What are travel writers made of?
07 June 2013
Labels: About, Travel, Travel Writer
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
9 Comments:
- At 7 June 2013 at 09:24, Aghader said...
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Life is a matter of choices and you do make touch choices which shape your perceptions. Staying away from the comforts of home and exploring in the wilderness is a tough choice. But what is the return; the story you write or satisfaction you get or ego boost or all of it. What is that which take you to the mountains and deserts? I want to understand what actually goes on in your mind.
Did I say I love you work though can’t relate to some of it.
FYI, Hico's vanilla is my fav too :-) - At 7 June 2013 at 12:32, said...
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So Yarkand to Lhasa is on the cards now. When? Where is Lhasa?
- At 7 June 2013 at 12:44, Salman Rashid said...
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Lhasa is the capital of Tibet. There is a fantastic truck ride from Karghalik to Lhasa. Alternately, the brand new train from from the east. But before I embark on this one, there are books and books and books to read.
- At 7 June 2013 at 12:48, Salman Rashid said...
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There is no ego boost, Aghader. It is an all-consuming wanderlust. It is to discover what lies beyond the next bend in the road. My friend Nazir Sabir, the great mountaineer, said his drive to climb the highest places on earth was to see what could be seen beyond. It is only curiosity to know the world I live in that drives me. Writing came a few years after I had actually started travelling. The returns of this sort of life are few - and small.
- At 7 June 2013 at 20:58, said...
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Name of Ibne Batuta comes up when I see your work. Great. Wish there were some more like you who could travel to places you have mentioned and give a different view. But to the best of my knowledge there are none. People who travel to Kaghan only absolutely different view than what you hve written. Why do hey see Kaghan only as an accessable hill station to chill for some days in summers, I wonder? Jamshed
- At 7 June 2013 at 21:27, said...
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Indefatigable explorer and writer. How else one can do those 1100 KM (Between Two Burrs on the Map) in tough mountains. I have read the book when I was in Lahore for two years an enjoyed it immensely.
- At 8 June 2013 at 10:05, Salman Rashid said...
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Thank you, Tristram. It was a great journey.
- At 8 June 2013 at 10:10, Salman Rashid said...
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Jamshed, we do not know travel writing in Pakistan because no one had read real travel writing. Even as grown-ups our writers are still stuck in the fourth-grade mental mode: for them a travel story is simply the child's account of the summer holiday. Hence only Kaghan etc. They will, however, make their journeys sound like treks across Antarctica and ordinary Urdu reader never having even heard of real travel writers will take these spurious tales to be the real stuff. Unfortunately we do not realise that illiteracy in English severely limits are capacity to gain knowledge.
- At 9 June 2013 at 21:45, Lahoremassagist said...
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This is called better of both sides. I am sure you have gained this equilibrium over time. Or was it like this from the start?
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