Mumbai commuters might remember seeing this billboard on the Western Express Highway a few weeks ago. An advertisement for an airline, it asked: does the world feel sad when you don't explore it? How deftly this question turns the world into a languishing maiden, sitting disconsolate with her head on her knees, asking, "Tum kab aaoge?" (when will you come?) of a migrant husband. Aspirational travel, a booming industry and culture, is often based on this understanding of the world passively, innocently waiting for us to sample its generous delights.

The death of a zealous American at the hands of indigenous people when he forced himself on North Sentinel Island in the Andamans, in order to 'enlighten' them with his missionary zeal, lays bare some of these understandings of travel — that, with some places, it is not they who welcome or invite us (obviously we never think so of the Western world with its humiliating visa processes), but we, who do them a favour by visiting them. We imbue them with meaning, rather than have our repository of meanings enriched and challenged by them.