5 comments about Everybody Loves a Good Drought.

1. This timely and important book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the India that does not make it onto the covers of coffee table books and glossy magazines. Sainath spent years in the poorest districts in India, attempting to understand how people with absolutely nothing by way of resources manage to eke out a living--one story is about men who transport over 900 pounds of coals on their bicycles, walking marathon-length distances every day, to earn the princely sum of 10 Indian Rupees (25 cents) per day.

   Sainath is the most irreverent and committed journalist in India today. His stories, written for the Times of India, are full of pathos, but also of optimism--optimism born of his discovery that the poor in India are organizing to fight for their rights, have maintained a sense of dignity, and continue to live their lives against the most difficult odds.

   The stories of government mismanagement of funds earmarked for rural uplift are perhaps not surprising, but for many, the stories of the venality of corporations and the tales of institutions like the Army running roughshod over the rights of hundreds of millions of India might just open eyes that were glued shut to the injustices prevalent in the Indian social matrix. The stories of India's 80 million tribal and indigenous people, Adivasis, are heart wrenching and fantastic--such stories cannot be found in mainstream publications.

   Sainath has done an enormous and important task here: I recommend this book to everyone.




2. Sainath's book provides vignettes of soul-destroying poverty and degradation in the poorest states in India. It is an attempt to correct the `event' approach which the majority of the media takes to India's ills, which tends to view India's problems simplistically as singular aberrations, rather than taking a broader `process' approach, which looks to less immediate causes. His writing is angry and passionate, but always clear.

   What certainly comes through in Sainath's book is the incredible arrogance of much of the Indian administration. Save a few isolated cases, the examples of the arrogant official class are myriad - the official insistence that they know better than the very natives who had lived in an area for years; the mass sterilisation of perfectly good cattle, already adapted to the environment, in order to make way for a so-called "super cattle", which turns out to be useless; or the mass uprooting of millions of people to make way for useless dams, now brought to the attention of the West through the thankless activism of Arundhati Roy (the author of the God of Small Things). A consistent theme running through Sainath's reporting is a lack of honest and sincere consultation with the very people the `reforms' are supposed to help.

   There are hopeful stories too - like the story of women's collectives. Sainath tells of how groups of women have gotten together and formed organised labour, and which do a better, more efficient work than the more `sophisticated' industries and companies. Indeed, industries come across as monopolies only interested in maintaining their corner of the market, and more than willing to resort to nasty tricks in order to maintain their dominance (for instance, creating rival groups to undermine the administration's trust in such organised groups, social ostracism, even physical abuse). Corrupt officials don't help these collectives' chances either - since the collectives' cheaper and more efficient labour threaten the kickbacks the officials get from the industries.

   The Indian middle class are also chastised by Sainath. Like their Western counterparts, they require a diet of horror stories to grab their attention. Hence, stories are often reported as ahistorical events, rather than dealing honestly with the process which led to the `event' in question. More than this, the middle classes have become so numbed to the poverty of the majority, that they require exceptional suffering to warrant their time - thus, there are reports of `epidemics' and `droughts' which are often exaggerations or mistruths.

   After a while, I felt myself becoming numbed by the stories. There were simply too many tales of woe. This isn't really a complaint about Sainath's reporting, but maybe more of a plea for longer, more detailed stories from him. But this is the nature of his book, which is essentially a compilation of newspaper articles. Although Sainath makes a plea in his book for a view of Indian poverty as process rather than event, sometimes I felt his stories were too short to support the process approach he himself advocates. Still, this should not stop any reader interested in India from reading this book. It is a shocking indictment of the India that should have been.

   A standard criticism of works like Sainath's would be that it is merely critical, and doesn't provide any answers. How can one learn from the mistakes of one's predecessors? The impression I got from Sainath was that the best that could be done is more consultation, more historical awareness, more backup studies, more studies of the actual effects of the reform process itself on the environment and the people actually involved, and so on. It's not a particularly innovative conclusion, but it's probably realistic.




