‘The fundamental encounter between one soul and a new place hasn’t changed at all’: Writer Pico Iyer

To be able to sit with yourself in a quiet space of self-reflection is something that only a handful of writers can master. Where one belongs, where one thrives in creative excellence. One such writer is Pico Iyer, whose prolific and sublime work has made him one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary writing and essayistic thought.

Born to Indian parents, educated in England, and now a long resident in rural Japan, Iyer has spent a lifetime living and thinking in the spaces between cultures. He is a philosopher of the in-between, someone who has turned the experience of rootlessness into a way of seeing, and who argues, compellingly, that the most interesting human stories unfold not within borders but across them. In an age of nationalism and noise, his is a voice that counsels wonder, slowness, and attention.

In a conversation with Scroll, Iyer spoke about growing up across three cultures, the value of getting lost, what decades in Japan have taught him, and why the greatest luxury of our time might simply be silence.

What was it like growing up between cultures – Indian heritage, British education, American residence, and a Japanese home?
I always felt that I was very blessed, growing up, because I had three sets of eyes, three ways of looking at the world, and I could mix and match them, see America with appreciative British eyes or India with delighted American eyes.

And, growing up on aeroplanes, as I went back and forth between my parents’ home in California and my schools in Britain, I came to see that the new excitement of the world, its energy, creativity and sense of possibility, lay in the passageways between places, the locations where cultures overlap and 1 + 1 can somehow end up as 3.

In those days, this kind of multinational upbringing was relatively rare; I was the only dark-skinned child in every one of my schools in England, as well as in the US, and I always felt that I was more fortunate than my unicultural friends in having three rich cultures to draw upon.

I could never have guessed then that when I enter a classroom in Sydney or Vancouver or London – or Mumbai – today, the students are often much more international and multicultural than I am. To me, this is the great promise of the new century.

Tell us about a specific serendipitous moment when getting lost or taking a wrong turn led to one of your most meaningful discoveries.
There are almost too many of these to list, but one example that comes to mind is when, on my first visit to Japan in 1985, I travelled, with great excitement, to the Tokyo Dome, a huge stadium, to see a Japanese baseball game.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised that it was an afternoon, not an evening, game, so as I arrived – early, I thought – at 4 pm, it was to see the crowd filing out.

But a Tokyo baseball official spotted me in my bewilderment, felt sorry for me and gave me a wonderful free ticket for a game the following day and, all in all, an experience I would never have had otherwise.

Every traveller knows that it’s only when you get lost that you can be found. And only when you make a wrong turn can you find yourself somewhere completely unexpected.

The highlight of most journeys comes when you stumble upon something you had never heard or thought about, and that usually takes place only after you’ve made a wrong turn.

How has your perspective on travel evolved from your early works to now?
I’m not sure it has changed very much. When I first travelled through South America in my teens and across Asia in my mid-twenties, there were no smartphones, no social media, no internet. Only once in four months could I even call home, and that was by booking an international call in a huge hall in Singapore.

So, of course, there was no GPS, no Uber, no WhatsApp, none of the features of most people’s travels today.

Yet the fundamental encounter between one soul and a new place, and the wonder, or terror, that can result, hasn’t changed at all, I feel.

If someone from New York arrives in Agra tomorrow, I suspect her response wouldn’t be so different, as she visits the Taj, than it would have been in 1980 – or even 1880.

Conditions change constantly, depths far less often.

You’ve been quite vocal about unplugging from technology. In your interview with Oprah Winfrey, you said that you don’t own a television. How do you feel about the idea of digital detox – the act of disappearing from social media?
I am very glad that I’ve never used a cell phone and that I don’t know what to expect when I arrive in Ladakh, say, for the first time. The world never ceases to surprise us, I feel, and so much of our sense of knowledge is an illusion.

To take one example, I had written extensively about Iran for more than 30 years, read and researched it and even set parts of a novel there before I arrived. And as soon as I touched down in the holy city of Mashhad, everything was different from what I had expected or imagined, and I realised that I didn’t know a thing.

Sometimes ignorance can be less dangerous than the illusion of knowledge, and in that regard, I’m glad not to be filled with expectations or other people’s opinions when I arrive for the first time in Yemen, in Antarctica, or in Easter Island. I want a place to introduce itself to me in the flesh, in three dimensions, and in the round, and I want to try to respond to it with freshness and clarity, free of assumptions and preconceptions.

My fear is that in the modern world, it’s so easy to get material at second hand that, in fact, in the Age of Information, we know less than ever before.

My grandparents couldn’t assume they knew much about Iraq, say, or Palestine. These days, we’re so surrounded by images of such places that we assume we know more than we really do.

I would never recommend that anyone else live without a cell phone, but for myself, I feel I have too much data and distraction in my life already. What I don’t have is the time and space to make sense of it all.

Let’s talk about the world now – how do you think nationalism and borders affect this philosophy of global citizenship?
I have always had more faith in individuals, and in culture, than in governments or corporations. Larger bodies tend always to think in terms of opposition, and us-versus-them; as individuals, we can often look past that to something far subtler and less two-dimensional, and to all that we share.

Nationalism is clearly on the rise right now, but only because it’s on the run. It knows that the logic of the world is heading in an opposite direction, as mobility and technology – the human imagination – all make borders less and less important.

As I’m answering this question, a German man is falling in love with a woman from Kolkata, and the children who arise from that union won’t be able to say simply that they’re from East or West, that they’re Christian or Hindu, that they’re European or Asian.

They will have to forge their own sense of definition and belonging – and their children will likely be even more hyphenated and live far from simple binaries.

I am pained that governments are so intent on creating walls, because they wish to return to the simple black-and-white of former times. But the fact of the matter is that we can’t live in the past, and the future is a time when borders are more and more beside the point.

Your book on the art of stillness is, of course, a reflective masterpiece. How do you feel about the new generation promoting slow travel on digital media?
Just yesterday, I received a message about “hushpitality,” noting that 56% of respondents travel these days mostly to take a break from the acceleration and rush of everyday life and to try to slow down, to catch their breath and to go nowhere. For years now, people have been paying hundreds of dollars a night to stay in so-called “black hole” resorts, whose main attraction is that you’re freed from your phone or tablet on arrival.

This makes absolute sense to me, since the more the world is full of speed and distraction, the more something in us longs for slowness and attention. The greatest luxury today is the chance to do nothing at all. And it’s only by doing nothing that you can begin to do anything worthwhile.

Tell us about your decades-long relationship with Japan.
Japan is the kindest society I have ever met, as well as the most thoughtful, selfless and gracious. Of course, I encounter many of these qualities in India, too, as well as an animation, and a love of words and ideas, a spirit and energy that Japan doesn’t have so much.

But as a writer, I need to live somewhere very quiet and contemplative, where everything works perfectly, and the streets are always silent, and somehow Japan has offered a perfect home for 38 years now.

At a time when the world sometimes feels louder, full of more anger and division, and more distracted than ever, I feel blessed to live in a land of rare calm and friction-free attention.