On the Road in Real India

A young professional Bengali couple from Kolkata making a new life for itself—this demographic is almost as much a part of the Delhi mosaic now as the post-Partition migrant from west Punjab. Such a life, though, was not good enough for Kolkatans-turned-Delhiites, Devapriya Roy and Saurav Jha. So, they quit their jobs to become full-time writers, embracing all the uncertainties that came with their decision. One of their writing projects was to travel across India on a very small budget of Rs 500 per day and then co-author a book about their experiences. The enterprising couple knew that they would only be able to afford cheap hotels, eateries and government-run buses. So they called their adventure ‘The Heat and Dust Project’ and embarked on it in the winter of 2010.

Their book, made up of sections which Roy and Jha have taken turns to write, bears the same title. It also has a subtitle that is misleading—for, this is not quite the ‘guide to Bharat’ the subtitle proclaims. It is an account of travels through towns in Rajasthan and Gujarat, along with visits to a couple of other destinations outside these two states.

In many respects, Roy and Jha are ideal travel writers— well-educated and well-read, they come across as open-minded and happy to make new friends. They are sensitive but can be tough if the situation calls for it. Roy recounts how on one occasion, when a man threatened to hit a young woman on their bus, Jha swiftly made the man back off. Many of their co-passengers were actually siding with the man, but Jha talked and reasoned until the situation was defused. The reason behind the commotion was a jackfruit that the woman was carrying with her. Apparently, in many parts of India, carrying this particular vegetable on a journey is considered inauspicious. As the bus conductor explained to Jha, they were not against the girl, they were against the jackfruit. This is just the kind of story that Roy and Jha’s arm-chair alter ego, the reader, is looking for—a glimpse into the ‘real’ India that the inside of an aeroplane is unlikely to yield. Thus, as they wander from town to small town, Roy and Jha’s best conversations are not with the Israeli backpackers they befriend in Jaisalmer or Junagadh, but with auto-rickshaw drivers and manager-cum-owners of the modest hotels they stay in.

In one of the book’s more affecting sections, Roy describes an evening spent with the women of the Parashar household in Pushkar which has converted one part of their haveli into a bustling guesthouse. Roy, who has studied literature and written two novels, weaves descriptions of the worship rituals she has been invited to join in with girlhood memories of her grandmothers and their puja rooms. In the space of a couple of pages she breathes life into the brief time she spent with this joint family, delicately outlining how the women seek their own balance between tradition and modernity. Roy is quite sincerely attached to Hindu customs and myths she grew up with and she makes no attempt to underplay this fact. Her love for the cult of Krishna shows up in manifold ways—she quotes Meera and Jayadeva’s poetry, retells folktales featuring Krishna, and gets excited about visiting the pilgrimage centres in and around Mathura.

It falls upon Jha to give the historical backstory for the places on their itinerary, such as the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur or the Adi-Kadi Vav step-well in Uparkot. His day job as an expert who writes on geopolitics could be one reason why he often sounds like a college professor. A delightful exception is his pen-portrait of a fellow bus passenger—a wiry, young Gujarati share-broker who, extending his hand across the aisle, introduces himself as, “Myself, Jignes Gordia.”

Alas, too few Jignes Bhais populate this book. Instead, there are far too many humdrum pages. The extended account of the couple’s stay in Delhi, for example, doesn’t contain one memorable character, conversation or incident. They attend a big party at a five-star hotel where, wide-eyed, they spot famous people and even manage to speak with one or two. Clearly, they are nowhere near heat or dust.

The solution seems obvious—instead of covering 10 towns in the space of a few weeks, Roy and Jha should have spent a year roughing it out and travelling across India and only then sat down to distill their experiences into a 280-page book. Having taken the plunge, it is best to go all the way.

About The Author

Himanshu Bhagat