Go on a Walking Tour and See India on Foot
Click here to read the story on The Straits Times, where it was originally published on 15th September, 2019.
When Mr Nitin Amlani moved to Bangalore in south India with his family for work in 2013, he found himself in an unfamiliar territory.
Originally from the state of Maharashtra in central region of the country, he did not speak Kannada, the local language, and did not have friends who could show him around the city.
But he went on food walks organised by city walking tour agency, Unhurried, and was soon mesmerised by the city.
“These tours have helped me connect the dots of Bangalore’s history; from Kempe Gowda to Tipu Sultan to British rule,” said Mr. Amlani, 32, a digital marketing professional.
Unhurried was set up in 2012 by Ms. Poornima Dasharathi, who is in her 40s. She says such tours have mushroomed in Bangalore in the past couple of years.
Now the tours can even be tailored to suit a client’s area of interest, for instance, a tour of architectural styles prevalent in the city for an architect. Today, there are at least five such walking tour agencies in Bangalore, as their popularity continues to grow.
In fact, within the past decade, over a thousand such city walking tours have cropped up across the country, as per listings on travel websites. Whether it’s a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai or Chennai, or a second-tier city more popular for its heritage than urban development like Varanasi or Jaipur, travel professionals are increasingly digging out stories that resonate with Indians and foreigners looking to go beyond the average tourist experience.
While in an average city walking tour participants are given a generic overview of a point of interest, there are those that focus on experiential storytelling and strive to take people back in time as they walk through the city. Because of this, they tend to be pricier and can cost anything between US$15 to US$30 They can last upto three hours and often include stops to eat or drink something as well. It appeals to an average upwardly mobile Indian, who is more likely to be fluent in English than any other regional Indian language except his or her mother tongue.
With India’s push towards development and urbanisation, people are increasingly moving across states for work and tours like these help them find a home away from home.
A former IT professional, Ms Dasharathi said that until ten years ago, Bangalore was mostly known as the Silicon Valley of India. “The second thing that would come to mind is the traffic and then, the weather,” she said. “But no one ever thought of flora and fauna when it came to Bangalore; most of the trees here are naturalised, like the Gulmohar, which was first brought to India by the British in 19th century from Madagascar.”
It was her experience with such tours abroad that made her want to bring the same professional approach to India. Today, Unhurried offers over 15 different kinds of trails, including include nature trails, food walks and heritage walks.
On one of the tours, participants can also play ancient Indian games likeChowkabara and Aadu Puli Attam. These games were traditionally carved into the floors of temples and homes, and if one knows where to look, these carvings can still be seen in Bangalore. To unearth these gems that hide in plain sight takes a lot of research and can send Ms. Dasarathi looking for a map at a municipal office, look up leads from magazine articles, public libraries, and more.
While Bangalore may increasingly be thought of as a heritage destination, Kolkata finds it harder to escape its decaying city tag. The negative publicity from Mother Teresa’s work with the terminally ill left a strong imprint, especially for Westerners.
Mr Manjit Singh Hoonjan, 46, questions this perception because he feels the city has much more to offer. A Sikh, whose family belongs to the state of Punjab, Kolkata and photography are two of his lifelong passions. He brought them together in 2009 when he set up Calcutta Photo Tours to tell engaging stories of the city.
“Poverty porn is easy here and my whole idea was to stay away from it,” Mr Hoonjan says. “When I was creating my tours, it was important for me to have stories that showcased Kolkata with pride.”
His most popular tour, Cultural Kaleidoscope, takes people through neighborhoods of the city that are populated by Chinese, Armenian, Portuguese, Jews, and Parsi (Zoroastrian) communities. These people made India their home at different points of time in history but have enmeshed themselves in the fabric of Kolkata so intimately that it can be difficult to tell them apart at times.
“I have also given tours to local hotel employees, like concierges, and many of them were locals. When I told them about Mallick Ghat flower market, they were surprised that they did not know about it,” he adds. The market is Asia’s largest flower market and comes to life under the city’s popular Hooghly Bridge every morning.
“People travel the world, not their neighborhoods. We always have a tentative idea of the place where we live but we never really go into depth. It’s the same story across the world,” Mr Hoonjan remarks.
But ten years ago, it wasn’t easy getting people to understand the concept of a city walking tour. “I would get queries from people who would call as soon as they landed in the city. When I would tell them that this was not a typical sightseeing tour and they would have to walk for 2 hours, they would ask me what was I charging for if there was no transport and food?”
Today, as more Indians travel abroad, they are increasingly comfortable with the concept of city walking tours. Even though most of Mr. Hoonjan’s clients tend to be foreigners, more Indians are beginning to show interest. From conducting a tour per week, he now has to manage around five bookings in a week.
Delhi By Foot’s Ramit Mitra, 42, agrees with him. “When we started in 2011, we had to explain people what a food walk was or what a heritage trail was. Now 30 of them show up even in peak summer at 4pm, which says a lot about their enthusiasm and trust in us,” he says.
“The heritage of Delhi is limited to a few iconic monuments for most people. When they find out more, they become very enthusiastic and start to engage better,” says Mr Mitra, who set up Delhi By Foot to provide experiences in culture, history, music, food, and nature in India’s capital city.
Such tours have helped create communities of travellers, photographers, and history enthusiasts, who are more curious than ever about the cities they live or work in. Mr Mitra says their Facebook page is full of people posting bits of trivia about the city discovered by them or articles about old buildings being torn down.