3. Anyone who has been to India can be a real pooper at any party by just telling a few road-tales from the subcontinent. But even the most hardcore traveller should marvel at what Indian journalist P. Sainath reveals. Palm Tree-climbers, bicycle-wallahs, well just about anyone outside the outlawed (!)caste-system living on 20 rupees a day could testify, could they only read. Just one thing, the teachers' associations are being favoured by Indian politicians because the profession has a monopoly on counting the ballots in elections. Hence they are a privileged group not to be messed with. Are things really that bad in India? Goittagertbackktacheckiteout!!



4. With the recent hype of globalization and the changes transpiring in India, the myth that poverty has been eradicated, or is at least receding in India has pervaded the media. P Sainath takes this illusion head on and dispels it in this compelling account of the realities of rural poverty in India. Gritty, no-nonsense, Sainath avoids sensationalism and sticks to the facts through well-researched accounts of the living conditions of what is, in truth, a majority of Indians. Over 600 million people still live below the poverty line in India(depending on what source one uses for defining poverty) and Sainath, through years of work in the field, details their plight. He brings to light that hunger is but a single element of poverty--one might meet the minimum caloric intake to be considered "above the poverty line", while in truth living in a state of real poverty. Having had the opportunity to hear him speak live, I can say with the confidence that the book conveys his firebrand approach to the issues; with passion and verve he relates his tales of woe with critical insight and uncompromising integrity.
   
   If this book has a weakness, it is in its repetition of account upon account of despair without offering potential solutions to alleviate the crisis. A great companion book to this excellent work would be Abraham George's "India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty", which examines the crisis of poverty and offers realistic and pratical solutions that have been implemented.



5. Mr. Sainath captures the plight, hopes, and loss in rural villages in India. Farmers are committing suicide at an unprecedented rate. People are trying to adjust but hope is lost. As I regularly network with friends in the Telangana, I can honestly say that farmer suicide is a huge issue and a tragedy. Yet we still seem to move resources to the wealthy rather than address the serious issues in rural areas of the world. Even in the US, if we fully understood the tragedy of the destruction of the family farm, we would learn that here too loss leads to suicide. Despair and loss of hope is a horrible thing.
   
   Read this compelling study into a problem happening all over the world. If you get a chance to hear Mr. Sainath speak, make sure you do not miss it. He is fantastic. One of the great investigative reporters in Indian.

5 comments about Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage Through India.

1. Loved it, loved it, loved it. One of my all-time faves.



2. Few books on India can easily hope to undertake and accomplish the monumental task of depicting this complex society. This book is no exception. By taking the lens of the monsoon -- and the beliefs and practices which surround it in India - this book has adopted a wonderful device to depict a wide swathe of this country. Entertaining and thoughtful, this is certainly one of the more informative travelogues on India.



3. The most improbable of all "journeys"..... to chase a monsoon through India. But how lyrical and memorable this trip is. This is a story not just of Frater, but of the people of India he comes in contact with during this voyage, and an explanation of how the monsoon affects each of them. This is one of the VERY few books I have ever read more than once. Another great read about a journey is South Wind by Norman Douglas.



4. In writing "Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage through India" Alexander Frater weaves external observations his personal memories into a cohesive, entertaining account of his myriad experiences following the monsoon up and across the Indian subcontinent. Despite a plethora of details about the science and meteorology, accounts of his attempts to secure the blessings of a cumbersome Indian government's bureaucracy, his social interactions with people at all levels of Indian society, excruciating car trips, and recollections of his and his family's experiences living on islands in the Pacific, the book is neither dry nor dull.
   
   Mr. Prater braids these various story lines into a seamless retelling of his experiences. His attention to detail-whether describing a worn-out hotel, recounting an overheard conversation about the virtues of various types of mangoes, or capturing the sensual experience of being engulfed by the monsoon-is quite remarkable. Though the story is highly personal, Mr. Frater does not impose himself upon the reader in such a manner as to detract from his travelogue. I'm glad he fully documented his experience and further appreciate his tidy way of bringing matters full circle.



5. _Chasing the Monsoon_ by Alexander Frater was an enjoyable travel book, one that I read in just a few days. The author's intention, as one might guess from the title, was to follow the progress of the summer monsoon through India, beginning in the southernmost tip of the subcontinent, Cape Comorin, and following its progress up the west coast through Trivandrum, Calicut, Goa, and Bombay, then jetting over to Delhi, and then to experience the eastern arm of the monsoon (there are two arms, one in the east of India, one in the west) in Calcutta and in two places near Bangladesh, Shillong and Cherrapunji (there was a map illustrating his route).
   
