Sahyadrica

The river           I cannot express how resolutely you treasure your keep, yet share willingly with those who seek it. That time I walked by your shore, the fish casting shadows in the clear waters flowing over a broad valley, a warm breeze brushed my face, and I smiled. Heaving my rucksack up on my shoulders again, I looked back to the mountain we emerged from, and I imagined that time I looked down from the mountain slope at the white waters bend around two mountain folds. My knees screeched with every step downhill, but the view from between the thick canopy, the feeling of a falling altitude, kept me at it. That mountain, covered in green of every shade, and dark, looked unscalable, unescapable, unconquerable – that is how you keep your secrets, I thought as I smiled walking over polished boulders. How do I begin to unravel what you taught me, you who are a time-bender, soul-mender, mind-wrapper, life-giver; you who speak through so many voices, appear in...

Foreword by C. R. Bijoy Dust evokes so many feelings. It settles on things – including memories – or everything turns to it. I may not be the only one to romanticise dust as it settles. This book that I reflect upon one last time in a long time, starts with me looking back as dust is settling upon it. It began with dusting off the leather-bound cover of a book written 150 years ago. Opening Forsyth’s posthumous publication – he died at the age of 31 due to an illness – was a doorway to a different world as much as it was a travel back in time. While I critique his and his contemporaries’ outlook not merely from a modern lens of ethics and wisdom but through the lens on the people of past and present, I was in awe of his extensive travel of central India, something I couldn’t match by a long shot. Personally, I wanted to match him, to present central India’s history from a modern lens. It took me much longer than him, and as I gather words in presenting a personal account of the writing...

Thrung Thrung Karma Our world is full of bird-whisperers. They wander alone, sometimes they are followed by the likes of me – often with a camera – to listen and watch and be amazed by their art. I follow Phurpa who walks a few yards ahead of me, his hands behind his back signalling me to stop or follow, talking to birds. His presence conjures birds from nothing. It is not a cheap trick, for hidden in his skill is a learning we need to take heed of: in this world of whisperings, habitats disappear in front of our eyes; birdsong lost to machines crushing stones and digging sand and felling wood; everything is being concretized or paved over – bird nests and bird bones. Following him into the mountain valley, I stumbled upon a bird among birds in a place among places in a year of years. *** Act I. The Sedge A river takes birth in a glacial lake somewhere beneath Chiumo and Nyegi Kangtsang, two of the tallest peaks of the Eastern Himalaya. It flows between ragged wind-swept snow-dus...