National_Geographic_Traveller_India-May_2018

24 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MAY 2018

THE ITINERARY CONVERSATION WITH WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

PHOTO COURTESY:

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE/TASVEER AND DAUBLE

THERE ARE PARTS OF KASHMIR,
PAKISTAN, THAT THIS SHOW
CAPTURES. IS IT HARDER TO MOVE
AROUND THOSE PLACES NOW?
Obviously Kashmir is more tense. I
have travelled a lot there but never run
into any trouble. As a firangi you’re not
really anyone’s enemy. And Pakistan
is obviously tenser than it was when I
first went travelling there in the mid-
eighties. It’s heavily armed and more
scarred by terrorism and jihadi activity.
Now when you travel along [some

parts] there are check points every

10 miles. You have to produce papers

and photocopies of your passport and

whathaveyou at each stop. But it’s not

difficult. They are all accessible.

DO YOU EVER TRAVEL FOR ITS

OWN SAKE OR IS IT ALWAYS

RELATED TO WORK?

Often. I just got back from a trip to

Chettinad, which was an entirely

self-indulgent holiday, where we ate

magnificently. I often try and combine

it with work if possible. Whenever

I’m in a litfest I try and take a day off

afterwards to see something. Even

during the Chettinad trip, the first

couple of days I was looking at East

India Company material in Chennai

and Tranquebar before setting off

on a holiday.

DO YOU FEEL STILL LIKE AN

OUTSIDER WHEN YOU TRAVEL

IN INDIA?

I think after 30 years I’m both an

insider and an outsider, which is quite a

useful thing to be. It could be awkward

in some ways socially if you are still an

outsider after 30 years but certainly

as a writer, an outsider sees things

that someone in the places doesn’t see.

To be an outsider in a country opens

your eyes. There is still an element of

surprise every day. But after 30-

years I can interpret most things I

see. Though now still every day there

are surprises. This is a remarkable,

surprising country. There is still so

much I haven’t seen and so much I don’t

understand, which is ideal for a writer.

HAVE YOU CHANGED MUCH

AS A TRAVELLER SINCE YOUR

FIRST BOOKS?

There’s no question that India

completely changed me. I’m a very

different person than who I would

have been had I gone off to London

and worked at a newspaper there. As

a traveller now I’m in my fifties and

the kind of rough hitchhiking and

backpacking that I did as a teenager

is less appealing. I can still rough it

when necessary but I think middle age

changes what you look for in travel.

That initial adventure of heading off

for the first time on your own with a

backpack isn’t something you can carry

on doing in your middle age.

ARE THERE PLACES THAT YOU

KEEP RETURNING TO?

Many. Most places in this exhibition

are favourites I go back to: Lucknow,

Calcutta, Srirangapatna, Hyderabad

and of course, Delhi. But also Lahore

and Kashmir. India is so rich, even in a

place you know well there are surprises.

That’s why India is so wonderful. It’s

so dense in its culture. Even if you have

travelled energetically and madly for

many years there’s always new stuff.¾

Dalrymple likes to click photos on his phone, and edits them to create these striking black-
and-white images. This one is clicked in the hills of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh.