre in Paris than any other site, including the Eiffel Tower, but our folks are so happy in messing up hill stations and forgetting their own legacy that we in India have long ignored cultourism. I still remember how people in the good old days would travel cities in order to hear the Indian Classical Music Greats and how these concerts were not only the epitome of Indian heritage, but they offered more than even a luxury hotel experience would. And then we started to ape the West which, by the way, continued to not only nourish but also expand this footprint of tourism. They went and opened monuments for concerts and plays like one had never seen before while we were twiddling our thumbs doing some wretched son et lumière. This is why Indian tourism suffered. You can’t indulge in tokenism and expect people to pay for it. Look at some of our most visited tourist cities and in them you won’t find anything even remotely cultural, except some silly 10-minute musical rendition and, that too, mostly at restaurants.

More than governments, it is individuals who are keeping this flag of cultourism flying: look at the amazing curation by the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai and the reason is that both Nita and Isha Ambani are personally involved.

Look at the brilliant tapestry of music that Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur has created between Nagaur and Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur. Those festivals draw people from across the world and do more for folk music and India than what some of the jokers in Delhi are doing, and this angers me. We have done away with great Theatre Festivals; we have done away with Music in the Park; corporates have dumbed down so much that they are happy sponsoring any rubbish. It took Christian Dior to focus on the Gateway of India when they did their fashion show there recently.

There are no statues of committees in any park: only of individual achievers, and as long as cultourism is driven by bureaucrats, you can kiss this goodbye. This needs people with vision and not a file. It needs people with exposure and not those who only know how to manage elections. We need to support individuals and it doesn’t matter what their political affiliation is; we need to revive patrons who will take it upon themselves to create magical journeys which are infused with culture, and we have all the spaces; all the monuments, and so on. I am still looking forward to the gharanas reviving themselves in their city of origin and then pairing it with food and/or wine.

Give people experiences enriched with culture. That is when you will create a unique brand out of India. And its amazing cultural legacy.

Brand IndiaCultourismcultureGaj SinghJodhpurMehrangarh FortTravel Issue 2023