   Frater began the book discussing his childhood in the New Hebrides, a group of islands in the South Pacific jointly administered at one time by both France and the United Kingdom, how growing up his missionary father helped instill in him a fascination for weather. His father had talked about one of the rainiest spots on Earth, Cherrapunji, India, which was known at the height of the monsoon season in July to get as much as 75 feet of rain, though more often in the 30 to 40 foot range, receiving as much as 40 inches in one day. Though Frater's father never visited Cherrapunji and lost interest in meteorology due to mounting family financial problems and the Second World War, Alexander himself never completely lost interest in the weather.
   
   After relating how he finally decided to follow the monsoon in the summer of 1987 and if possible visit Cherrapunji, he detailed his pilgrimage throughout India. Though Frater did discuss some of the science of the monsoon and in particular the history of its study (noting such famous researchers as H.F. Blandford, who beginning in 1875 became the first of a line of India-based climatologists who studied the monsoon and Sir John Eliot, his successor, often called the "father of monsoon studies"), the book is more a travel than a popular science book, detailing what Frater saw in India and in particular local reactions to the monsoon (or its unfortunate absence in drought-stricken parts of the country).
   
   Throughout most of India, the onset of the monsoon rains, the "burst," was eagerly anticipated, the arrival of life-giving rains and cooler weather celebrated for centuries in art, poetry, and song. Frater visited remarkable pavilions, palaces, gardens, and fountains where the very wealthy had in the past had sought to recreated the cooling rains of the monsoon during times of heat and aridity.
   
   Though many cities and regions have unofficial dates when the monsoon is supposed to begin - for instance around June 5 in Goa - the actual advance of the rains is unpredictable, subject to much discussion and even heated debate on the street, with many people hanging on every word of travelers to areas already experiencing monsoon rains, meteorologists, and even astrologers. I must say I was rather surprised that the monsoon traveled slowly enough through India that Frater for the most part was able to keep ahead of it, as while the first burst over Cape Comorin occurs generally around June 1, it is nearly July 1 before it reaches Delhi (if it reaches it at all; Frater chronicled how the monsoon rains had failed to arrive in recent years). Overall Frater did an excellent job of conveying the tense atmosphere of expectation among those waiting for the rains and the sense of relief and jubilation once they had arrived.
   
   When the rains did arrive there was often great rejoicing with almost unofficial holidays in many parts of the country. Even in businesses that did not close had workers from cashiers and waiters up to expensively dressed businessmen and women running outside to cavort in the rain. Adults and children played in the rains, planned parties celebrating it, and even not unlike Frater himself planned trips to see it (the author wrote of oil-rich wealthy Middle Easterners flying on their private jets to India to witness such vast amounts of rain for themselves).
   
   Additionally, people associated the monsoon with cures for a variety of ailments. The "monsoon cure," which could be anything from specific diets to being massaged in special oils to meditation with the onset of the rains, was big business, particularly in western India.
   
   So important were the rains in providing a relief from the heat, watering crops, filling wells, and regenerating lakes and rivers, that much like with the monsoon cures an entire industry existed to ensure the arrival of the rains, ranging from ceremonial well diving to crackpot inventors to cloud-seeding with aircraft to singing ancient songs called ragas, composed especially to bring on the monsoonal rains.
   
   Not everyone welcomed the monsoon. Frater detailed the great difficulties of officials in Calcutta in handling the floods brought about by the monsoon, and hinted at but didn't go into detail about the massive floods in Bangladesh the rains often brought. Fishermen and sailors often couldn't work in the high seas, cyclones, and driving rain during the height of the monsoon and pilots often had great difficulty flying in monsoon weather. Back when India was a British possession some Englishmen became depressed, alcoholic, or even committed suicide due to the rains.
   
