9 hours ago
Holiday CRush
Times of India's Edit Page team comprises senior journalists with wide-ranging interests who debate and opine on the news and issues of the day.
Supposing a song, book, movie pulls a tourist to India, how might this journey go?
Perhaps nothing gladdens an ersatz desi heart more than a Western ode to Indian beauty. All the complexities of that EM Forster novel about that cave are nothing in comparison to how it continues to send the odd traveller our way. That one Odissi dancer in one Michael Jackson video is never to be forgotten. More current examples of course result in convulsions of joy. Wes Anderson to Coldplay, we scan any India-ish creation with a Sherlock magnifying glass. Did you spot Jodhpur's Mehrangarh fort or this spice bazaar or jhumka gali or that Varanasi ghat or Worli gaon? Ed Sheeran's new song Sapphire has also sent the socials on this look, don't miss, hunt.
As a solidly underperforming tourist destination, India can really do with this kind of free advertising. It's one thing to be totally overshadowed by France, quite another by petite Dubai with nary a world heritage site. Even domestic tourists have begun switching their Goa bookings to Hanoi, Phuket, Bali and Siem Reap. Hence any global song, book, movie pitching Destination India sparking a national amour propre is logical. But supposing tourists far and near do hark the invite and do hoof over, it still may not, sadly, make for a fairy tale.
As Abhijit Banerjee has written in TOI, we may be a very big country, but most tourists don't seem to know that. Crowds gravitate to the same historical ports of call, the same hill stations, the same beaches. For the most part, authorities don't even try to moderate the overcrowding, whether it means pollution turning ancient marble to grey or stacked monstrosities destabilising Himalayan mountains, which means tourists having a poor to dangerous experience. Full circle then, the tourist will curse the song, book, movie that made the nightmare look like a dream.
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This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
