Telly travels

TELLY VISION

, mentions that while his novel was in the writing stage, he charted out a journey into Afghanistan after 27 long years "" much like his protagonist Amir did in the novel after he and his father had sought refuge in America.

"I gazed out of the window, waiting for the plane to break through the clouds," says Houssini, "waiting for Kabul to appear below me."

He goes on, "When it did... Amir's thoughts suddenly became my own: I thought I had forgotten about this land. But I hadn't. Maybe Afghanistan hadn't forgotten me either. The old adage in writing is you write about what you've experienced.

I was going to experience what I had already written about."

Journeys have an uncanny way of putting the seal on experiences. If Houssini wrote to experience a journey that brought him closer to himself, Gaurav Jani set out to shoot and film what he thought was "a journey to remember forever".

His documentary Riding Solo to the Top of the World, which will soon be aired on Discovery, features him, his trusted 350 cc bike and his incredible expedition from the traffic-clogged roads of Mumbai to the rough terrain leading up to Changthang Plateau, one of the remotest places in the world.

A one-man unit film, Riding Solo doesn't have a single dull moment: from the point of Jani discovering (and filming) that he is a sufferer of acute mountain sickness, to the enormous language barrier between him and the Changpas "" the 5,000-odd native tribals who live in yak wool tents and rear livestock for fine wool "" to the day when Jani gains entry into a tantrik monastery where the body of a lama is mummified and the severed hands of a supposed evil sorceress look down at him. Riding Solo is a film that kickstarts to life immediately and acquaints audiences with the nonstop challenges that greeted the protagonist.

While Jani's back in Mumbai busy collecting awards for his documentary, on Discovery Travel and Living, select Indian celebs from the entertainment industry are getting ready to host a six-part series, Indian Rendezvous.

Covering cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, the channel has hand-picked some interesting people including sarod player Ayaan Ali Khan (who will host the Delhi episode), actor Konkona Sen Sharma (doing the Kolkata episode) and singer Vasundhara Das for the Bangalore segment.

These are celebs who have grown up in the city and will give the green signal for audiences to join the joyride to the city. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Hyderabad episode that will be anchored by director Nagesh Kukunoor.

The Mumbai and Chennai legs will be hosted by actors Sushma Reddy and Meera Vasudevan respectively.

In the Indian context, Deepti Bhatnagar Productions and Miditech are by far the only two production houses that have managed to create a dent in the Indian travel shows segment so far.

Will Indian Rendezvous match up to international travel shows (I saw one recently where the anchor takes a trip to Peru and discovers an old woman preparing "chicha", a 1,000-year-old recipe made of corn) and the impeccable research that goes into creating these unique travel shows? We'll find out soon.

Till then sit back, grab that remote and let your telly take you on a trip around the world.