Perhaps, people are too wired and fancied up now to want to drive through the mountains in the back of a truck with strangers, wind rustling through their hair, one of the many lush, adventurous scenarios Kerouac paints.
The most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa, has recently been called the world’s most disappointing masterpiece, according to research that analysed over 18,000 online reviews. This deflating truth is not news to the curators at the Louvre who see disgruntled tourists jostling for pictures in front of this remote treasure, shielded as it is by bullet-proof glass. There was an attempt to gently nudge irate crowds stuck in snake queues to appreciate the other compelling if not as famous works, with a sign in the gallery: “The Mona Lisa is surrounded by other masterpieces—take a look around the room.” Alas, to no avail because everyone wants to tick off a to-do bucket list item, however unsatisfying it may be.
The tragedy of museums and all the wonders on earth, Machu Picchu or the Great Pyramids of Giza, for instance, is that they are overwhelmed by the phenomenon of viewers needing a photograph as memento, to mark their presence. Selfie and bucket list culture have destroyed the pleasure of travel. The idea that if you’re not striking off destinations one by one you’re missing out is patently flawed because discovery happens by slowly loitering around and giving oneself up to chance. But in the “I was there!” Instagram era, people care less about knowing why a work of art or particular place is worth visiting but just the fact that everyone is, has turned us into shallow curiosity seekers. Yet, often, while viewing what sophisticated aesthetes and UNESCO have declared to be uniquely important, a confusing thought tends to arise: really, this? Standing before something that in our imaginations was supposed to evoke shivers of delight yet here we are feeling nothing at all is much more common than we admit.
Sure, the mania for the Mona Lisa is merited; for generations, art scholars have tried to interpret what lies behind that enigmatic, knowing gaze. But most of us novices flocked to the Louvre, enticed by peer pressure, insidious marketing and the painting’s fame, so no surprise that after elbowing one’s way through the hordes, the experience is highly anti-climactic. It’s not such a revolutionary idea that we don’t have a duty to like or look at stuff merely because everyone else does. For years, every trip for me began with a sense of dread, of being herded around single file, half heartedly admiring artistic accomplishment. My threshold for the appreciation of beautiful things, I discovered, is half an hour, after which my eyes glaze over and I’m blinded by the unfamiliar over stimulation. While evaluating the cost benefit analysis of museum pricing, travelers think it’s a waste not to see all of it. But if you’ve had enough, it’s a bigger waste of time to lose a precious day.
We travel for sights and scenes, a break from routine but also to know ourselves better. Time slows down when you’re ambling without a plan, anonymous in a new city, embracing the role of an outsider. “The road is life,” observed Jack Kerouac in On the Road, the 60-year-old classic about his meandering journey across North America that inspired generations to explore the world on their own terms, travel itineraries be damned. Perhaps, people are too wired and fancied up now to want to drive through the mountains in the back of a truck with strangers, wind rustling through their hair, one of the many lush, adventurous scenarios Kerouac paints. A trip those days represented freedom, the delicious state of not knowing what came next. The cumulative effect of a holiday like that is entirely unexpected and totally original experiences lodge in our psyches as fond memories. And indeed, it takes these sojourns to the furthest corners of the globe to understand, there really is no place like home.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 05-05-2024 at 07:44 IST
