The Backpacker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Price: Rs 395

The book begins terribly,and that can often be a good sign. Young Dave Besseling is in Varanasi and finds it hard to move beyond the stereotypical first impressions of potholes,chaotic traffic,incense and the Indian head wobble. It’s like me going to New York for the first time and being overwhelmed by the Manhattan skyline. Besseling visits a cheap bar and comes away with the lame observation: “The beer is bad. The whole scene is bad… Not the kind of place you’d bring a girl on a date.” You might not come here with your girlfriend maybe,but surely a seedy bar anywhere would have its set of quirky characters.

The rest of the chapter suffers from one too many prosaic descriptions of the writer’s surroundings,more like jottings from his notebook: “…birds chirp from nests in electrical cables on the tops of poles”; “Somewhere pots and pans are clanging around for lunch”; “A water buffalo tied to a rail… is looking at me,chewing.” There are snatches of schoolboy humour,like if everyone who died in Varanasi were freed from the cycle of reincarnation,then India’s Hindu population would decrease,which would be bad news for the BJP.

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,but in this case,you shouldn’t judge The Liquid Refuses to Ignite by its first chapter. For Besseling is a unique writer,hyperactive and volatile,who really comes into his own from the second chapter on. Liquid is the story of a western backpacker,his travels around the globe fuelled by drugs and sex,and his journey of self- discovery between the ages of 20 and 30. It’s a voice-driven book — an extremely endearing voice at that — written with a rare candour and honesty. The author is not afraid to put himself out there with his afflictions and imperfections.

Besseling speaks of the various reasons his generation travels: to escape heartbreak and happy childhoods; to get out of comfort zones and sample poverty; out of immediate dissatisfactions and metaphysical uncertainties. He describes his generation as the “mobile middle class… caught between privilege and hardship,post-baby boom babies off on paid rebellions”. These are kids who have broken free from “the shackles of the Judeo- Christian tradition only to fondle prayer beads or shave our heads or stick bindis to our faces”. I would have thought that these kids travel because they can afford to: they come from countries with strong currencies that have favourable exchange rates,and because visa regimes,in many parts of the world,are partial to those with western passports. A Canadian like Besseling,for example,can fly in and out of Europe at will. It’s cheap and it’s easy. That too. But there’s also the emptiness inside.

Besseling has his share of adventures. In Tokyo,we follow him on a 24-hour crystal meth binge,which ends in a love hotel where all transactions are anonymous. You don’t even see the hands of the person handing you the keys. In Amsterdam,he takes us for a walk in the red light district,the whores neatly segregated by race and weight. In Prague,we hang with Besseling in a heavy metal bar.

He writes perceptively and accurately about intoxication: the clarity that comes from a three-day drinking bender,the way Class A drugs “transform cigarettes into little glowing sticks of life”. He is spot on when writing about Delhi’s pub scene,which makes it very clear that you are either very rich,or very poor: “If you’re in the middle,f*** off and drink at home.”

Besseling has the flair for metaphor. A cold draft is a series of jungle ants running up his arms. A cigarette is stubbed out “in a mini temper tantrum of the hand”. He sees the world in vivid images. In Manali,the tight clothing of a Himachali man reminds him of “the shrubs in front of my childhood home after my dad had wrapped them with burlap and twine for winter”.

Does the backpacker stop chasing exotica? Many don’t. Besseling talks about single men over 40 still living the life,doing makeshift jobs,saving money to fund another trip,using their “imagined misunderstood creativity as an excuse”. At 40,he doesn’t see himself dressed like a kindly Hell’s Angel,chatting up 21-year olds about what Goa used to be like in the glory days.

Midway through the book,he is glum but practical: “I have to make peace with the fact that making my living as an artist is a dream that has to die.”

Hang on for a sec,Dave. The evidence of this book suggests (as also the sketches inside),the dream might just be beginning.

Palash Krishna Mehrotra is the author of ‘The Butterfly Generation’