   A portion of the book detailed Frater's attempts to get permission from Delhi to visit Cherrapunji, as it was located in a region subject to anti-immigrant riots and fighting (something he might have gone a little bit more into). As foreign travel and even travel by Indians themselves to that area was tightly controlled, Frater had to navigate the intricate, complex, positively Byzantine corridors of Indian bureaucracy. This theme seems to be a common element of Indian travel writing, a topic addressed also in _An Area of Darkness_ by V.S. Naipaul and _The Search for the Pink-headed Duck_ by Rory Nugent.
   
   Though I would have liked a bit more science and maybe some photos, overall I enjoyed the book.

4 comments about Dreams of the Peaceful Dragon (Ulverscroft Large Print Series).

1. Hickman writes beautifully. This book is a captivating account of her own journey into the depth of Bhutan, which she records honestly from the bottom of her heart. Hickman, unlike most western writers on Bhutan, captures something of the soul of Bhutan, as she narrates her own emotional journey as a young woman of good sense and rich sensitivity.

   At the same time, the book is also an exciting adventure story. Anyone with good wanderlust in their heart will not be able to put it down until all the pages are turned, and will be left yarning for more after the last page is read.

   While eastern Bhutan remains less exposed to outside visitors than the western part of the country, it is now much easier to travel there than during Hickman's time. There is now a motorable road to everywhere she went on foot and ponies. Television, telephone and internet highway -- prohibited or non-existent back then -- now bring in outside information more easily to Bhutan. Most importantly, Bhutan has achieved a phenomenal increase in the literacy of her people, with English as the chosen medium of class-room instruction and as the "link" language among the country's numerous linguistic groups. As such, beyond its literary value, this book also has a place in the historical literature, capturing the ways of the eastern people of Bhutan before their greater exposure to the outside world.

   Having said that, however, Bhutan's vision of "Gross National Happiness" (being more important than Gross National Product), and the enlightened development strategy associated with it -- balancing material and spiritual gains, and valuing its historical, cultural and natural heritage -- mean that Hickman or any other visitors would find the soul of Bhutanese people not much altered since her visit.

   The book would certainly tempt many to consider visiting this unique Himalayan nation called Bhutan. Like Hickman's own, it promises to be a journey of personal discovery, leaving one to ponder some cosmic reasons why such a nation exists on earth...




2. While it's always fascinating to read about adventures in Bhutan and other Himalayan places, for some reason I found this book - and the author's style - quite irritating. Despite an acquaintance with the Bhutanese royal family, the author appears to be sailing through on a free ride, and doesn't seem to have the grasp of the country that is apparent in Beyond the Sky & the Earth, by Jamie Zeppa.



3. Reading this was a journey of enchantment for me, too. If the author had some special help in reaching the uttermost reaches of this little-known country, she paid for it with the intense discomfort,hardships, dangers, fever, and uncertainties of a journey made the old-fashioned way, without maps or roads or even a half-decent meal at the end of each day. Jolted right out of the comfort zone of planned modern travel, her heightened awareness and acute observations are the prizes she brings back in this wonderfully written and often hilarious book.
   I can't wait to find a copy of the book of photos (now sadly out of print) taken on the same journey by Tom Owen Edmunds.



4. I was anxious to read about Bhutan before and after a visit there, but I found this book a disappointment. I don't know what I expected from someone's first attempt at writing such a book, and at a relatively young age- but I didn't feel that the author was able to move beyond her own needs and discomforts. The writing is self-conscious. By chance I came across the web journal "The Elegant Variation (TEV)." Here is their definition of TEV, and it fits the writing in this book perfectly! I've not read her other books, but I hope they have matured.
   
   "The Elegant Variation is "Fowler's (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer's overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn't permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

5 comments about Chasing the Mountain of Light: Across India on the Trail of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond.

1. Simply, beautifully written, takes you THERE...I've been to India, many of those places he's written about, and he recreates them on the page like a stereographic synaesthetic pop-up from the page. Made me laugh really hard, too, unexpectedly. Full of sights, sounds, history-in-living color, intrigue and mystery. An ideal read for armchair backpackers and yogis, and for anyone without an armchair, for that matter.



