Musings of a Wandering Mind

Book Review – Waterlines

Publishers: Penguin Books
Pages: 202
Edited by Amita Baviskar
Price: Rs. 295

Whether it is Ganga in the north or Kaveri in the south or any small river in between, there is a good amount of romanticization of every river that flows in the country. And ‘Waterlines – Penguin Book of River Writings’ does a perfect job of representing this romanticization.

The book is a collection of writings by various authors, edited by Amita Baviskar. The book covers every aspect that goes with the river including journeys along with or on the river, holiness of our rivers, people’s love for their river, some fiction that revolves around our rivers and even grave issues of modern India like pollution that the rivers are suffering from.

The highlights of the book includes pilgrimage travel along river Narmada and Bhagirati by Geoffrey Waring Maw, Jim Corbett’s experience of catching fish and much more. Reader’s heart pains to see what we are doing to our rivers when we hear about how dams and pollution are killing our rivers like Amaravati in TamiNadu and Bharatapuzha in Kerala. Romulus Whitaker shares his amazing experiences with crocodiles and snakes by riverside while he also moots sadly on how we are destroying our rivers slowly.

Must read are the narration of Badrinath pilgrimage by Stephen Alter and wonderful depiction of life by the Ganga at Banaras by Nita Kumar. Kumar writes –

“The river, in its changing persona through the year, gives Banaras their understanding of time. Their attitude seems to be marked by unpunctuality and disregard for time distinctions. But it is not that time has no importance. It is rather too important to be sacrificed for arbitrary purposes. It has to be lived with the full, every bit of it”.

Along with her subtle attempt to make one realize of blissful inactivity by the river, she describes the way town changes its habits every season along with changing moods of the river which involves you through the entire story and carries you along with it.

Some of the writings involve careful and scientific study like the origin, history and stories associated with rivers that could be dull reading for a section of readers while enlightening the rest. An excellent book for any one who has fallen in love with our beautiful rivers.

Book Review – Into the High Ranges

Publishers: Penguin Books
Pages: 239

Into the high ranges is a collection of short stories of travelling into the mountains written by various authors and edited by Ravina Aggarwal. The book contains many interesting stories – some about people going into the mountains to explore them, some of them living there and many more journeys with many more purpose.

The collection notably includes stories from Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of Tenzing Norgay attempting to climb Mt Everest, Ruskin Bond’s romancing with the alpine trees, Allan Sealy’s short write-up which includes stories on terrifying leeches.

The stories cover many aspects which includes travelling into the mountains of India all the way from South to North, environment issues, culture and anthropology of people of the mountains. The book offers an excellent collection of stories and is worth a read for anyone with faintest interest in travelling and life in the mountains.