Apr 30, 2015 03:21 PM
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Perhaps because of my age, I've turned from a fondness for fiction to a taste for travelogues. While Paul Theroux remains a writer in this genre for whom I have great respect, I've also chosen, at this point in my life, to be more adventurous and to browse Indian, Asian or other regional authors rather than the tired and trodden accounts of authors of European origin.
Among Indian travel writers, Biswanath Ghosh makes for great reading. However, since I've sworn to be unfaithful, I picked out Limping to the Centre of the World.
The cover is sober yet enticing befitting a Penguin edition: a snow capped mountain. Mountaineering adventures promise excitement. However, this book turned out to be quite limp.
The tone of the author is that of an old male spinster, whiny, gossipy and not in a chatpatta way.
The book has many "informative" pages, which I hastily skipped. I once ruined a nice ghost story I wrote, trying to pad it with "descriptions". The settings of any action should not be lightly undertaken. The reader must not be conscious that a place is being described. He or she must be made to see it without being aware that they are using this inner sense.
Mr. Murari, however, fills pages, which smack of a copy-paste mindset, with information supplied by the ITBP, for example.
His portraits of people, his travel companions and others, lack life. I wonder how he got away with naming them. Although he does not have Theroux's mean streak, his quavery narrative voice grates when he mealy mouths them.
A touch of TamBram, a dash of regionalism (his view of his companion from Kerala) and his very Babu penchant for quoting from English literature, transform this into a very soggy read.
With some 28 chapters, including an epilogue, suggested reading and acknowledgements, this 289 page paperback is certainly not unputdownable.
It might be a nice gift to an acquaintance you don't really care for and who is stuck in a hospital for a rather long recovery period. Don't buy it first hand, though. It's just not worth the money.
