Kerala – The Tourist spot
It was a week long escape to Kerala- God’s own country. The green and cozy-lazy Kochin, lush beauty of Munnar, expanse of Periyar and finally a trip along the waterways. Nothing more we could ask for.
Yes indeed Kerala is beautiful with loads of greenery and waterfalls and winding hill roads. The boat ride on Periyar’s green blue water watching the dark jungle on the banks and avoiding the quite a few lonely tree trunks jutting out of water is an experience in itself. The voyage on backwaters, equally relaxing where we watched life in full form on both the banks laced with birds flying, sun setting and trees reflecting in water.
All in all great holiday experience but somehow it failed to touch my heart. It could be excess hype created for the God’s own country or over –commercialization of every activity. May be it was too tourist oriented or may be it was too rehearsed. I thought that Kerala has overdone their tourism avtar. And I guess that will be the fate of most of India’s tourism oriented states. More a place becomes a tourist attraction, it fast looses it’s raw appeal. It also looses its purpose for being an attraction since now it gets crowded with so many other ’attractions’ e.g. shops, eateries specially put in to appease a special someone called ‘tourist’. The Echo point of Mattuputy lake in Munnar was a blatant reminder of the fact that we go as tourists and tourism means shopping and eating. It would have been such a serene place with green silky waters draped on earth and wall of tall trees and hills bordering the vast lake. However it was nothing but a shop hive with bhaji and chai smells wafting all around!
I understand that it is a commercial decision to put entry fees for jungle treks, temples and monuments, facilitate boat rides at a price on lakes and take tolls to ride smoothly on a thick forested road. All in all enhancing tourism seems to be all about creating more ‘enjoyment’ opportunities from which the state can generate money. And what sort of enjoyment, be it a ride on elephant through plantations on a patch of road traversed by the elephant umpteen times in a day or a walk through quarter of an acre of spice plants with a guide who is better off speaking in his mother tongue.
Since we heavily borrow all our lifestyle ideas from the influential West, it is no wonder that the implementation of tourism is an equally imported and copied feature of modern India. Tourism in all developed countries is a matter of enjoyment, relaxation and more often entertainment. Hence a great natural wonder is often reduced to a 2 hour tour. And many times trivial and mundane spot is also decorated and hyped which can fool you and leave you dissatisfied. The emphasis is on the ‘paying’ tourist and not on the spot. Well some of us definitely enjoy this ‘tourism’ but some of us want to run away from it. Having access to mineral water on a hill top is good, but more important is access to written material about the place, the history, the geography. Making facilities of food and relaxation is wanted but keep the sanctity of the place, we do not want to hear radio tunes in pristine lake forest.
Finally what is tourism and what does a tourist want? Many amongst us want to have the same city life of comfort, movies, shops, rich food albeit in a different setting for a few days. But there are few who are students before they are tourists, who want to understand the place and it’s ethos in complete natural setting. May be it is best for such tourist to visit a museum and gaze at a sculpture and recreate the surrounding by imagination and ‘enjoy’ the experience.
Yes indeed Kerala is beautiful with loads of greenery and waterfalls and winding hill roads. The boat ride on Periyar’s green blue water watching the dark jungle on the banks and avoiding the quite a few lonely tree trunks jutting out of water is an experience in itself. The voyage on backwaters, equally relaxing where we watched life in full form on both the banks laced with birds flying, sun setting and trees reflecting in water.
All in all great holiday experience but somehow it failed to touch my heart. It could be excess hype created for the God’s own country or over –commercialization of every activity. May be it was too tourist oriented or may be it was too rehearsed. I thought that Kerala has overdone their tourism avtar. And I guess that will be the fate of most of India’s tourism oriented states. More a place becomes a tourist attraction, it fast looses it’s raw appeal. It also looses its purpose for being an attraction since now it gets crowded with so many other ’attractions’ e.g. shops, eateries specially put in to appease a special someone called ‘tourist’. The Echo point of Mattuputy lake in Munnar was a blatant reminder of the fact that we go as tourists and tourism means shopping and eating. It would have been such a serene place with green silky waters draped on earth and wall of tall trees and hills bordering the vast lake. However it was nothing but a shop hive with bhaji and chai smells wafting all around!
I understand that it is a commercial decision to put entry fees for jungle treks, temples and monuments, facilitate boat rides at a price on lakes and take tolls to ride smoothly on a thick forested road. All in all enhancing tourism seems to be all about creating more ‘enjoyment’ opportunities from which the state can generate money. And what sort of enjoyment, be it a ride on elephant through plantations on a patch of road traversed by the elephant umpteen times in a day or a walk through quarter of an acre of spice plants with a guide who is better off speaking in his mother tongue.
Since we heavily borrow all our lifestyle ideas from the influential West, it is no wonder that the implementation of tourism is an equally imported and copied feature of modern India. Tourism in all developed countries is a matter of enjoyment, relaxation and more often entertainment. Hence a great natural wonder is often reduced to a 2 hour tour. And many times trivial and mundane spot is also decorated and hyped which can fool you and leave you dissatisfied. The emphasis is on the ‘paying’ tourist and not on the spot. Well some of us definitely enjoy this ‘tourism’ but some of us want to run away from it. Having access to mineral water on a hill top is good, but more important is access to written material about the place, the history, the geography. Making facilities of food and relaxation is wanted but keep the sanctity of the place, we do not want to hear radio tunes in pristine lake forest.
Finally what is tourism and what does a tourist want? Many amongst us want to have the same city life of comfort, movies, shops, rich food albeit in a different setting for a few days. But there are few who are students before they are tourists, who want to understand the place and it’s ethos in complete natural setting. May be it is best for such tourist to visit a museum and gaze at a sculpture and recreate the surrounding by imagination and ‘enjoy’ the experience.
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