ariadne180

“It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.”  Anthony Bourdain

When news broke that Anthony Bourdain has committed suicide in a French hotel yesterday, I was genuinely sad.  I was preparing my breakfast in the kitchen and together with my father, who is also very fond of Bourdain, once heard the seemingly trivial narration, gasped in unison.  Why?  I had always quietly detested established first world inhabitants who resort to cutting their life short.  I believe that it is a complete insult to the rest who toil and suffer in poverty and silence without any recourse to changing their own fate simply because of chance.  How could we?  I am however, making an exception without due consideration of the circumstances surrounding Bourdain's decision, mainly because he was one of the very few celebrities with whom I held great respect.  Despite the tattoos, despite the drug use history, and despite the sharp tongue--all of which makes up the worst of my personal prejudices as a collective, he made sense.  Who else could flawlessly put into words the moments you stop tinkering with your gadgets just to selfishly own a real glimpse, a privilege when you are away in what you deem is an exotic land?  I had often wondered how over the years I thought I had just lost the appetite to tell stories of my travels, but Bourdain was able to capture the sentiment.  It is enough that you are physically there, at a moment, perchance not the best, for when is it really?  He understood there is no need to worry about missing an opportunity to chronicle what you have seen--for others.  You travel for yourself.  You do it because you keep on learning how insignificant you really are in a scheme of things, and that you keep on realizing how you know less of the world.

“ Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”  

There was no need for a revolution, for radicalization.  There was, however, a sense of pessimism in the way he disclosed his views.  How annoying it must be to have to convince people that holocaust was not the only genocide.  He hung out with the elite crowds as well as the downtrodden in the streets of some random gritty city.  How difficult it must be to reconcile the two worlds and the hypocrises.  He made it look easy to walk from a street food vendor's stall to a 3-star Michelin restaurant, and with just little hints of political musings he made our inner battles regarding morality normal.  On an episode in Madagascar, he travelled with a known director who was vegetarian--the very kind he expressed certian disdain for.  But there was a sense of fascination in the work of the other--for the dark, the gloom and the doom.  As he said you do not need to like a person to be able to respect him or her.

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”  

I don't think I need to ask why he made the decision.  I choose not to.  I will instead take comfort in the fact he lived a good life, a big portion of which I and many of us can only dream of.  I will continue to watch his shows whenever it gets aired--the only CNN program I watch anyway.  And I will always respect him for allowing me to find a common interest with my own family.  When my parents visited Hanoi last year, my father was keen on finding the typical local restaurant Bourdain made famous by sharing a meal with then President Obama in it's premises.  My parents had a great meal, but later in the night, my mother ended having the runs.  We still joke about it to this day--how Bourdain's guts may be made of metal, or how he must pack bags of indigestion medication.  I will instead, choose to think of and remember him that way.