Travelogues
The first time I ever read a travelogue was in 1990. People who follow Telugu literature would know about Malladi Venkata Krishna Murty, he is a prominent Telugu novelist. Around late eighties, He has traveled to Europe and after he returned, has started writing a novel which is a socio fantasy cum fiction and a travelogue, which is a nothing but his travel diary while he was in Europe, in Andhra Jyoti weekly. My mother who was an avid reader subscribed to that weekly. She had a good collection of novels, she has separated the travelogue and novel pages from the weekly, collected them until they were completely published and got them bound. I still have it with me in my library at home. That is how I got a chance to read that travelogue week after week.
I am a fan of Mr. Malladi for his inimitable style of narrating stories. Needless to say his Europe travelogue has great readability in it. I remember my father commenting that the travelogue is better than the novel Yamayanamaha! However, the sad thing was the weekly did not publish the entire travelogue. I didn't realize it then but now I am sure that it was a strategic decision to make the readers buy the travelogue, which I did, 7 years later. I believe it was the first travelogue written by any modern day Telugu writer.
His next travelogue I guess is about his trip to Singapore, which I never got to read. However, I have read another travelogue which is about his trip to USA. It is a comprehensive, exhaustive and useful travel diary. There is another thing that I have to mention in this context, Mr. Malladi never got his photograph printed in any of the weeklies in which his serials got published, and I always had a longing to see him. Couple of days before my travel to USA in 2000 March, I went to a book shop in Chikkadapally and asked him for this travelogue USA. The shop keeper didn't have a copy of it and instead advised me to go to Mr.Malladi's house where he also runs Lipi Publications. That is how I had an opportunity for the first time to meet him. He is dark in complexion, a tall and medium built man with spectacles. I purchased Travelogue America from him and asked him to autograph the book, which he did. I think on my request he wrote a line on the book which read "a smile a day keeps the doctor away", which is a reflection of his penchant for humor. This trait of his is thoroughly reflected in his books.
After that there are a couple of travel diaries that I read, but nothing interested me more than what Kurma Dasa has written. I have read his travel diaries to South America, UK and other countries. Once again, fantastic reading material.
I think a travelogue is something that you people can expect from me, if not in the near future, definitely sometime later and there are couple of reasons to it. One is I enjoy traveling and the other is I love to write. Secondly, I believe and it is my personal experience that a travelogue would attract more readers than a fictional work, because travel and seeing places appeals to wide variety of people than a novel about one particular topic.
In fact, the very idea of a vacation fills new scores of energy for most of us. I am just waiting for my brother to send the digital camera that he promised, once I get that you probably would get to see if not large volumes of travel diaries, surely small write ups of my weekend travel adventures with some photographs. I guess I would start with my trip to Gandikota, the Indian Grand Canyon.
I am a fan of Mr. Malladi for his inimitable style of narrating stories. Needless to say his Europe travelogue has great readability in it. I remember my father commenting that the travelogue is better than the novel Yamayanamaha! However, the sad thing was the weekly did not publish the entire travelogue. I didn't realize it then but now I am sure that it was a strategic decision to make the readers buy the travelogue, which I did, 7 years later. I believe it was the first travelogue written by any modern day Telugu writer.
His next travelogue I guess is about his trip to Singapore, which I never got to read. However, I have read another travelogue which is about his trip to USA. It is a comprehensive, exhaustive and useful travel diary. There is another thing that I have to mention in this context, Mr. Malladi never got his photograph printed in any of the weeklies in which his serials got published, and I always had a longing to see him. Couple of days before my travel to USA in 2000 March, I went to a book shop in Chikkadapally and asked him for this travelogue USA. The shop keeper didn't have a copy of it and instead advised me to go to Mr.Malladi's house where he also runs Lipi Publications. That is how I had an opportunity for the first time to meet him. He is dark in complexion, a tall and medium built man with spectacles. I purchased Travelogue America from him and asked him to autograph the book, which he did. I think on my request he wrote a line on the book which read "a smile a day keeps the doctor away", which is a reflection of his penchant for humor. This trait of his is thoroughly reflected in his books.
After that there are a couple of travel diaries that I read, but nothing interested me more than what Kurma Dasa has written. I have read his travel diaries to South America, UK and other countries. Once again, fantastic reading material.
I think a travelogue is something that you people can expect from me, if not in the near future, definitely sometime later and there are couple of reasons to it. One is I enjoy traveling and the other is I love to write. Secondly, I believe and it is my personal experience that a travelogue would attract more readers than a fictional work, because travel and seeing places appeals to wide variety of people than a novel about one particular topic.
In fact, the very idea of a vacation fills new scores of energy for most of us. I am just waiting for my brother to send the digital camera that he promised, once I get that you probably would get to see if not large volumes of travel diaries, surely small write ups of my weekend travel adventures with some photographs. I guess I would start with my trip to Gandikota, the Indian Grand Canyon.
posted by yedavalliravi @ 11:47 AM
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