1 comments about The Ancient Geography of India: The Buddhist Period, Including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang.

1. I don't own this edition but I have an ebook of the original that this is a facsimile of. Basically it's the geography of india compared to the descriptions of Arrian and Ptolemy and a Chinese explorer. That part is fantastic but the maps are absolutely incomprehensible. There are bold lines going every which way (possible routes of alexander?), barely legible names that may be towns, rivers, mountains, etc. The author tried to put too much information into each map. Perhaps if one could find a good atlas this book could be used in conjunction with it. However, I'm still looking for a good historical atlas of india in the classical era. If anyone knows of one, please let me know.

5 comments about The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India was Mapped and Everest was Named.

1. Similar scientific biographies such as this book have become quite common. Longitude and Riddle of the Compass are two that come to mind. I personally enjoy such books as they usually take something that most modern people take for granted and explain the work and effort that went into various types of discoveries.

   The Great Arc is an interesting story of a very difficult subject. A survey of the Indian sub-continent was not only difficult due to the distances and the lack of computers to crunch the unbelievable amount of data, but also the weather and the various illnesses that seem to decimate these kinds of endeavors. William Lambton, who most people have probably never heard of, takes it upon himself as an officer in the British Army, to begin a survey of the Indian sub-continent done on an amazingly precise and accurate scale. The years that he spends battling the elements and the lack of help are well told. His successor, George Everest is an extremely difficult man to work for but he does yields some vast improvements to the surveying process.

   Very little time is spent on Mount Everest, other than to explain the origin of the name and some of the debate about calculating the height of the mountain range. Overall, however, this book was an excellent story on the quest to survey with almost fanatical precision a large piece of the earth and the men, many of whom died in the process, whod dedicated their lives and careers to thsi endeavor.




2. I enjoyed this book but perhaps not quite as much as John Keay's 'The Discovery of India'. Both books capture elements of the exoticness of India and even more so, the eccentric Englishmen who made their lives and endeavours in the country. As I have a mathematical background I would have liked some hard science details in the book - how does triangulation work with its dimensions of measurement (horizontal and vertical), how can independent checks be made by using astronomical sources, and so on. But I recognise that for many readers the omission of this material may be a significant positive!



3. A thin but inspiring history: how William Lambton, George Everest (pronounced EVE-rest), and other hardy and dedicated souls mapped a great deal of India. The Arc was a series of triangles plotted through vertical and horizontal triangulation, sometimes confirmed by fixing one's place by observation of the stars. This mapping required braving malaria- and dysentery-infested forests and plains; crunching the numbers in impossibly complex equations; lugging a vast instrument called The Great Theodolite over rugged terrain; contructing towers and scaffolding for flagmen and flares, and huge amounts of patience. The story is awe-inspiring, if only for the bravery of these pioneers, who often faced greater casualty rates than soldiers in the name of science; but I was most impressed by the precision of the survey under the given conditions. Every variable was predicted and dealt with, even to attaching thermometers to the measuring-chains so as to calculate the metal's expansion and compensate in the resulting calculation. In all this plotting, the measuring of mountains was incidental, but Keay also reveals how the bad-tempered Everest somehow got his name attached to the world's highest peak. This book is a fine work of scholarship and very pleasant to read. However, it is a pity that there is so little on the reactions of Indians to the survey: I'd like to know how Everest's own native contingent felt, what local villagers thought on seeing the great procession, what the survey's own Indian mathmatical genius felt about the project. Perhaps there is no record of their feelings, but that's a shame. Otherwise, this is a stirring tale of human acheivement.



4. An exhilarating history of two forgotten men, first William Lambton and then his successor Sir George Everest, who by sheer will power overcame enormous contrary forces to lay out the first geodetic survey of India. With more suspense than a Harrison Ford movie, John Keay tells us how the large teams that each Surveyor General commanded, from technicians down to coolies, battled numerous huge obstacles to triangulate the land mass of India. What's more amazing is that these triangles, dozens of miles on a leg, were accurate to within inches. It's hard to imagine the dedication of Lambton in 1820, working at night by kerosene lamp, evaluating complex trigonometrical formulas long before calculators were available. One numerical error in the fourth decimal place would cost months of backtracking, but few were made. Lambton and Everest loved their project.
   One feels the slow pace of life in 19th century India. Things could stop for years, and then pick up again as if no time had passed. This enterprise was comparable in its time to the Apollo project of the 1960's in effort and scope, but it ran for roughly 60 years!
   The story culminates with the first precise measurements of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. It is fitting that the peak that eventually emerges as the highest of all was given Everest's name (Lambton had died long before). And once again to our amazement, the altitude was correct!
   Not many historians are comfortable with science and technology. So for every book about the relentless advance of those subjects, there are probably 50 rehashing the political intrigues of Europe. But Keay writes in a fascinating way about men who spent their lives immersed in these fields, and about Lambton's and Everest's faith that the future would belong to science, engineering, and technology as they moved forward on the bedrock of mathematics.



