Showing the way in Hampi

Chandru the guide is in tears as he recalls for my benefit the pillage of Vijayanagara by the Deccan Sultans. “For five days, madam, for five days the city burnt. Everything they burnt, the palaces, the books… Nothing was left of Vijayanagara after those five days. Can you imagine?”

What Chandru missed by way of facts, he made up with drama. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. But if I were a diehard Hampi-phile looking for information, he would have been a big letdown. You want more than a murmured introduction to the explicit engravings of Hampi as ‘Madam, erotics’ before your guide shuffles off in deep embarrassment. Or a guided tour of which rocks Jayaprada has danced against and where all Jackie Chan shot at the Virupaksha temple for The Myth.

So Unesco’s guide training programme at Hampi might just be what the doctor ordered for Chandru. Starting June 22, certified government guides at this gorgeous world heritage site will be put through a six-day crash course in the art and history of the Vijayanagara Empire.

This is not the first time that Unesco has got Indian guides to brush up their facts and figures. It has, over the last two years, been coaching guides on the Buddhism tourism circuit which is patronised mostly by visitors from south-east Asia. Four programmes have been held across Delhi, Varanasi, Patna and Leh where guides get capsules on Buddhist art, architecture, philosophy and history from scholars and historians.

“I have been ferrying tourists across the Buddha trail for 20 years now but even I did not know about the Loma Rishi caves in Bodh Gaya, which are an example of exquisite Buddhist architecture. I heard about them for the first time at a Unesco training course. It is a lonesome and crime-prone belt. So even now I may not venture there with my tourists but still, it enhances my knowledge,” says government-certified guide Mukesh Yadav, who specialises in the Buddhist trail.

A tourist guide has a job that requires a strange mixture of skills. He needs to be well-informed but not a pedagogue. Few tourists like to be dunked in tiresome details about the places they visit. Pilgrims particularly are more into rituals and spiritual connections with the places they visit and are unlikely to seek details about art, architecture or history.

Most specialist guides anyway have pulled in years of experience on their trail but the course still offers them a lot. “Some of the Unesco lectures on Buddhist art were a revelation. We had Naman Ahuja from JNU who knew precisely how much information to pass on without getting into excessive details. For instance, we knew so little about how Buddhism connects India to Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations,” says veteran guide Suez Akram.

Unesco’s intention in conducting these courses, it says, is to help in the interpretation of historical sites. These sites are not just about history but also about the social and cultural contexts in which they came up. Not just that. A lot of information guides pass on to tourists may be coloured by prejudice or sheer lack of awareness.

“Till quite recently, the job of even government appointed guides was considered hereditary. And information was passed on from son to father. Guides could carry the baggage of misinformation or prejudice across generations. A mid-career course like this could iron out some of these kinks,” says Shaguna Gahilote, project officer with Unesco.

Apart from the hard facts, the course also teaches guides soft skills: how to address argumentative tourists, deal with aggressive questions and tricky situations. If a tourist, for instance, insists that a site is far inferior to another, the guide is encouraged to turn a potential heated debate into a calm discussion.