2. Rushby follows the legend(s) of the Koh-i-Noor diamond (the title's "Mountain of Light") as well as the history of Indian and Middle Eastern gem trading in this entertaining book. Like all good travel books, a unifying theme, once found, is seldom respected slavishly, so someone expecting a diligent history of the diamond itself and its travels would be better served by the Encyclopedia Brittanica. For others who wish to see an unusual side of the Indian subcontinent and its history, Rushby's an affable and able guide.



3. Kevin Rushby's trek across India in search of the legendary diamond, the "Koh-I-Noor" (mountain of light)is much more than a history of this fabled and "cursed" stone from the Golconda mine. Rushby's journey takes the reader through many small villages, many of them long abandoned after British rule.

   Rushby's days in Gujarat state are the most interesting. There, he meets an old gentleman who lives in a large but very lonely estate home. They speak of the old days when the gentleman's estate was full of people, servants and animals. Now, his days are spent on the rooftop terrace taking tea in the afternoon and reminiscing about his past. A sense of melancholy and lost time is felt throughout all the varied characters' lives Rushby comes to know so well.

   The story of the diamond trade and the wars fought over their inherent riches is only a small part of the book. The stories of the Indian people Rushby meets make this a great read for those of us who have not yet seen India. Time for me to book passage!




4. Read this book in 2 days...beautifully written. Rushby keeps the reader engaged and provides the most intresting descriptions of places, sounds and smells as he journey's across India. Inspires you to follow the route!

   For those studing Duleep Singh or the Panjab, this a must have for your collection.




5. _Chasing the Mountain of Light_ by Kevin Rushby is an interesting and sometimes humorous travelogue about India, ostensibly about the author's efforts to track the origins and history of the Koh-i-Noor or Mountain of Light, one of the most famous diamonds in the world, from its origins in the mines of Golconda in southern India to centuries later and its presumably final resting place in the Tower of London. Though the diamond's history and lore was indeed chronicled, the book was really the story of one traveler's adventures and encounters throughout India. Journeying from Madras on the Coromandel Coast in southern India all the way north to Amritsar in the Punjab, near the Pakistani border, Rushby undertook an epic quest to find the origins of this stone and to relate its bloody history. He had to contend with reluctant, unfriendly, tight-lipped officials, shady sellers of black market diamonds in dangerous back alleys, eccentric but knowledgeable experts on diamond lore and Indian history, and thieves, alerted to Rushby's inquires about diamonds, thinking him not a writer but a man who actually possessed large quantities of these gems on his person.
   
   The diamond known as Koh-i-Noor was believed by many devout Hindus to actually be mythic in origin, to be a stone that was once called the Syamantaka, a gem which the Hindu sun god Surya gave as reward to a worshipper. Later the god Krishna was accused by the people of stealing the gem and fought terrible battles to return the diamond back to humanity. The stone was owned by the Mughals for generations, beginning with the first Mughal emperor Babur in the 1520s, though many scholars dispute the notion that the Syamantaka and a magnificent stone known simply as "Babur's diamond" are the one and the same. The Persian invader Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, leaving the Mughals as vassals but along with many other treasures took the great diamond with him, giving it the name Koh-i-Noor (which means Mountain of Light). After Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 the Koh-i-Noor was taken by Ahmad Khan Abdali to Afghanistan. The last member of the Durrani dynasty (which was founded by Ahmad Khan Abdali), a ruler by the name of Shah Shuja, went into exile, the gem then taken by Ranjit Singh in 1813 (a man who founded a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab in 1799). During one of the Anglo-Sikh wars the Koh-i-Noor was captured by the British, who took the diamond to Queen Victoria, who in turn had the 186 carat diamond re-cut to improve its brilliance, bringing the stone down to a 108 carats (though strangely enough improving the diamond's allure, as the number 108 is a very auspicious number in India).
   
   Many in India believe the stone is cursed and that the stone can only be given freely to another person by its owner or be won rightfully in battle; horrible things will result when the stone is bought, sold, or stolen. Further, they also believe that the stone will produce good fortune for good people but very bad things for the wicked.
   
   Like many other great Indian diamonds, the Koh-i-Noor was always searching for a new master, "leaving behind the failed and the dead." Claimed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the Sikhs in particular are keen to retrieve it as a symbol of Sikh nationalism (though they insist that like their famed Golden Temple, it would be the property of all Indians). Given its history and the immense prestige that would be gained by any in the subcontinent or the region who came into possession of the stone, Rushby wondered if the diamond was not best left in the Tower of London.
   
