Suketu Mehta, David Sedaris, and the dangers of traveling

Journalists are a fearless lot, and for a long time, I found this the most intimidating thing about them. It's also the reason that, for many years, I was secretly afraid I'd be a terrible journalist.

When I was in college, I heard Anne Garrels, NPR's exhaustive Iraq War correspondent, dismiss the risk of rape with a casual "bad things can be done to men too" (true, but so?)

Later, at my first job, I met a former colleague who'd left the magazine to hike through the warlord-controlled forests of Colombia. As we at around a posh DC bar, he related the story of how a group of tribals had once teased him with the line, "the druglords always get the white boys." He laughed, I nearly puked with sympathetic terror.

I was deeply afraid that I didn't have what it took to strap on my waterproof boots and hike into the vast and dangerous unknown. Yes, I've traveled to many parts of the world, but usually in groups. My travel history is the equivalent of coloring within the lines. Just like such a person will never create original art, so my travels probably wouldn't make for book-busting journalism.

My fears were confirmed by the brilliant books I read. Thomas Friedman, regardless of his logical failures, burned a swathe through the Middle East in order to write "From Beirut to Jerusalem" and Suketu Mehta, the writer of the memorable Pulitzer nominee "Maximum City" certainly didn't do his research from his laptop.

But now that I'm in India, I follow more in Seinfeld's footsteps than Suketu's. I find I spend very little time pursuing the risky unknown. Instead of traipsing into the seamy underworld of Mumbai, I'm content to wander among its teeming markets and butcher shops, considering it a personal coup when I manage to ask a shopkeeper for directions to the nearest art gallery. Sometimes I watch movies. Often, I go to the mall. (Put that beside Mehta, who interviewed drug lords and prostitutes in his free time)

My trips are hardly the stuff of legend. Perhaps I should be more brave - I certainly feel that way.

So I was relieved recently to read David Sedaris' essay on his years as an American in Paris. (I know it seems like a cliche...) Sedaris, too, talks about the incredible pressure on a foreigner living in a strange city. We must map the Amazon, rescue the homeless, sneak into warzones. After all, living abroad is supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime.

Of course, what we forget is that living abroad is still, after all, "living." It consists mainly of trips to the mall and the grocery. There are occasional flashes of middle-class angst, romantic frustration, and directional confusion.

Of course there are moments, say when I'm walking through a Mumbai market and the sun is setting at a 45-degree angle over the old colonial buildings, which rot under their patina of pigeon shit and neglect, that I realize what a beautiful city I happen to be in. And I'm glad.

And by and large that's enough for me, for now.