Personal Blogs

"We laugh, we cry, we care about characters on screen, not because we forget they aren't real, 

          but because they evoke real emotions in us." — Anonymous.

Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Word

Whilst Sir Walter Scott took a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, Li, a Business Studies student at Glasgow University, was on a road trip with friends to see the Glenfinnan Viaduct. That same year, Kioko, a middle-aged widow, boarded a flight from Tokyo to Canada. Years earlier, her mother had flown from Tokyo to Edinburgh.

Aside from the obvious differences, they all had something in common: they were on similar missions. Each was indulging in what psychologists call parasocial relationships—or unilateral relationships. Sir Walter Scott set off to visit the home of his literary hero, Shakespeare. Li and her friends were headed to the spot where the Hogwarts Express crossed the viaduct. Kioko was travelling to visit the home of Anne of Green Gables, and her mother had once journeyed to the city where the Bay City Rollers had grown up.

I am no exception. One late spring in 2017, my wife and I took a trip to Britain’s Lake District. While there, we decided to visit Grasmere, the village where Wordsworth had lived, and the subject of much of his poetry.

When we arrived, Grasmere was ghostly—eerily still despite the bright summer morning. We strolled through the small village and eventually arrived at Wordsworth’s cottage. Suddenly, a group of forty or fifty Indian visitors appeared—professors, literature teachers, poets, and literary enthusiasts. Having studied English literature myself, I was intrigued to know why they had travelled from Delhi, Kerala, Gujarat, and Hyderabad to make this pilgrimage to the home of their beloved poet.

Their schedule was tight, but I managed to speak with one man from Delhi—a poet. I asked him a question that has often occupied my thoughts: Why do we make such journeys to visit the places that inspired our favourite writers, poets, and fictional characters?

I deliberately used the collective “we,” as I, too, am caught in this curious psychological phenomenon. Yet, in our brief conversation, we merely danced around the question. I walked away with a lingering sense that the answer remained incomplete—unexplored.