How to turn holidays into golly-days

Faced with an increasingly blase ‘Been there, done that’ attitude on the part of potential customers, the tourism industry is planning out-of-the-box ways to turn holidays into golly-days. Richard Branson plans to take tourists into outer space. A couple of Indian types are said to have signed up for the star trek, unmindful of the caveat about such junkets contained in the rhyme, “There was a young lady of Wight/ who travelled much faster than light./ She departed one day,/ In a relative way,/ And arrived the previous night.”

For those who might prefer a more down-to-earth experience, Tihar jail is proposing to open its gates to cash-paying clients who want to know what it feels like to do time as guests of the sarkar. Such voluntary inmates will be segregated from the rest of the convicts, but will wear the same prison uniform and eat the same food as the others. Though such a hard-cell approach to a literally captive market is unlikely to tempt absconders like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya to return home to face the music, it could inspire other innovative experiences for world-weary itinerants. Getting away from it all can be a trying experience as discovered by the footsore traveller who ordered a breakfast of burned toast and tepid coffee. When the surprised waitress brought it, he told her, “Now sit down and nag me — I’m homesick.”