Redefining solo travel: Sudha Mahalingam, 70, has visited 66 countries in 25 years

Writer, professor, energy economist, consultant, researcher, lecturer, journalist, photographer and above all a quintessential traveller: that is Sudha Mahalingam, the versatile 70-year-old, who loves going around the globe, discovering places and the people there and pursuing her passions.

A Bangalore resident, Mahalingam is an energy economist who has been in several important positions including advisor to the Indian Prime Minister on energy security issues (as member of the National Security Advisory Board) and a full-time regulator of the country’s petroleum sector. She is a visiting fellow at many leading international universities and consultant to international energy organisations.

Mahalingam has published over 400 travelogues and more than a thousand photographs in national and international publications and of places that rarely feature on popular tourist circuits. She has also published a book of her adventures, ‘The travel gods must be crazy’; the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, published her coffee table book - Mustang: Mystique of a Mountain Kingdom – with her text and pictures taken by her. The centre also hosted an exhibition of her photographs of Nepal’s Tiji festival in November 2019 and some were exhibited by Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur.

Excerpts from an interview with Mahalingam:

Have you travelled to Dubai, the UAE and other parts of the Gulf? What was your experience in the region?

Unfortunately, my footprint in the Middle East is light. I have travelled to Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and many years ago, to Dubai. But the Gulf has been on my itinerary several times. I travelled to Iran for many conferences and also drove through on my last leg of Nikitin Expedition (which retraces the steps of 15th century Russian traveller Afanasy Nikitin to India). I had a smooth and pleasant experience travelling alone in the region. I had to cover up in Iran, but that was only a minor inconvenience. In fact, I made many friends in Iran and am still in touch with them. I adore the Islamic architecture, its symmetry and grace. Esfahan and Shiraz are my favourite cities.

Indians and many other Asians love to travel in groups. You have been one of the few women who does not mind travelling alone in distant lands. Was it difficult in the beginning and what were the challenges?

Actually, I prefer to travel alone because it allows you to focus fully on the experience, absorb places and people without being distracted by constant chatter of your travel companion. I can’t remember facing any difficulty traveling solo anywhere in the world for that matter. One has to be mindful while travelling, keep your passport on your person, generally be cautious. But that said, I believe people on the whole are good everywhere.

Did you grow up in Bangalore, which must have been a charming city in those days? What are your views on the transformation that has happened in the city?

I grew up in Chennai. I left the city in 1974 and since then lived in 14 cities and towns all over India and also three years in London and four in Sydney. I do go back to Chennai. Like all Indian cities, living conditions have deteriorated. Chennai is crowded, congested, and harried, but the core remains as charming as ever – like the temple and tank in Mylapore and the beaches of Adyar. I have worked in Bangalore from 1974 for two years and it was so pristine and beautiful. In my view Bangalore is at heart, a small town upon which metro status has been thrust. It is struggling to come to terms with this mega identity, unable to cope with the enormity of the burden that megacities bear. Yet, North Bangalore where I live, still has huge green spaces – lakes, forests, parks, farms, orchards and even ranches. How long these will last against the relentless onslaught of an ever-expanding urban population is anybody’s guess.

While travelling alone across India (not the metros, but the semi-urban and rural areas) and many parts of the developing world, do you find people wondering as to why a woman is travelling alone?

That used to happen 50 years ago when I was young (I used to travel alone even then), but now nobody raises an eyebrow when women travel alone. In any case, I am in the older women category and am left well alone, thankfully. Indians think women travelling alone are doing so for religious purposes. As long as you dress modestly enough not to attract attention to yourself, they leave you alone, I guess.

Do you enjoy your interactions with people around the globe? Can you narrate a remarkable incident that will remain etched in your mind for ever?

Yes, that’s the reason I travel alone. I love to catch up with strangers, fellow travellers and my hosts on their worldview of life and politics. Whenever I am abroad, I make it a point to visit a bar or pub and strike up conversations over a beer. I prefer staying in hostels rather than hotels although I can afford the latter. In hostels you meet real travellers and can exchange interesting notes, swap travel tales and have fun.

Once I was backpacking through Yazd in Iran and met this young Lebanese woman, a banker from Chicago who had chucked her lucrative job to travel around the world. We became good friends and travelled through parts of Iran together. She had started her backpacking in Japan and worked her way west, stopping for months in each country on the way. When I met her in Yazd, she had been on the road for more than three years. She told me, travelling in India was the most difficult because Indian men don’t take kindly to women travelling solo. Here I was, a single Indian woman traipsing all over, and I never considered for a moment that my own country would prove to be daunting for foreign women travellers. It made me realise that travel experiences are very personalised.

Were your parents or other close relatives also bitten by the travel bug?

The reason why I choose to travel solo is none of my family members is fond of travel. I drag my husband along to many places and he enjoys these trips, but there’s always a reluctance to go on the next trip. My younger son whom I dragged along all over Europe, Israel, Jordan and into the jungles of Borneo likes only extreme adventure. He loved the Borneo jungle trek. He is easily bored by other attractions.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com