5. This is a well written and fascinating account of the mapping of India and the measurement of the Height of Everest, or as it should be pronounced Eve rest. The account is certainly dramatic and the characters are just that. A book I found hard to put down.

No comments about Under the Holy Lake: A Memoir of Eastern Bhutan (Wayfarer).

2 comments about Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily.

1. Scoop-Wallah

   Reading Justine Hardy's Scoop-wallah, an alternatively hilarious and pensive account of her hacking days as a features writer for the New Delhi daily the Indian Express for about a year, is to realize that good writing about India keeps coming out regardless of, or perhaps because of, the country's status as "a functioning anarchy," to borrow a famous phrase from Daniel Moynihan, a former U. S. Ambassador to India. Justine Hardy is a clever writer. She does not claim to be writing about all of India. She is writing just about New Delhi. Her portrait of New Delhi has all the anomalies that one expects in such a book. There is a raja's son who has no kingdom to rule and his satrapy in the flophouse where the writer resides. There is a newspaper editor, her boss, who is unable to understand references to April Fool's jokes in spite of his Anglicization. His name, as transliterated in the book is "Sourish," perhaps a version of "Suresh," meaning the god of gods in Sanskrit. Sourish Bhattacharya will consider for publication only such of Hardy's writing as can be considered fictionalized features, not hard news. When Hardy rants about her missing slides, telling him in London a lost or stolen slide fetches up two hundred pounds, he feigns indifference. Then there are the usual gang of culprits: charlatan gurus, rickshaw drivers salivating over the experience of driving a white woman to her destination trying hard to catch a glimpse of her white skin in one of their many mirrors, fops who decry colonialism and hold her responsible for all Britain's crimes without taking into account she hadn't even been born when Nehru's somnolent words announced the birth of India on the midnight of August 15, 1947, dreaming social workers who want to show off their good works. Our writer does not fall in love with New Delhi, but she likes it very much, notwithstanding its unsettling attachment to dust and defeat. She tries to fit in. She wears Indian clothes; she tries to learn to speak Hindi. Of course, her attempt to speak the language always identifies her as a foreigner, a fate she tries hard to avoid. Of course, she speaks Hindi only to those who drive her around or make tea for her. Good intentions don't matter. British administrators also learned regional languages just so that they could tell their servants what to do. Not much goes right for her. Indians are notorious for trying to sharpen their English skills on visiting foreigners. They don't want the visitors to speak the local language, partly because they think it is not polished enough. Thus, it is not surprising that Hardy runs into scores of Indians who want to show her that there remains a British presence in India in the form of English remade in the nuances of native languages. English is the language of power. "English is still the currency of the social establishment. The socialites of Calcutta, Bombay and Delhi may swirl their saris and stand proud in their national dress . . ., careful copies of the sartorially patriotic Nehru, but still they speak English. Their feet are silent speakers too, shod in English shoes, black Oxfords to match the aspirations of language."

   Much as I enjoyed the book, I am not able to formulate its readableness in anything other than its fictionality. I believe that the book reads like fiction because everything novel that the writer experiences turns into interesting. In her moments when she stops pretending to be amused by New Delhi's transmogrification by globalization Hardy writes passages which indicate that she can indeed free herself from her self-imposed obligation to remain unsettled by her Indian experiences. Hardy turns from being an entertainer into a Blakean observer when she lets her pen rip the calm surface of her humorous meditation and speak of the mimic men and women, living an opulent life style which is more a parody of life in New York or London than one truly free of sexism as exemplified in arranged marriages and dowry extortions. Her Kiplingesque analysis of the horror of AIDS in India, often brought home to well provided-for wives by ambitious, much-traveled entrepreneurial husbands, the government's denial that the disease is widespread, the government doctor's refusal to treat AIDS patients are perhaps the best part of the book.




2. Justine Hardy is a British journalist who decided to take the plunge and work on a Delhi newspaper. Her book covers diverse topics such as a visit to the Dalai Lama, toilets (or the lack-thereof), Slum education, organic farming and polo.

   The prose is easy to read, and both funny and sad. This is essentialy a travel book. It won't change your life, but if you have any misconceptions about the Raj still being alive in India, this might cure you. A great book to take on holidays, about ordinary people and how they live int in India today - a world away from western Europe and America.

