MY TRAVEL DIARY I GLOBETROTTERS MONTHLY CHALLENGE

A Lifetime of Travels in One Bookshelf

My souvenirs are travel memories and cues from the universe.

I have always been drawn to souvenir shops. Perhaps because I see them as a collection of stories put together to intrigue the traveler.

I don’t always buy from souvenir shops. But I do love to photograph them.

I found the picture above of a souvenir shop in Manali, particularly interesting. The name plates you see there are some of the most common North Indian surnames. I didn’t buy the name plates. It’s not my type of souvenir. And I don’t have a traditional Indian name. But I loved the moment.

So, why do we collect souvenirs?

I know why I do.

In all the mundane moments of everyday life, after I return home from my travels, I want to remind myself of moments when I truly lived.

They may mean nothing to anybody else. But these are my cues.

A whisper of a world outside if I would only seek it out.

That was also how I bought my first souvenir when I travelled on my own as a young adult for the first time, unaccompanied by my parents. I was travelling to the state of Gujarat in the west of India, from Bangalore in the south. On work.

It was a long journey in those days. Especially by train.

But I returned with a handmade horse, which represented the traditional craftsmanship of Gujarat. It stands in my mother’s home to this day.

In time, the pieces I picked up to represent my travels became smaller. These usually made their way into the giant bookshelf in my mother’s home and then my writing desk in my own home.

It seemed fitting to find my own stories among these old fables.

Since my desk eventually became the place where I did most of my writing, it was also the most appropriate place to tuck away stories to help me stay inspired.

But while people who looked at my writing desk saw an interesting workspace, I always saw more.

On the extreme left and right of my table were memories from two ends of India. While you probably just see an image of the Buddha and a mask, I saw other things. On the left, I always saw the untamed mountain landscape of Ladakh from the northmost part of India reverberating with a deeper, intense spirituality. On the right, I saw the rhythmic movement of a Kathakali dancer, which I had witnessed many times amongst the cultural hues of India’s warm south and the state of my birth Kerala.

The Grecian urn on the top left shelf was a reminder of an evening spent in the markets of Athens after a road trip through Greece with my two dearest soul sisters and fellow travelers on many adventures. You probably only see an urn when you look at it. But I saw our discovery of the oracle of Delfi on a cloudy day in November. It was the perfect day to visit an ancient monument.

The bauble on the second right shelf was my first trip to Paris. It was hours spent at the Louvre. It was my first glimpse of the Mona Lisa. But it was also us on the Eiffel Tower, which is incidentally what it represented.

The mask in the bookshelf and the iron statue behind it was a reminder of Ubud in Bali. After a memorable week spent biking and trekking from Denpasar to Ubud, my friend Nirmala and I spent a morning in the market in Ubud searching for a keepsake to remind us of our adventure. I found the Hindu goddess Saraswati carved in iron in an old antique shop. She had travelled all the way from India to Indonesia hundreds of years ago. It seemed like a good time for a homecoming.

The cup and the vase on the top hand was my visit to Jodhpur in Rajasthan and its majestic fort. When I looked at it, I saw once again my solitary trek up the desert landscape to rediscover the tales of epic battles fought by ancient kings and great queens.

The African statues at the top of the bookshelf brought the Masai into my room. It was a reminder of our first Do It Yourself safari in Kenya. The statues were from the Masai who descended on us outside the Amboseli National Park, asking us to buy a souvenir from them. Later, we bought the painting on a plate, which is at the bottom edge of the table, at the vibrant Masai market in Nairobi. It was the culmination of a morning spent among bright colors, old tales. and much friendly haggling. I can almost hear them every time I look at the painting.

But the most interesting place was reserved for the souvenirs on the blue table. This was probably one of the few places in the world where you will see Greece and Turkey come together. It was also the confluence of many hours spent in the alleys of the Grand Bazar in Istanbul and the long climb up a steep slope to stand before the Acropolis of Athens. The porcelain Ottoman armor and the blue tiles were memories of our visit to Turkey during the pandemic. The tablet with Hammurabi’s code and the replica of the Citadel took me back to my second visit to Greece and two glorious Autumn evenings. The first when we caught the last glow of the sun over the port city of Chania. The other when I looked over Athen’s glorious citadel for the third time.

In time, my bookshelf of memories also spilled over into other places in my house. I have since become a collector of magnets. One for each of the countries and states in India that I have visited. When I look at them, I don’t see magnets. I see places and memories. I feel a rush of happiness and hope.

This has also encouraged me to pick up other souvenirs that I scatter around the house and leave to creep up and surprise me. Now, after I visit a memorable gallery or a museum that promises to stay with me long after, I pick up coasters to remember the moment. So, Mona Lisa is never too far away. Neither is Mozart’s birthplace at Salzburg, which is the site of one of the most informative museums I have ever visited.

My bookshelf of memories has also encouraged my friends to gift me a travel box. This now holds the paper trail of the places I have visited. Tickets, pamphlets and exotic currency all have their place in my travel box.

I also occasionally have photographs in my home as souvenirs of my most unforgettable travels.

This is not just a photograph of a tunnel. It is a picture of the first trek where I camped in the wilds. It was taken on a Cannon SLR camera. On film. Before digital cameras became the norm. It has travelled with me across six homes.

But the biggest journey for my bookshelf of memories and all my other travel souvenirs came when I had to move continents earlier this year.

How do you reduce a lifetime of travelling to a couple of suitcases?

But because I have always travelled lightly, my souvenirs were not so hard to move. The magnets were the easiest. My entire collection of magnets now has a new home.

But my other travel souvenirs moved relatively easily too, except for three that broke. The Grecian urn, the Ottoman armor and the Eiffel tower bauble. But our bookshelf in Austria now has many other old friends from previous travels. You may recognize some of them from earlier in the story.

When I feel far away from home, my bookshelf of travel memories reminds me that home is not just a landscape, we carry it inside of us.

So, home may seem far away right now. But I am never really far away from home.

Signing off with other stories of travel souvenirs that I enjoyed from Anne Bonfert, Erie Astin, and Simon Whaley.