Man and Child

In my enthusiasm to learn more about Spain, I bought a book called Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlet. The book is Non Fiction, elucidating the major events that have occurred in the past century as also a general commentary about Life in Spain. The book begins with the Spanish Civil war, and honestly I was overwhelmed to know the history of another country and how they traversed into the present Democracy and Live and Let Live philosophy which is so rare to see today in any part of the World including the States. That apart yesterday night while reading I came across a chapter called Man and Child. I was almost LMAO as I read way past midnight. Here are a few excerpts and my version of the commentary about Spain's Life in general.

Apparently in Spain the legal writ obliges the parents to take care of their child until they have secured a future. A good law it is and as an Indian I am hardly surprised with this writ since in India children usually stay with parents until marriage and even beyond that. But this law interpreted by a judge in Barcelona, ruling in a divorce case asked the husband to pay a pension of 225$ a month for the child's upkeep. This would be fine in normal circumstances but here the child was 25 years old and his upkeep meant paying for his post graduation studies.

In a case filed by the parents who wanted to disown their children of age 18 and 20 due to their lack of respect and abuse shown to the parents, the judge in Valencia denied the case on grounds that a parents duty towards their children is obligatory irrespective of the circumstances. In both the above cases, the right of a parent can be argued but the rights and privileges a child enjoys is beyond my comprehension.

Moving on to the other end of the spectrum, death in Spain though not a moment of celebration, it does have its own charm. In fact the official morgue in Madrid where the near and dear ones pay their condolences to their loved ones takes the form of a modern day airport with video monitors directing visitors to the right corpse, vending machines, a lounge room, TV screens scattered around and also a small bar. This is because, in Spain the family is required to stay besides the dead for a week after their demise. Another fascinating aspect was that in Spain ( and may be also in other parts of the world ) a fee has to be paid for the resting place of the deceased. This fee has to be renewed by the future generations which if not paid either due to ignorance or poverty, mechanical diggers are ready to remove the corpses from the graveyards to make place for other deceased residents.

In another incident a decorated French Poet spent his last days in the Costa de Sol part of Spain. He had donated his body to the medical research center for studies. On his death the Research center had to accept the body by obligation, but none of the researchers had the nerve to cut open the body for he was too famous for his body to be denigrated. Result that the body is lying around for the past 15 years in the morgues in the Research center.

Such anecdotes and events surely must be a part of all the countries including India. Specifically for India though they are not well documented and if they are then not well read. A non-fictional and yet gripping commentary about the modern day India might be a good option to explore by the Historians or who knows a decent idea for my first book ... if ever!!!

Tavelling Solo...

There's a place where I travel when I want to roam, and nobody knows it but me. The roads don't go there and the signs stay home, and nobody knows it but me. ....


Finally, more than a couple of months before the travel bug caught me last month, I was on my way to the Embassy of Spain. There have not been many morning when I rose with the sun, with anticipation and nervousness, praying fervently for something I had desired. The thought to go wandering by myself all alone in a complete God Forsaken country with little idea of what to expect or do was the first one that entered my mind. How or why such a wonderful idea finally transformed into a trip to Spain might have something to do with the fact that I had never been to mainland Europe and some more with the simplicity of logistics. Finally it did not matter for Spain was as far as I could go away without being bothered by anyone else and that was the whole point in the first place.

What I did not envisage during the grand plan though was the wealth of information that I will gather along the way, though I have little idea of how to put it in use. Additionally a little research on backpacking trips provides light to the lives of a magnificent lot who have lived this way not for a week or month but for years on end. I found a couple who are traveling in Spain on 20$ a day which comes to 14 euros a day. Their plan is to cover Spain on Hitchhiking and tenting in farms and backyards. Will they manage to achieve their journey, well I really hope they do but that is besides the point. What matters is the attempt and the belief that it is possible. Further research showed that a round the world trip in a year required a little less than 36000$ which though a big number is not unreachable a dream. I can go mad simply thinking of roaming all around the world like a vagabond or just having the local beer in each country, city and town makes me dizzy.

This someone might call as escapism or day dreaming, but the fact that it just can be possible one day, some day is enough to make a bad day go by and to think that I am actually taking the plunge may be with baby steps but still a plunge it is and my dream of being a vagabond will come true if not fully then atleast partially for a fortnight and that is what matters I guess in the end. What I shall see and experience in the mean time is (without bragging) fantastic. Just the thought of being in the hometown of the mind boggling Dali, or amidst the magnificent Goya impressionist and amazing Picassos seems surreal. Add to it the cities of Barcelona and Madrid and the quaint little towns like Ronda and Toledo or places like Cordoba and Granada which are throbbing with history and I seriously wonder how can no one envy this.

The plan is simple, dreams are big and I am embarking on the journey as a solo traveller. The date is 1st October - Wish me luck and do bear with the barage of posts which are to come on this topic sooner rather than later.