Decentralizing travel: An analysis of Pico Iyer’s video night in Kathmandu

Abstract

Travel writings traditionally recorded the experience of a person undergoing travel. It has since expanded its domain by maturing into a coherent narrative, a reliable source of information. Questions have always been posed regarding the relationship between the experience and writing of travel and whether travel writing is mere fiction which does not contain truth or sometimes partial truth. The continuing canon of travel writing has tried to answer these questions. The present paper titled Decentralizing Travel: An Analysis of Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu aims to explore travel writing as a narrative while attempting to analyse Iyer’ s travel within larger issues related to globalization, neocolonialism. It particularly focuses on Iyer’s journey through Nepal. The western impact destroyed Nepal’s traditional roots and the people were forced into a state of in betweenness. The seeds of globalization paved way for the instability of the nation. The economy of Nepal was terribly hit as tourism became one and major source of income. Coupled with burgeoning drug abuse Nepal’s society went in a downward spiral. Pico Iyer, the celebrated travel writer toured Nepal in the 1980s. The aim of his quest was to find tradition in coexistence with modernity, but he finds a nation decaying in front of him. In addition, it looks at the narrative as a report of the nation in the era with help of necessary statistics.