No comments about Northern India (White Star Guides).

No comments about Treasures & Pleasures of Dubai,Abu Dhabi,Oman & Yemen:: Best of the Best in Travel and Shopping.

5 comments about Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics).

1. This is one of those books that I will always keep by my bed as a reminder not to take myself too seriously in any capacity. I found this a terribly funny book, mostly becuase it rang so true. Ackerley is fabulous company, shockingly observant and brutally honest, even when it plunges him into bad light. We tip-toe so carefully around so many of the subjects he faces head on - racism, homosexuality, class and privilege. He doesn't flinch.



2. Ackerly is a naughty naughty man. I agree with another reviewer who said that he was honest in his depicitions of the people he encountered as well as himself. Ackerly understood the hearts of the people he knew. Often he made fun of what he saw in people, but he knew them and knew when to put away his naughtiness. This was a great book. It was funny and charming. It gave me a glance into what India was like and may still be. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an open mind.



3. A journal of Ackerley's stay in the Indian province of Chhatarpur during the 1920s, "Hindoo Holiday" records and mocks the muddled morality and intellectual immaturity of both slothful Indian rulers and equally pampered British colonialists. After Ackerley returned from India, he spent several years touching up his diary for publication; he changed the names, toned down the sexual content, and removed passages that might be considered libelous. This recently published version is the first unexpurgated American edition, with all the cuts restored.
   
   Ackerley's intent was to be mischievous and outrageous and comic; and his book became both a critical hit and, to everyone's surprise, his most commercially successful work. The book is at its best in its humorous depictions of the Maharajah, his private secretary Babaji Rao, and the contingent of valets, including the endearingly sweet Sharma and Narayan. For the most part, Ackerley's portraits are nonjudgmental and fond; he reserves his venom for the British guests and, to a lesser extent, for his sycophantic tutor, Abdul, and clumsy servant-child, Habib.
   
   Throughout "Hindoo Holiday" there is a disconcerting, even creepy, undercurrent that revolves around the sexual despotism of the Maharajah, whose predatory advances are directed towards the "Gods"--his name for the boys in his employ. "Boys" is Ackerley's term; at least one is identified as being twenty and several are married, so it's possibly more accurate to call most of them young men. But, whatever their age, these youngsters are compelled to have sexual relations with the Maharajah--and with his wife while he's watching. Complicating this issue is the subtly hinted possibility that the ruler is suffering from the advanced stages of syphilis. (The paternity of the palace's heirs is a great mystery, as well.) Only a few of the youths seem able to withstand his advances, and Ackerley often must come to the defense of Narayan, one of the "Gods" who refuses to comply.
   
   Ackerley reports these incidents with disquieting aplomb. His own role in these matters is rather innocent; according to biographer Peter Parker, he limited his affections to kissing and holding hands: "If he had sexual relations whilst in India, he left no record of the fact." (And Ackerley was not known for being shy about such matters in either his journals or correspondence.) Nevertheless, intentionally or not, the goings-on in the palace are emblematic of the corruption, indolence, and decadence of the British Raj.
   
   Most modern readers, then, will find much of the tone and material and humor in "Hindoo Holiday" a bit dated. Yet Ackerley's memoir is still an accurate portrait of the time--and there are moments of brilliant hilarity.



4. What an absolute charmer this journal is. This is one of those books that I've been meaning to read for a number of years, but for one reason or another had never got around to. I'm so happy I finally did. Not at all what I expected. I've enjoyed a number of books covering the theme of East meets West culture clashes such as Orwell's brilliant "Burmese Days," Ruth Jhabvala's "Heat and Dust" and Forster's "A Passage to India" and "The Hill of Devi." Still, I think it is Ackerley's whimsical reminiscence I like best.
   
   Published in 1932, I know that some will find this book dated and politically incorrect. I prefer to accept it as a product of its time. The journal covers the six months that Ackerley served as a private secretary to a Maharajah. The author pokes fun at the many arcane traditions and myths of the Hindu culture, without ever becoming malicious. The Indian King is somewhat of an incorrigible lech and maker of mischief as depicted by Ackerley. The stuffy British aren't spared the barb either. I particulary loved this exchange: "...'Do you like India?' Mrs. Bristow asked me. 'Oh, yes. I think it's marvelous.' 'And what do you think of the people?' 'I like them very much, and think them most interesting.' 'Oo, aren't you a fibber! What was it you said the other day about "awful Anglo-Indian chatter"?' 'But I thought you were speaking of the Indians just now, not the Ango-Indians.' 'The Indians! I never think of them.' 'Well, you said "the people," you know.' 'I meant us people, stupid.' 'I see. Well now, let's start again.'"
   
