Aamby Valley

Night view of the lake from NAMAK

Dawn

Evening

Aamby Valley

Evening

Dawn

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A powerful epic, a modern-day version of Little Women, albeit rawer and more global in perspective. It is also another sad tale of rapacious colonial powers exploiting human and mineral resources of Africa; a tale of religious and spiritual rape.
I wonder why the histories of the Indian sub-continent and Africa turned out so differently after independence from their respective colonial masters. The two regions are so similar - diverse languages, customs, diet, weather, religions in the form of animism, all within one giant land-mass. India seems to be thriving, but most African countries appear to be in a mess politically and economically. Did Hinduism prevail and resist the onslaughts of Islam and Christianity or subsumed the two religions in a form of spiritual osmosis?
Rachel’s malapropisms are hilarious, although perversely appropriate in the context – executrate (execute), took for granite (took for granted), pandemony (pandemonium), Thyroid Mary (Typhoid Mary), putative (fugitive) from law. She does not seem to outgrow this propensity – on her 5oth birthday she says, “… it gives you something to compensate upon.”
Adah’s palindromes and other verbal calisthenics make delightful reading - Amen enema; Damn mad; Elapsed or esteemed, all ale meets erodes pale; A, he rose … ye eyesore, ha1>.

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The Most Powerful Object of Our Time

The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An engrossing tale about the origins of books. The book that we hold today is the culmination of the weaving together the threads of the hoary origins of paper, printing, ink, and book-binding. From papyrus, parchment, hand-made paper to paper mills; the standardizations of paper sizes; from cuneiform writing, hieroglyphics, hand written scrolls, block printing, Gutenberg’s printing press, daguerreotypes, to modern lithography. The etymology of “foolscap”, “italics” and others is detailed in the author’s typical chatty manner.
The contributions of Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks and others is documented comprehensively. It is a pity that there is no mention of Indian writing and books in their antediluvian forms like the tree bark scrolls ‘bhoj patra.’
Somehow not as engaging as his Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks.

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काली सलवार और अन्य कहानियाँ by Saadat Hasan Manto
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Peopled with whores, pimps, smugglers, wastrels, charlatans and quacks. Some bits are incomprehensible due to either the language or the context. The allegorical “Dekh Kabira Roya” seems to comment on the then existing political situation. There is a poignant tale of two friends from same regiment now at war after Partition over Kashmir. Then there is a touching story of a pubescent girl.

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Garden of Fools by Robert Hutchison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The British, especially the rapacious East India Company, may be criticized for looting India but they must be lauded for three contributions they bequeathed to the country viz., the administrative service, the vast rail network and, most importantly, the irrigation canal grid they set up to ward off the cyclical famines that decimated the population. The aim of the latter was not really altruistic – farmers paid for the irrigation water and were taxed accordingly.
This fictionalized biography of the main mover of the idea of the Ganges Canal Proby Cautley makes gripping reading. The gratuitous sexy bits were superfluous as was the detailed Afghan conflict.
What is smoothly skipped over is the rampant felling of trees in the Himalayas to fire the brick kilns meant for churning out millions of bricks to line the Canal.
However, credit must be given to Cautley and his team of engineers, need I add, to the thousands of native labourers and craftsmen, for their technical skills. The canal functions perfectly and the arched bridges still stand rock solid after 170 years. Unfortunately, the canal roads have become clogged with traffic and the trees that were lovingly planted are slowly dying off and not being replaced.
The whimsical anglicised spellings of Indian names make delightlful reading e.g., Alligurh, Mynpoorie, Kankhul, Cawnpore, Jumna, Mozuffurnuggur, Furruckabad, Oudh. Bobbachee and pawnee keep recurring.

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The Raja of Harsil: The Legend of Frederick 'Pahari' Wilson by Robert Hutchison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This fictionalized account about the British adventurer could have been titled “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”. Wilson was soldier in the East India Company till he deserted (out of cowardice) and went on the lam.
He was a spy and claimed to have thwarted the nefarious designs that Tsarist Russia had on Indian territory – he single-handedly caught two Russian spies in the icy heights of Nelang, and led to the capture of a Russian prince. He also allegedly played a crucial role in defeating the Sikh Army. He is said to have protected Mussoorie and Dehradoon from the mutineers of 1957 – the tallest of his claims.
He tailored his own currency and tinkered with the flora and fauna of Garwhal leading to the decimation of centuries old deodar forests and extinction of animals like the ibex, mountain goats etc. He guided blood-thirsty British officers in conducting hecatombs in the frigid regions ranging from Harsil, Himachal, Ladhak to Kashmir.
The systematic ornithocide and felling of trees led to the extinction of birds like the ‘monal’. The Brits looted India under the veneer of “development”, but Wilson raped and ravaged the sylvan Garwhal hills for his personal wealth. His felled of centuries old deodar trees and transported them free by floating them down the Bhagirathi to feed Cautley's brick klins for his Upper Ganges Canal and to provide sleepers for the burgeoning rail network in India.
He wanted to start a dynasty in the “Kingdom of Harsil” but (spoiler alert!) the hills had their revenge – his progeny turned out to be either wastrels or criminals and his lineage, thankfully, petered out.
There is a lot of duplication from the author’s other book “Garden Of Fools” and the “Himalaya Club” episodes is lifted straight from John Lang's The Himalaya Club.
Still, the book is engrossing.

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Dawn