A Journey within a Trip

When one finishes reading a good book it takes a while to leave behind the world the writer has created and return to one’s world. Last Sunday I was in a bus trundling out of the city with a book in hand to my native town. Less than three months ago I had made the same trip as part of a large contingent of our families. Me and my brothers had wanted to show our families the ancestral house we were born in and our numerous relations especially our elderly uncle, my father’s eldest brother. It was a happy reunion. Our kids saw for the first time some of their cousins, their aunts and grandparents in their eighties for the first time. I wondered when I would be returning again to my town. Not more than three months have passed and I am making the trip again.


This time I was making the trip all alone to attend a ceremony of the same uncle who had died the previous week. After breakfast on Sunday morning, I caught a bus sometime around half past nine and settled down for the four hour trip. The weather outside was gorgeous and I spent a long time looking out of the window at the passing landscape that seemed to change with every mile. Now we were speeding by on the National Highway and now we were passing through small crowded roadside towns bustling with people. There was evidence of the effects of the drought here and there in the form of dried up crops which had turned brown. The only greenery was the green patches of groundnut crop irrigated by borewell water .

Some places the grass had turned golden that looked just wonderful in the midmorning sun. At periodical intervals the bus made a few halts at small towns where some of the passengers got out and newer ones got in. One thing I miss in the Secretariat posting is the frequent travelling that I used to do in my earlier posting at Suryapet which entailed travel by local buses and watching a variety of people. In between watching the landscape outside the bus window I lost myself in Binyavanga Wainaina’s ‘One Day I Will Write About This Place’ that was engrossing. Outside there was rural India and inside, in my hands was rural Africa.

‘One Day I Will Write About This Place’ is a memoir by Wainaiana about his life in Kenya, South Africa, his childhood, his relations especially his parents, sister and studying which he doesn’t seem to be very interested in and a lot about Africa especially its politics, its numerous tribes and flashes of humor that makes for a fascinating read. Wainaian describes the African landscape, the places he visits and the people he meets and about his desire to write more than anything else. I was lost in that book that took me to Africa while I was travelling in my own homeland. I felt like it was a journey within a trip. Then there were a few things I had in common with Wainaina- a love of reading, a desire to write and also, the fact that he was involved in agriculture extension, that is, giving advice to farmers which is what I am supposed to do in my job. Though the copy I am reading is an uncorrected bound proof there was no sign (at least to my eyes) that there was anything wrong except for a couple of typos. It would be interesting to read the actual published edition that I hope I will find in the bookstores here.

Lost in the book the four hours passed quite quickly and at around two in the afternoon I reached the small town. I walked through the narrow road of the town to the large house where I was born. I felt sad and couldn’t properly express my feelings to my aunt who lost her son and her husband within the span of a couple of weeks. I was also amazed at the fortitude my unlettered, hardworking almost eighty year old aunt displayed. On my previous visit two months ago under happy circumstances in the company of my brothers and their families I had told my aunt that she would live to be a hundred years. She had shaken her head and said she did not have such a wish. She had seen enough of life she said. Now she wiped the tears from her eyes and asked why I did not bring along my kid. Grandmothers are always like that, they want to see the kids. I had thought of bringing along my son but he was preparing for his midterm exams. But still I wish I had taken him along because my aunt and my mother who was with her would have felt happy.

After lunch I was on my way home at Hyderabad. But this time I made the return trip cocooned in a cousin’s car. It was an unremarkable trip that lasted just three hours. We did not stop anywhere and we didn’t talk much also. I did not read the book but watched the landscape zip by with barely anything registering. The world’s so different when seen through the window of a bus.