The politicians of the day along with their offsprings can afford to be frugal

There is absolutely nothing wrong in aspiring to hit as many as exquisite destinations boasting of exotic landscapes and folk, across the planet. Particularly, if you have affluence for a background. As a matter of fact, is not travelling nothing less than a virtue for many as it tends to bring together peoples and cultures of different quarters?

To substantiate this point, would not the travels initiated by some exemplary personalities such as Mahathma Gandhi, P Krishnapillai and L.K. Advani suffice?

Of all these great attempts, any sane soul is likely to feel elated simply hearing about the tour undertaken by the Mahathma and his other aides to Navkhali (Naokhali), a location in East Bengal (currently Bangladesh) where at that point of time, around 2000 Hindus were forced to proselytise to Islam. History says that the great man was instrumental in mitigating the communal tension prevailing in the area then.

Similarly, P Krishnapillai, one of the inspiring presences for the activists during the Punnapra Vayalar struggle, and the brain behind the famous workers' strike in Alappuzha has often been presented by the historians as an extensive traveller. He who started his never ending travels in 1920, incidentally had taken part in a march from Kozhikode to Payyannur under the banner of Salt Sathyagraha.

Even L K Advani, the power train behind the anti-Babri Masjid movement, had undertaken some significant tours; the Rath Yathra to demolish the structure in Ayodhya and the trip to Pakistan where he had taken pain to extol the virtues of Quaid E Azam, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, to name a few.

Likewise, the ward of V S Achuthanandan, the current chief minister of Kerala, refreshingly is a person that aspires to emulate the ways of the bigger names who had conducted the virtuous trait to a nicety. The difference, if you can spot it, is that the Marxist scion has for a change, chosen spots such as Macao Islands to appease his thirst for revolution. No one - at least the global communists if Comintern has ceased to exist - can blame him because Macao, a couple of islands in the South China sea, were won back by China from Portugal in 1999. There is obviously a red connection for a resort.

This budding revolutionary would be the last man for many a die-hard follower of his father to cash in on the position of his unblemished father. It is also noteworthy here that comrade VS has made trips to some foreign states with the objective of improving health, the cost of which was shouldered by the party. If reckoned rightly, one can see that the peasants and workers that predominantly contribute to the party fund had wholeheartedly consented to use the funds for boosting the health of their favourite leader then.

Hat's off to these relentless triers that are still - although inadvertently -  being instrumental in sending the rising sons to all destinations across the globe where they long to go. To hell the eternal expostulatory class that unrelentingly carp on every such act undertaken by the political protagonists - be it a trip to an exotic foreign destination or a rendezvous with a minor girl. Take the explanation given by a prominent political figure for his act of indulging in an opulent hotel during a period when his leadership had widely called on for an austerity drive -"quite frugal with taxpayers money".

Everything is frugal, as long as these champions spare a thought on the profound legacy they bask on. If one of the lot needs to ponder over the bare-footed trip undertaken by Mahathma Gandhi from an Indian village to Navkhali, another can take a moral lesson or two from the painstaking campaigns initiated by comrade Krishnapillai; say his great walk to become the first non-Brahmin to ring the bell at the Guruvayoor temple. At least then they can design their extravagant trips in a way that they can boast of gaining something from these frugal trips for the proletariat down under that more often than not condone the frugality of these cavalier gentlemen.