Go slow...

Preeti Verma Lal 

If you do not know how to go slow, enrol at the International Institute of Not Doing Much. With ‘Slow down, Do Less’, as its tagline, the institute’s manifesto states: We shall defend our state of calm, whatever the cost may be.We shall slow down in the dining room and in the streets. We shall slow down everywhere.

From India to Miami, to the whole world, go ahead and slow down girls.” There is nothing slow about this Guru Randhawa and Pitbull’s latest party anthem but girls — and men, women, children worldwide — are grooving to the idea of slowing down. It’s now Slow Travel. Slow Food. Slow Fashion. Slow Fishing. Basically, Slow Living by shunning the frenetic life and living with less of a rush. The world is going slo-mo pretty fast.

In the hurried world, Slow Movement is the new sane mantra. It all started in 1986 when a man named Carlo Petrini protested against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome. One man’s voice against a fast food behemoth sparked a Slow Food Movement. Over time, all things ‘slow’ became a subculture of its own which now involves thousands of projects and millions of people in more than 160 countries. In slo-mo, the idea is to counter the rise of fast food and fast life. 

Slow Food: When Petrini started his protest against McDonald’s, he could not have imagined its impact. In 1989, it led to the establishment of Slow Food, a global, grassroots organisation that aims to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. Currently, Slow Food has more than 1,00,000 members from 150 countries, 1,300 local chapters as well as 2,000 food communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality foods.

“Slow Food in India is in a very exciting time of its development. It is still in its infancy but bursting with potential,” Carlo Petrini had said in an interview to Beej Living which describes itself as ‘a curated guide to slow living in India’. 

Slow Travel: Tired of ‘10 cities in 12 days’ travel packages, the discerning traveller is opting for Slow Travel as an opportunity to become part of local life and to connect to a place and its people. Slow travellers stay at one place for at least a week; not in a hotel but houses, cottages, apartments and villas. 

Such is the demand for slow travel that Visit Finland recently launched a ‘Rent a Finn’ travel initiative in which people could Slow Travel through Finland to find happiness and calm. 

“The Rent a Finn campaign is in response to the global travel trend of living like a local, which is all about sharing genuine experiences with ordinary people,” Heli Jimenez, senior director, international marketing, Business Finland, said. Interestingly, the campaign is assisted by Hintsa Performance, a Finnish high-performance coaching company, which believes sustainable performance is created through a balanced lifestyle.

“Our modern life is full of stimuli, and unwinding can be a challenge. Spending time in nature helps you reset and recover. Seeing where you stand is the first step towards reducing stress and creating long-term performance,” Annastiina Hintsa, chief operating officer, Hintsa Performance, said.

In India, slow travel is catching up. “Though not as popular as in the West, but the discerning Indian traveller is now preferring the quiet, not-so-known places,” says Seema Kundra, a New Delhi-based travel and brand consultant.

Slow Fashion: “Resist the mantra of speed that violently leads to losing oneself. Resist the illusion of something new at any cost.” Designer Alessandro Michele famously implored. That’s the message the fashion world is sewing up. Fashion with a heart — a constant, all-year round fashion that is not a burden on the planet. Slow Fashion is about consuming and creating fashion consciously and with integrity; it is about slowing down the clothing consumption rate.

At Dear Frances, a British footwear label, each piece is handmade. For AYR, a label introduced in 2014, the concept of Slow Fashion is baked right into the name, which stands for All Year Round. 

Los Angeles-based Reformation creates products only from sustainable and upcycled materials in a fair wage environment. Thought Clothing sticks to all things natural while PACT even cares to check the supply chain. And then, there is United by Blue with a heart in place — for each product sold, they remove one pound of trash from oceans and waterways through their clean up initiative.

Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance: A network of more than 400 chefs from across the world have pledged to defend food biodiversity across the world — they will support small producers by using products from Presidia projects and the Ark of Taste, as well as local fruits, vegetables and cheeses, in their kitchens. Slow Food is calling for a more holistic European Union food and farming policy that protects traditional foods and small-scale farmers in the face of a rapidly transforming continent.

Slow Fish Campaign: It promotes small-scale fishing and responsible fish consumption by informing people about the richness and fragility of the marine world so that consumers can make more informed choices and widen their choices beyond the most popular — and often overfished — species.

“The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility of  making meaningful connections — with people, culture, work, nature, our own bodies and minds. Some call that living better. Others would describe it as spiritual,” writes Canadian journalist Carl Honoré in his book In Praise of Slowness. Perhaps it is time now to slow down the pace, and not be slaves to our schedules and live life in slo-mo. 

Cittaslow’s Slow Cities 

Founded in Italy with the aim of improving the quality of life in towns by slowing down its overall pace, Cittaslow is an organisation that certifies cities as Slow Cities. So far, it has designated 252 cities across 30 countries as ‘Slow’. Pick one of these for your next destination:

Silly City (Belgium): The beautiful French-speaking community in the Wallonia region of Belgium is as slow as it can get.

Clonakilty (Ireland): Voted the best town in Europe in 2017, it is Ireland’s first autism friendly town and also the country’s first rural community to have a bike rental scheme.

Yea (Australia): Nearly 100 km from Melbourne, Yea has a population of 1,100. Several buildings here are under the Victoria Heritage Register.

Sebastopol (California): Only an hour north of San Francisco, Sebastopol offers small-town charm, farm-to-table organic food and wine, creative artists and healers, and redwoods.

Graz (Austria): Discover the sights of Graz with its beautiful architecture, world cultural heritage and design.

Sendai (Japan): Founded in 1600 by one of Japan’s most powerful feudal lords, Sendai is also known as the City of Trees.

Mendrisio (Switzerland): Situated on the gentle slopes of Monte Generoso, Mendirisio is known for its history and monuments.

Lac Megantic (Canada): Lac Megantic is a prime destination for outdoorsy people who love hiking, cycling, horseback riding, mountain biking, canoeing, camping, fishing, and in winter, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, snow-tubing, and snowshoeing. 

Aylsham (Great Britain): This historic market town was ranked fourth in the world in the International Awards for Liveable Communities (in towns with population up to 20,000). 

Pijao (Colombia): Founded in 1902, Pijao has 7,200 inhabitants. Nearly 4,000 of them live in rural zones. The climate is lovely, in spite of being located in a mountain hollow where one might think that no breeze would pass by.