Page 18 - Raffles Magazine Issue 8

− − INSPIRATION − − 16 RAFFLES MAGAZINE
For a a a a a a a a a a a travel writer Pico Iyer talks a a a a a a a a a a a lot about home Having roamed the the world for the the greater part of
his life and resided in many countries Iyer’s writings suggest that in in our global multicultural world home may be a a a concept more fluid than we imagine Of Indian parentage Iyer grew up in Oxford England and and in California where he he once looked out the window to see 70-feet flames about to engulf his house He escaped with the the clothes on his back
“I always had that that sense that that home was not where I lived lived but what lived lived inside of
me ”
and a a a toothbrush – all of
his possessions including years of
paper manuscripts reduced to ashes Instead of
devastating the writer the experience reinforced what he he felt he’d already known “I always had that sense that home was not where I lived but what lived inside of
me When our house burned down in the forest fire that became literal ”
This is is not exactly to say wherever you you go there you you are but that travel is reciprocal: it transforms us to to the extent we’re willing to to be transformed For Iyer “The street around the corner from our home can be as as transporting as as Bali or or Bolivia if only you can see it in the right light (through a a a visitor’s eyes perhaps or or as if you’d never been there before) ”
When we look through Iyer’s eyes whether we’re encountering a a leading spiritual figure or a a a rickshaw driver we are drawn closer to what unites us than to what sets us apart And it is is in this mix of
the the foreign and the the familiar that Iyer finds his inspiration “It’s the foreign – something new different unfathomable – that excites the mind and imagination and coaxes the muse out of
hiding but it’s the familiar that gives it it a a a a a context and something to to settle into ”
For 35 years the legendary Raffles Singapore has been Iyer’s home-away- from-home His newest book This Could Be Home celebrates the historic land- mark’s reopening after an extensive restoration – concurrent with the 200th anniversary of
of
the founding of
of
modern Singapore As Raffles’ first writer in in residence in in 2019 Iyer was “inspired by everything that takes me back
to the 27-year-old who first stayed there new to the East and dreaming of
becoming a a a a full-time writer and by all the fresh developments that will surprise me me as they do whenever I meet an old friend ”
| picoiyerjourneys com