Return of the American tourist

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  Twenty-six years is indeed a long time for recollections. Like leaves blown away by the wind, all the faces, the images and the words fade away into oblivion almost irretrievably as years roll on. But there are some people like Mark Stephen Levy, the American traveller and the author of the book ‘Overland’, who just loves strolling along the blurry lanes of memories.Being in the city after 26 long years, he still remembers how he then felt bugged at the Thiruvananthapuram airport when one of the security officers mercilessly told him that he had to wait for four days before he could go and collect his baggage from the airport. The bafflement returns to his face while recounting how an auto driver went for lunch at his home, leaving his hungry American tourist in the auto waiting till he returned. But the American who began his Indian tour from the city was in no way disenchanted.Equipped with nothing but a tawdry camera which he had won in a sales contest, a transistor radio, which he always kept in his pockets and a diary which he never used, he went about knowing India for six months and in the process he also met a French girl named Eliane whom he later married.Mark says that it was Eliane who, in a way, made him write. "We had met in Rajasthan and when she left, I felt so empty. The only way I could find a way out was to pour out my feelings on the diary, which I carried. Even then I had never thought about writing a book.’’‘Overland’ is the first published work of Mark, who quit his job as a radio interviewer in 1985 to buy a ‘round the world ticket’ for 1300 dollars. The novel has certain episodes plucked from his personal experiences. In the fiction, the lead character Danny goes in search of his fiancee, after he gets spurned by her. In real life, Mark had also done something similar.He was obsessed by Eliane and he took a 36-hour-long flight from Nepal to Paris, where he could unite with Eliane.Mark is now working on the sequel to ‘Overland’, which was published in 2009. The sequel will be based in India and he has a beautiful reason to tell."This is one country which has always gifted me great memories. Few weeks back, I could even find the same family in Kashmir with whom I had stayed 26 years ago. I could even find Shafi, who had asked for my transistor radio and cried when I had said no. Shafi is now 40 and he still remembers that radio episode,’’ laughs Mark.