   As fascinating as the Koh-i-Noor was, its history fills a fairly modest part of the book. More interesting perhaps was the numerous encounters Rushby had. He toured Fort St. George in Madras, the largest building left in the world constructed by the East India Company; never a favored post by Englishman, many sent there never returned, often committing suicide or drinking themselves to death. Also in Madras the author visited an Armenian church and met a Mr. Gregory, the last remaining Armenian, sole representative of a once thriving Armenian trading community. Rushby met with astrogemologists, men who believed that they could control fate by the proper manipulation of gemstones. Religious encounters as one might imagine definitely occurred, as Rushby met with Zoroastrians who had fled from Aden, Yemen after the British left, observed a Sikh worship ceremony in the Golden Temple, and met a number of Jainists, going on a Jain pilgrimage and encountering members of both sects of the religion, both the Digambaras or "sky-clads," who believe that it is most holy to be without clothing, and the Svetambaras or "white-clads," who believe that nudity is not possible in an imperfect world. Rushby visited Alaung, the world's largest ship breaking yard, where tens of thousands of unskilled laborers work on an oil-soaked beach to destroy 50,000 tonne tankers with practically their bare hands. One of my favorite parts was his visit to Bilkha, once a tiny state that was only 7 miles wide and 10 miles long. Rushby met with the last descendents of its raja, a man with memories of a garage of Rolls-Royces, a stable of fine race horses and elephants, and lion-hunting expeditions, now a friendly and affable man sought by the locals for kindly advice, with only a single servant that he treats like a son, a man who took pleasure in personally fixing his own jeep and in participating in studies of the lions of the Gir Forest, no longer seeking them as trophies but working hard to conserve them for the future.
   
   A good book, at the back of the book there was a helpful chronology of the diamond and a bibliography. Though there were two maps some of the places he visited were not noted on them.

No comments about Royal Rajasthan.

No comments about Qutb Minar and Its Monuments (Monumental Legacy).

1 comments about Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure.

1. Compiled and organized by Pratapaditya Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure is a stunning artbook quality collection of sculptures, illuminated pages, pigment on cotton artworks, and more -- all skillfully crafted across centuries of Himalayan history. Full-color photography and an extensive, scholarly text filled the pages of Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure with history, anecdotes, and insights to create a seminal and impressive work which is very highly recommended for Art History collections and enthusiasts.

2 comments about Spectacular India (Spectacular Series).

1. I have personally reviewed this book. Most journalists and photographers have exhibited shortsightedness by never being able to see beyond India's status as a third-world country. This has reinforced India's reputation in the Western world more in terms of what it was under British rule rather than the period before or after it. Of course this is not an accurate portrayal of the rich culture, heritage and diversity spanning thousands of years; and modernity of rapidly changing contemporary India.

   "Spectacular India" is beautiful collection of 150 color photographs by some of India's finest photographers with accompanying text by prominent Indian experts. It makes an honest and successful attempt of portraying real India and does justice to the country and it's people. It gives a sense of what India was, what India is and where it is heading. Recipedelights.com gives it a "must-buy" rating for Tourists, armchair Indians and Indians away from home. The format and size of this delectable volume make it a perfect coffee-table book.




2. Well, this is a beautiful book about absolutely "SPECTACULAR INDIA." The book is a compilation of engrossong photographs of majestic architectural and natural treasures of India. India potrays immense beauty (cut the third-world country crap out). Where the ancient survives with the modern, this country if not more, is as unique and fascinating as any on Earth.

1 comments about In Quest of God.

1. this is a fantastic read if youre interested in mount kailash and mansarovar or even simply interested in ancient legends. The book covers some of the beliefs associated the mountain and the lake, the history of the pilgrimage carried out around Kailash, the hindu deities relevant to the region and also details the journey undertaken by the authors with their spiritual gurus. It also contains awe inspiring photos of places along the journey and provides insight into the significance of the pilgrimage.
   
   In my opinion it is a worthy read.

No comments about Goat: A Story of Kashmir & Notting Hill.