Category: Travelogue

  • This Divided Island : Stories from the Sri Lankan War

    Samanth Subramanian

    We visited Lanka in 2010, just after the war had ended. Reading this book, and on hindsight, I think we underestimated the seriousness of what the country had gone through. I remember the undercurrent of bitterness in a conversation I overheard while sitting in a Colombo cafe. Directed at Rajapaksa, whose smiles beamed down on you every time you looked around, it was about how he was presiding over a reign of terror. I was surprised, because I thought everyone would be happy that the war had ended. Another instance I remember clearly – driving through Trincomalee and seeing some lovely beaches, I asked the driver to stop so we could walk a bit. He laughed ruefully and said that entry was restricted. The soldiers were clearing the area of land mines and a walk there might relieve me of limbs or even life!
    When I wrote the travel log, I had the luxury of making these footnotes, but this book is a visceral breakdown of what Lanka went (and still goes) through. The war might have ended, but the scars remain fresh. I haven’t read any war or post war accounts, and therefore lack the perspective to compare, but I do know that this book really brings out the futility of such human conflict. The battle has very less to do with good and evil, because both sides have very little territory to occupy on moral high grounds. A line from Star Wars comes to mind “you have become the very thing you swore to destroy”. Prabhakaran’s treatment of fellow Tamils is about as bad as what the Lankan army inflicted on them. As a Lankan Tamil says in the book, the Tigers first lost the war “for the unconditional affections of the island’s Tamils” before it lost the other war.
    (more…)

  • Red Bull to Buddha

    David Passiak

    I came across this book thanks to an article on the web that quoted a paragraph from this book. The paragraph comes pretty late in the book and deals with the ‘cycles of birth and death’ tenet in Hinduism. It is indeed one of the several bright sparks in the book.

    Let’s start from the beginning. It’s pretty much the typical ‘story’ of a Westerner feeling disgusted with the levels of greed and materialism rampant in the US suddenly deciding to drop everything and come to the East for ‘the answer’. To his credit, the author himself acknowledges it, and calls out the fact that everyone is in search of the elusive ‘answer’. I actually saw the title in that context but it actually is about Red Bull being considered a legit offering made to the Buddha by his devotees in parts of Thailand. I found some of the events narrated a tad difficult to believe – specially the encounters with the sadhus in India – but hey, as the author states, ‘our beliefs create the world we live in’. Also, the experiences indeed make for good stories at the very least. (more…)

  • To a Mountain in Tibet

    Colin Thubron

    Mount Kailas has been circling my mind space for a long while now, thanks to it being at an intersection of two of my favourite themes – Hindu mythology and travel. A peak that has never been scaled, but a mountain that has witnessed the circumambulation of scores of pilgrims across centuries. Personally, that made it more interesting to me than a standard travelogue.

    The mountain is considered holy by two among the world’s biggest faiths – Hinduism and Buddhism. This is in addition to Bon, a native religious tradition of Tibet. Ravana, Hanuman, Nyo Lhanangpa all find a presence in the holy trek. (more…)

  • City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

    William Dalrymple

    After finishing the book, I was surprised that it was only 339 pages, there is so much in it, and unsurprisingly so. The author mentions in the prologue that depending on whom you ask, the number of Delhis that have existed before the current one is anywhere between 7 and 21, and it is to his credit that he has probably brought out many, many of them. Not in the way of the structured and stratified thirty feet wall that represents 3000 years of continuous occupation to which Professor Lal points and says “The whole history of Delhi is there”, but through different journeys.

    There is clearly a preference for the ‘Twilight period’ – between the Mughal decline and the British ascendancy, but there are quite a few pages spent on the Mughal golden age, Tughlaq and other pre-Mughal Delhi rulers, right up till the Mahabharata’s Indraprastha and before, and the post Independence era. It must be mentioned that despite the seriousness with which the author has approached the content, his wit shines through! (more…)

  • Mofussil Junction

    Ian Jack

    What a lovely read!

    Now that we have settled that, let me elaborate. Mofussil Junction is a collection of the author’s articles about India, written for various publications, over a time frame of more than 30 years. There are essays, profiles, and some wonderfully wistful travel writings. The book is divided into five parts – places, people, (the Nehru-Gandhi) dynasty, ‘Life and Death’, and ‘Fellow Travellers’.

    He had me hooked from the first chapter, when I learned that Bihar was the birthplace of George Orwell! There are vivid portraits of Bombay and Calcutta in the late 80s, but it is the tales of Serampur and McCluskiegunge (not to forget this chapter’s superb title) that truly amaze! (more…)