Theroux. That Wanderlust.

Paul Theroux wrote this in The Great Railway Bazaar:

"[Train] travel animated my imagination and usually gave me the solitude to order and write my thoughts: I travelled easily in two directions, along the level rails while Asia flashed changed at the window, and at the interior rim of a private world memory and language. I cannot imagine a luckier combination."

While many no doubt find Paul Theroux rather pampered and bourgeois, a tad too much for liking, I find solace in his brutal honesty, his down-to-earth and matter-of-fact attitude. It is not because he is too cynical, it is only that he does not go out of his way to employ euphemism and hypocrisy like many of us simply do. You might deem his tone typical of Western condescension, yet I find the sympathetic patronage that many afford third-world societies rather repulsive. Don't be mistaken, I am not adopting arrogance here. It's just, pretension should be kept at arm's length whenever possible. If you're not a hippie who'd smoke the bidi's with the Indians or wear conical hats with the Vietnamese, you simply aren't.

I cannot imagine why anyone would condemn Theroux for his observations - though I cannot deny that he is not always absolutely objective. Yet, his observations are often well-hinged on reality. One plain example would be the following: "The Pakhtoonistan issue was a few villages of armed Pathan tribesmen, supported by Russia and Afghanistan, who were threatening to secede from Pakistan; declare a new state, and, deriving their income from dried fruit, become a sovereign power; the liberated warriors would then compete in the world market of raisins and prunes." Alright, so who's to say that he was wrong in this?

Anyways, I read this article.

What The People With Wanderlust Are Like 

And it occurred to me how I am not alone in this. For every music I'd listened to on a long distance train, every minute visuals that I inadvertently registered along freeways, jerk memories at the slightest stimulation while I'm back home. It seems that life would never return to normal. Or would it? -- Once I learn to settle down.