A file photograph of novelist Pico Iyer

Noted journey author Pico Iyer recalled Bengaluru as a ‘sleepy town’ with bicycles and quiet parks when he visited town 48 years in the past as a 17-year-old. “The city has changed as much as I have from when I was 17 years old and now 65,” he instructed the viewers on the eleventh version of Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF) in Bengaluru on December 3. 

Speaking on why we have to journey, he stated globalisation could have created an phantasm that the world has shrunk, but it surely hasn’t. “In Vancouver (Canada), I was once in a virtual reality booth that showed me the Amazon forest (in Brazil). Coming out, I became more aware of what experiences I could never get virtually. Though we can see and listen to many Rolling Stones concerts on our mobiles, nothing matches being in a live concert. Even now, you cannot taste sushi online,” he stated, including it’s nonetheless so laborious to fall in love with one thing second-hand. 

Video | Whatz up at Bangalore Literature Festival 2022

Recounting his journey to North Korea and Iran, he stated, in an age of knowledge overload, it was telling how little we all know concerning the nations which were most within the headlines. He recounted a way of deja vu in cities of the 2 nations.

“I started from Las Vegas, travelled across the West for three days and reached Pyongyang (capital of North Korea) to get the strange feeling that I am back in Vegas. The skyline of the cities in Iran was similar to Dubai,” he stated. He recounted assembly a taxi driver in Iran, who had been educated in London (the U.Ok.), fled Iran, sought asylum within the U.Ok., however sneaks again yearly to satisfy his household, and pay his respects to a Sufi saint.

“I had once set aside four years of my life to read everything on Iran to set a novel in a country that I had not visited. I had written about Iran, but four hours in the country gave me new insights into the country and culture. Never have we heard of people who have fled Iran sneak back to visit the home they fled, but miss so much. I realised Iran is about these contradictions. I saw pirated copies of biographies of Steve Jobs selling fast in Iran, but that hasn’t made them any less hostile to the U.K. or the U.S.A.,” he stated.

“Today, we are 200 cultures divided by a common frame of reference. Travelling is not for the sights, but to get a new set of eyes and it’s not about to move, but about being moved. A photographer working on the refugee crisis once said that when you see statistics, you see despair, and when you see faces, you see hope. We need to travel to make statistics into faces and instill hope in us,” he stated.