An Indian Goes Around the World – I (Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum)

Preface

 â€œI travel, therefore I am – apologies to Descartes for twisting his profound thought.” This has been my stock reply to those who ask me where I get the guts from to venture into far corners of the world, often alone.

The venture is a belated realization of a dream I have nurtured since my early teens. While most of my other dreams have shattered, as I grew older, this one remained intact. At long last, I am in the process of fulfilling it. The joy I am deriving from it more than compensates for the agony I felt when my other dreams got shattered. I am happy that things turned out the way they did.

Apart from being a source of great pleasure, traveling has also been a great learning experience for me. What I learned from academic institutions – I have a Ph.D. in Political Science from a prestigious American University – is no match for what I have been learning from my travels around the world. The most important lesson I learned is that people are people, no matter what region or religion they belong to or what political system they live under. They open up to you if you approach them with an open mind.

I did not begin pursuing my passion for travel with a view to writing a book about it. The excitement I felt, the knowledge I gained, and the friendships I built with peoples from vastly different cultures around the world have been rewards enough for me. The book materialized as an afterthought.

Some of my friends, to whom I used to send emails narrating my experience and sharing my excitement, responded with gratitude and kept asking for more. “M.P., travel writing is your forte,” one of them said. “Some of the pieces you have sent are so heart-warming. Why not concentrate on this field? Why waste your time belaboring with political stuff?”

She had been familiar with my political writings, the targets of which often are pompous asses who pretend to have solutions to all world problems. Since 2001, those writings have been appearing in The East-West Inquirer, an online monthly I started that year.

Thanks to friends like her, I started posting my travel pieces also on the Web site. The responses from those who regularly visit the site, www.eastwestinquirer.com, have been exhilarating. Some of them suggested that I bring out a collection of my articles on travel in the form of a book. I owe this book to those who made the suggestion. The book will have sequels. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow:

My Two Embarrassing

Moments in Buenos Aires