Unlike the majority of Bollywood, music-composer and singer Vishal Dadlani is someone who has built a whole career around being plainspoken, and has always stood by his views unapologetically. But unfortunately, his boisterous nature often makes him overstep the bounds of acceptable behaviour (in the eyes of people). Need I remind you his “insensitive” remark on Jain monk Tarun Sagar?
“For me being understood is not a paramount consequence, being true is what important,” says Vishal, who, time and again, has been brutally trolled for expressing potentially controversial viewpoints on social media.
“People’s opinions of me don’t really bother me so you’re welcome to misunderstand me. It’s of no consequence,” he adds.
Known for belting out umpteen hit songs such as Malhari, Madari, Swag Se Swagat and Selfie Le Le Re among others, Vishal currently appears on season 3 of Great Escape along with actor Sarah Jane Dias. The show, about a splendid road adventure, brings out unknown sides of Vishal and Sarah to viewers as they embark upon an expedition to lesser explored regions of Himachal Pradesh.
“I like to travel a lot as much as I can and thankfully, my work allows that. But you don’t really get the time to stop in and kind of do the stuff you like to do. While I have been to Shimla before, I have only played a couple of concerts there. I have been through Himachal before, but I have never flown in the sky there like a paraglider. I have never rappel down mountain side. So, for me, it was a whole new way to see it and a whole new set of experiences altogether. And of course, I was with Sarah for 10 days. We meet here on and off, not as often as we would like to because work keeps us busy. So, it was lovely,” he says.
Vishal has been friends with Sarah for a very long time but the two have widely divergent tastes and preferences.
“Sarah is somebody who is up at 5:30 in the morning. And I’m someone who sleeps at 5:30. So basically, some fundamental lifestyle differences made us people who didn’t get to spend as much time as they would like to together. But this trip kind of really helped us do that. And it was great to be driving through some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. A lot get to said about how beautiful Himachal is, it’s actually underrated because when you go there it literally takes your breath away.”
But there’s a lot more to travelling than just walking around, enjoying the picturesque view and eating food, which celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain made us realise in his famous Parts Unknown. How do you see it?
“Travel is as Anthony Bourdain said, ‘travel as far as you can, as often as you can and as much as you can.’ I think travel is something that you don’t just experience you just don’t read about them but you live them, you feel them, you taste them, hear them and all of that stuff adds to your mindset and your understanding of people, of cultures, of the world at large.
“And I would like to echo Mr Bourdain’s recommendation wholeheartedly, everyone just needs to travel as far as they can, as often as they can and as much as they can. Because it’s a beautiful world out there with beautiful people and everyone lives differently from everybody else especially in India where culture changes maybe every 200 kms. If you just open your eyes, open your heart and open your mind you can learn so much.”
We may have a long way to go before females get equal representation among actors in the film industry but one would be glad to know that most travellers today are women.
When asked how travel is helping them empower themselves, Sarah, who also began her professional career with a travel show called On the Run, says, ‘We were on the way to Chamba when we stopped by a little dhaba to get some chai. We saw these girls in fully biker gear, chilling and having a good time there. We talked to them and found out that they rode there from Delhi and this was their fourth day on the ride. And just seeing that sight was empowering in itself. I was just looking at them and I was like, ‘Oh my god! I want to be you.’
“When you travel and hear these stories or even when you just see the local women in places that you travel to, it’s really incredible to see them how they function,” adds Sarah.
Great Escape airs every Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm on Fox Life.
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