   Openly homosexual, Ackerley has great fun documenting his flirtatious encounters with a number of the Maharajah's servants - "....And in the dark roadway, overshadowed by trees, he put up his face and kissed me on the cheek. I returned his kiss: but he at once drew back, crying out: 'Not the mouth! You eat meat! You eat meat!' 'Yes, and I will eat you in a minute,' I said, and kissed him on the lips again, and this time he did not draw away." Altogether disarming and delightful (and not at all exploitive). Highly recommended.



5. I personally enjoy memoirs so I jumped at the chance to read this book when my study abroad program had it listed as required reading. Although it seems a bit dated, since it's from the early 20s, Ackerley presents an awesomely sympathetic view of the Indian people mere decades before the Partition during a time when the British weren't so keen on the Idian culture (as Ackerley makes the reader aware of with his portraits of resident British). I thought Ackerley wrote a stunningly entertaining book, giving candid portraits of various Indians and British alike. As long as you don't mind reading about the everday goings-on then you'll love this book. Apparently it also gives a very accurate description of India at this time, or my program wouldn't have had it on its list of required reading.

3 comments about From Here to Nirvana.

1. This is a great book.It was written for those of us who want to travel to India and learn more yoga, meditation etc.Not all places are described in equal length and depth but you will always find useful information about yoga schools, ashrams and monasteries in all the parts of India.In a lot of cases, the writers have been there and they took the classes for you, sat through the satsangs and tried the food and water.The book talks about each place separately and gives you info on "Teachers & Teachings", "Facilities and Food", "Schedule","Fees","Contact Information","How To Get There",etc.A very helpful guide for spiritual seekers who intend to travel to India.



2. This book would be excellent for people seeking ashrams. However, there is nothing about major temples, festivals, or other local observations. There is a little bit of information about local pilgrimage sites but it is laughably inadequate.



3. Thanks to this book, I was able to arrive in Delhi at midnite, go to the taxi stand at the airport and not wonder where I would end up for the night. I had already made arrangements to stay in an ashram in Delhi that night. And taxi drivers don't give you the hotel runaround when you tell them to take you directly to a particular ashram. For that alone, this book was worth every penny to me.

   I would recommend reading it before you go because some of the places/people to be contacted must be done ahead of time. and you may find that contact information can change sporadically in India (one of the many beautiful challenges you'll find on your travels there).

1 comments about Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance.

1. As a student of the Hindi film, this book is a rich resource on the music of the Hindi film. Many times film music is more popular than the film--being released prior to the film, film music is often the bellweather as to a film's success or failure!! This volume will give you new insight into how music is made, marketed and exploited to enhance a film's success, or failure!

1 comments about Village India.

1. The focus in the book is definitely not on the cities of India.
   
   A detailed visit to some village in India is described in the Prologue. It isn't clear, however, what village that is or in what general area it is. The annotations to the photographs in this prologue say they are from different regions and so don't seem to provide a clue as to where the village in the Prologue is. The book jacket refers to opening with a "typical" Indian village, although the book itself presents enough diversity that one wouldn't think there was a "typical" Indian village.
   
   I had expected, given an author who had traveled extensively in India, that this book would consist of similar up-close descriptions of villages from all over India. Instead the book appears to be a survey organized by Indian state, making general remarks about the villages within each state. The lack of intimacy seems compensated, to a small degreee, by the annotated photographs.
   
   I did not find a single footnote in the 250+ pages of this book. So how and where on his travels did the author learn and verify that "Man has inhabited India continuously for more than three hundred thousand years"? How to tell what is due to the author's original research and what relies on other sources? The bibliography is only 2 pages long and unannotated. So how would one check any of the facts or assertions presented by the author? However, much of the book lacks the first-hand feeling of someone who has traveled in India over many years. Perhaps a decision to present a survey makes this encyclopedia feeling unavoidable.
   
   The bulk of the book is organized by state (the jacket refers to a "state-by-state odyssey") and these within the south, east or west. But the only map I found covers less than one page (page 8) and is consequently quite cluttered. Nowhere in the discussion of the villages of any state did I find any map to situate that state (apart from it having been in a south, east, or west region). It's possible to find a covered state on the map on page 8 but because that map covers all of India it doesn't provide detail on each of the states. Perhaps detail was thought not to matter, since even discussion of the villages seems to be, except for the anonymous village of the Prologue, at the general level of the villages of this or that state.