Staking it Out

The cool thing about Kundalika is its safe navigability in the rainy season,when the water level is actually optimum for dithering about in an inflated vessel. The cooler thing is that it has a campsite. Yes,a real campsite,with portable tents and Odomos and barbeques (but mercifully a proper loo instead of a shovel with your name on it).

With 66 years of sovereignty and 3.2 million square kilometre of land mass on our plate,it’s a wonder that India isn’t camp-worthy yet. Backpackers continue to flock to our shores,inspiring cafes named after their rock ‘n’ roll idols and new-age faiths from Dharamsala to Pushkar and Pondicherry,but leave no tent dents or caravan trails.

What with our urban-rural disconnect and disregard for law and order that percolates down to our last field (remember the horrible assault on a Swiss couple camping in MP last year?),the thought of driving out and pitching a tent in moonlit meadow seems fanciful. You would need designated campsites to begin with,which calls for political will and public cooperation,an absurd expectation to have from a government that’s 50 years behind on passing basic human rights bills. Why,even England hasn’t bothered to set down laws regarding camping: everything goes until somebody complains.

Luckily for the adventurers in us,a few people have set up tents for hire on their private lands in the wild. Riverside spots are especially popular and so you’ll find plenty of fixed tents in Rishikesh and Ladakh,among other places in north India. Camping is also catching on as part of music fests such as Ragasthan,Escape and Ziro Valley,and from experience,I can say that the chance to camp in Ziro is not to be missed.

Down here,Kolad has cosy igloo-shaped retreats owned by Big Red Tent. Then you have a campsite at Rusticville in flat green country,about 40 km outside the city. But these are plainly disparate efforts indicating mere pockets of interest,where the camper’s involvement is nil — you just have to show up and pay. Sadly,there is,as yet,no community-wide enthusiasm for going off the grid and roughing it out. Words like “orienteering” and “pioneering” are foreign.

The one technical word we do know,albeit unknowingly,is “glamping”. Defined as glamorous camping — the pleasures of ultra-luxury tents,as spotted at the beaches of Goa and Mandvi. That’s very nice,but we could do so much more.

The author is a chess grandmaster and former national champion