One Person’s Distraction is Another’s Meh

Two of the books I ordered have come in—Bridge of Birds (Barry Hughart) and Iain Banks’ Consider Phlebas. I went with the Bird book first because Banks’ tome is, about 528 pounds—no RILLY! 

 I was about 20 pages into the Bird Bridges. It was lovely, there was  an air of mystery, a bit poetic too BUT I’d not encountered so much as one damn spaceship nor a definitive protagonist OR a bloody vampire (NOT the teen romance sort mind you).

What’s this mean? Perhaps I  need more hard core, lightweight escapism than I’d imagined. Not surprised here. Mebbe I need to keep reading Bad Trips until Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising comes in, eh? That one, from her young adult series, sounds like it’s more up my current alley. Hopefully it weighs less than half a ton.

Meanwhile, in Bad Trips. I just finished an essay by Rohinton Mistry about his unfortunate visit to see his aunt and uncle in Dharamsala. This is the home of his holiness the Dalai Lama. I’d think, as I’ll bet a lot of you would, it’d be lovely—all idyllic and shit. 

Not so much.
It was raining the entire time—he arrived soaked to the bone. The electricity was out throughout the area. The workers were on strike and, worse yet, sabotaging the lines. No electricity, no way to dry out his sodden clothes.

If this wasn’t bad enough, though there was cold rain falling from the sky, there was no hot OR cold water to be had in his hotel room. With the heavy rains, mudslides had caused rocks to fall from the hills, landing on and breaking the pipes. No hot water meant no hot bath to clean up and relax in after his long trip.

As for the lovely aspect—again, not so much. When the Dalai Lama fled to Tibet in 1959, ahead of the cruel, murdering  hordes, other Tibetans followed. A colony was formed. Mountain slopes were deforested because the refugees, like everyone else, needed firewood to heat their homes. When a lot of trees are cut down the land rebels. The previously mentioned mudslides and rock falls happen way more often.

Patrick Marnham’s tale of Indian train travel reminded me of why, despite being utterly intrigued, I’ve never been inspired to travel to the country.

I used to know a guy who held India up as a bastion of spirituality. He made the trek, expecting a place draped in saris and dhotis, with everyone bowing to one another, uttering soft namastes. Yeah, he was in for a big surprise. He spent the first couple of days in his hotel room—in bed, curled in the fetal pose.

No place and no one will live up to our fantasies, our dreams. Not even Iceland (*GASP*).