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Penang da Boharh
So fresh travelogues are most welcome. This one comes as a debut book by Abhai Singh. It is refreshing in its approach and tempts the readers to try out the budget holiday offered by Malaysian Airlines. The writer’s holiday, of course, was planned by his own instinct in which he chooses to meet as many people as he can and search out Punjabis who have made their home in Malaysia. The book is called Penang da Boharh (The Banyan Tree at Penang). It is the lone banyan tree in Malaysia and the writer tells us that the Sikhs there had planted it in the gurdwara. Some 50 years ago, there were two banyans but the one inside the gurdwara complex was chopped off to make place for the community meals. The one outside was about to get cut too but a woman labourer protested and it was saved. "I had read about this tree in an earlier travelogue and when I spotted it, I felt very happy. Never had I felt so happy seeing any other tree in my life." The writer moves about the well-known picturesque spots of the country but what makes the travelogue most readable is the fact that it is richly peopled. In fact the book is dedicated to three young people the writer encounters in his journey. One is Harpreet Kaur, a distant niece; the other a young Malaysian girl who meets him in the street; and another a Punjabi Pakistani youth working as a waiter in a Tamilian restaurant there. He strikes fond relationships with them. Nothing can quite match the quality of memory these one-time encounters leave and Abhai Singh recounts them very well. Instead of giving a detailed itinerary, the writer instead has divided the Malaysian memoirs into thematic essays and his ability to remember small details and recapture them in the written word comes through very well. With economics as his discipline, he makes some very incisive comments on the state of society and more so achievements of the fellow Punjabis settled there. One wishes Abhai Singh more holidays at more destinations, for that would mean some more readable travelogues.
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A
usual grouse with the world of Punjabi letters is that there are very
few travelogues available even when Punjabis are well known for their
wandering instinct. And the travelogues that do exist fail to rise above
a chronological itinerary and details that rarely have much interest to
the reader. Some writers have written travelogues merely highlighting
their achievements abroad and the grand receptions laid out for them in
recognition of their talent. What value would they have for anyone but
the writer.