{"id":242171,"date":"2025-06-10T14:25:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T08:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=242171"},"modified":"2025-06-23T04:59:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T23:29:20","slug":"bohemian-on-the-borderlines-vishnu-vasus-made-in-india-the-art-of-unvarnished-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/bohemian-on-the-borderlines-vishnu-vasus-made-in-india-the-art-of-unvarnished-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"Bohemian On The Borderlines: Vishnu Vasu\u2019s Made In India & The Art Of Unvarnished Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Roshan Pussewela<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a world increasingly defined by curated experiences, algorithm-driven itineraries, and digital storyboards, genuine travel writing\u2014deep, dirty, and daring\u2014has all but vanished. It is within this sterile landscape that Vishnu Vasu<\/a><\/span>\u2019s new Sinhala travelogue Made in India erupts like a wild weed through polished pavement. This is not a tourist\u2019s tale. It is a confession, a cultural autopsy, and a road diary of a man unafraid to walk barefoot through the contradictions of one of the world\u2019s most complex nations.\"\"<\/p>\n

In his recent review<\/a><\/span> in the Colombo Telegraph<\/em> and Daily FT<\/em>, respected economist and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. W. A. Wijewardena, draws our attention to the unique character of Vasu\u2019s narrative. He praises the book\u2019s earthy \u201cworm\u2019s-eye view\u201d of India\u2014a bold contrast to the bird\u2019s-eye gazes of elite commentators and spiritual seekers who arrive looking for \u201cthe soul of India\u201d and leave with little more than curated enlightenment.<\/p>\n

Vasu offers no such mysticism. His India is not the India of Rumi quotes and Taj Mahal sunsets. It is the India of overburdened trains, bureaucratic bribery, caste-based suppression, and roadside dhabas where philosophy is spoken in cigarette smoke and chai steam. He doesn\u2019t attempt to decode India; instead, he allows India to baffle and intoxicate him, as it will anyone who dares to step off the brochure page.<\/p>\n

A Travelogue That Offends\u2014and Awakes<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vasu\u2019s power lies in his willingness to be uncomfortable. Where many travel writers insulate themselves with cultural sensitivity and journalistic neutrality, Vasu plunges into the grey zones\u2014those moral and political no-man\u2019s lands where truths are messy and questions lead to more questions.<\/p>\n

He witnesses, for example, the commercialisation of Godse\u2019s legacy\u2014yes, the very man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi\u2014and reports on the unsettling normalisation of such fringe ideologies. These are not mere political footnotes. They are barometers of a society wrestling with its own moral compass. Vasu makes no attempt to editorialise with academic distance. Instead, he reacts, he reflects, and sometimes, he recoils.<\/p>\n

This is where Mr. Wijewardena\u2019s analysis becomes invaluable. He frames Vasu\u2019s style as one of a “capitalist Bohemian”\u2014an almost contradictory identity, yet strikingly accurate. Vasu is a rebel who understands money, a cultural observer who doesn’t pretend to be above the system. He is, in some ways, the embodiment of the modern South Asian intellectual\u2014shaped by economic pragmatism, political cynicism, and emotional honesty. He has little time for ideological purists, and even less for sanctimonious leftism when it is untethered from the realities of everyday life.<\/p>\n

A Literary Style Rooted in the Sri Lankan Psyche<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What makes Made in India so compelling is not just what it documents, but how it documents. Vasu writes with a mix of irreverence, sharp satire, and intimate self-awareness. His style is deeply Sri Lankan\u2014blending humour and heartache, jest and judgement. He uses language not as a protective layer, but as a scalpel. He cuts into social wounds, but never without first exposing his own skin.<\/p>\n

In this way, he carries on the tradition of Sri Lankan subversive literature, but on foreign soil. His India becomes a mirror, not only for the Indian condition, but also for our own. The class systems, the cultural tokenism, the pretence of democracy underpinned by moneyed power\u2014it all hits close to home. The only difference is the dialect.<\/p>\n

He writes like someone who\u2019s travelled not to escape, but to confront. He does not moralise, nor does he pretend to be neutral. He is on the street, sweating and swearing, dodging philosophical potholes and ideological speed bumps. In doing so, he builds a travelogue that is closer to a memoir of becoming\u2014a human experience punctuated by awkward conversations, strange nights, and moments of revelation that come not from epiphanies, but from exhaustion.<\/p>\n

India as a Stage, Vasu as Its Rogue Narrator<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

India, in Vasu\u2019s hands, becomes a performance. Not a stage-managed play, but an improvised act of survival. His characters\u2014be they street vendors, police officers, sadhus, or drunk philosophers\u2014don\u2019t serve to illustrate a thesis. They live and breathe within the pages. And like India itself, they resist simplification.<\/p>\n

And perhaps this is where I must speak not just as a reader, but as a friend.<\/p>\n

Vishnu Vasu is someone I know closely. I\u2019ve seen in him the same relentless curiosity and critical compassion that runs through this book. What you read in Made in India isn\u2019t just a persona\u2014it\u2019s the man. Honest, bold, full of contradictions, and never afraid to laugh at life\u2019s absurdities. This isn\u2019t just travel writing. It\u2019s a form of self-revelation that dares to remain vulnerable.<\/p>\n

At a time when Sri Lanka too is undergoing its own reckoning\u2014with memory, identity, and power\u2014books like Made in India remind us that truth is not always found in stillness, but in movement. And sometimes, to understand ourselves better, we must allow ourselves to get lost in someone else\u2019s country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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