Travelling by proxy

TELLY VISION

While it's a nightmare to have an auto slithering through Delhi's traffic, what naturally makes it worse is, a) your presence as the passenger in the auto, b) Delhi's scorching heat that takes full advantage of your AC-less situation, and c) reaching an office with empty chairs and absent colleagues who are off on their annual vacation. And no, I can't take a holiday just now, for reasons that are highly personal, thank you very much.

The lethargy leaves me with little choice and that includes cancelling appointments with supreme regularity, checking the Net for attractive holiday packages (it never hurts to fantasise) and imagining myself gliding in slow motion on a snow-peaked mountain, or walking languorously on a beach, reading books, listening to music and alternating my taste buds between fresh coconut water, wine and beer.

And if an imagination in vacation never hurts, what pricks even more is looking at people who breathe life into such vacations.

On one of my recent morose evenings I watched Amazing Vacation Homes, letting my emotions hang between complete disdain (for myself) and absolute fascination (for those whom I saw).

There was a couple who had built themselves a tree-house. No, not an ordinary tree-house, but a spherical, ball-like structure, suspended with thick, tight ropes, in the middle of a forest near Vancouver, at least 100 ft above ground level.

The spheres, as viewers were informed, were made from laminations of wood strips and covered with clear fibreglass and joined together. The house, claimed the occupants, was waterproof and the anchor squeaked in delight when she peeked into a well-stocked mini refrigerator, a microwave, a unique living area, bedrooms with adjoining bathing space.

And just when I thought these vacation visionaries didn't exist in abundance, the anchor was staring at a "recycled" vacation home in Mexico, its walls made from automobile tyres, its electricity and water supply coming from solar panels and a rainwater harvesting technology.

The house was a success, not because the owner dared to have such an imagination, it was a phenomenon especially because it dared to exist in this day and age. And though admittedly, it didn't sound or look too attractive to stay in the midst of recycled items, in another episode of Amazing Vacation Homes, I found myself ogling at a brilliant turquoise stone, which incidentally was embedded in a beaten brass knob which doubled as a shower control.

There were gems (real ones, we were told) in this house, a play of colours on the flooring, doors and windows, in mosaic and stained glass. And yes, before I turned off the telly that night, I was looking at a home which had no walls, just windows, with washes of natural light that filtered generously into all rooms.

While I'm yet to see an Indian home featured on the show, Anthony Bourdain, in one of the re-telecast episodes of his celebrated programme No Reservations, was looking admiringly at Udaipur's Lake Palace.

And it was not just the five-star vacation that's caught his fancy, from enjoying hospitality at an obscure village in Rajastan to being part of a studio with a kitchen-sink drama in progress in Mumbai's Film City, he's seen much more of our country than I think I ever will.

Maybe a vacation for me should actually begin with exploring my own city. After all, there's a lot of this city that one needs to discover. Otherwise, I can always turn to another unique vacation home on the telly: a cave home in Minnesotta. Sounds comfy and cosy, and a perfect getaway to hibernate, doesn't it?

(abhilasha.ojha@bsmail.in)