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Selena Liss |
Doing a Master’s degree in fine arts, the mind can get to wandering. After mastering artspeak (“the juxtaposition of the cybertectonic colour fields with an amorphous pseudo-linguistic figurative element give rise…….”) and grant application writing (“give me this money because if you don’t the world will never know my greatness and it will all be your fault”) one is left with many hours to consider how one will ever make a (real) living. I’m still thinking about it. In the meanwhile, I’m going to India and South East Asia.
I’m traveling with my partner H�l�ne. Though both of us had traveled before, (me in Western Europe, Greece and Australia. H�l�ne has lived, worked and/or traveled in England, Sri Lanka, India, Congo, and Western Europe) we hadn’t headed off together. So in preparation for this voyage, the two of us took a “test trip” together and hung out in Europe for six weeks last December/January. There were constant fights about where to eat and sleep. We discovered that I am incredibly cheap and that H�l�ne insists on the (to me) outrageous comfort of having at least one hot meal a day. I accused her of being pushy and rude, and she accused me of being a soft touch. H�l�ne had food poisoning twice, and we were robbed once. All in all, it was a tremendous success. On to bigger and better things!
We leave from Montreal on August 1st, 2002. After three weeks in B.C. visiting family and friends we fly to New Delhi on August 20th. After that, things get a little looser. North? West? I’ll let you know. We’re going to play it by ear, spend some time in India and eventually move on to South East Asia. We’ll finish up in Australia (where most of my relatives live) and must be back in Montreal by July 2003.
There are several reasons we decided to head for India and South East Asia. Not surprisingly, a lot of mine have to do with art. Years of pouring over art history books have left me anxious to find out if my eyes can interpret actual 3D objects. Also, I’m a voracious reader, and authors such as Rohinton Mistry, Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai, V.S. Naipaul, Vikram Seth and Anita Rau Badami are compelling in their descriptions of the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia.
Other reasons are more, shall we say, basic. If I have to spend another winter in Montreal I may not make it. I’m looking forward to a February when my eyelids don’t freeze shut when I walk outside. Helene is always trying to drag me out cross-country skiing, but she’ll probably have more luck dragging me to the beach…
