Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.- John Steinbeck Photo: Dinesh Korday The morning I left home I had high fever. It was a legacy of a recent respiratory tract infection. A kind flight attendant offered paracetamol and the  temperature was under control. Thankfully some some infections in life are still remediable or should I say medicable. Reaching Mumbai I was glad to meet my friend Dinesh Korday. While together we enjoyed coffee I showed him the book that was taking me back to Africa, once again after 3 years. Good coffee, a close friend and...

It all started with a story book. In 1937, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay , one of the leading writers of modern Bengali literature penned ' Chander Pahar '. It is a story of a 22 year old young man from rural Bengal who sets out to Africa on an adventure of a lifetime in 1909. (If you have not read the book already you can read the plot summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chander_Pahar ) Like millions of Bengali readers I had read this adventure story when I was a kid and then as I grew up, as indicated by its publisher (juvenile literature); it became a thing of the past, a childhood fantasy for me.  It is only in recent years, after I climbed Kilimanjaro (2005), I picked up 'Chander Pahar' again. It is then, the book started opening new meanings and fresh directions for me. It is then I began to understand the meaning of the Swedish proverb- 'In a good book the best is between the lines' .  My repeated readings of 'Chander Pah...

In 1937, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay chronicled the adventures of a Bengali boy named Shankar. This novel was named 'Chander Pahar' (English: 'Mountains of the Moon', as the fiction refers to a range of mountains and not a single standing mountain). 'Chander Pahar' went on to become one of the most loved adventure stories in the Bengali literature. In his lifetime, Bibhutibhushan wrote 16 novels and over 200 short stories. Interestingly, even though most of Bibhutibhushan's works were largely set in rural Bengal; in this particular novel the writer chose the setting of 1909 Africa. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1894-1950) In the story 'Chander Pahar', our protagonist Shankar gets a lucky break to go out from his little riverside village in Bengal to work for the Uganda Railway. Thus begun his sudden and long journey from the mundane to the extraordinary. A roller coaster ride through adventures involving the infamous man eating lions of Tsav...

Exploration of the Jidege Shan Author's Note: this particular article outlines my exploration of a small mountain range on the second bend of the Jinsha River. Exploring this mountain range was only a small part of the trip. I was especially thrilled to meet the diverse ethnicity of this region and was deeply fascinated by its history that indicates Yunnan's deep rooted connection with ancient India. Given an opportunity I want to write about those experiences in detail. Somewhere, someday.  Introduction I went to China to do nothing heroic or extremely dangerous. I believe living in a city like Calcutta has been serving that purpose for me already. After some study of the mountain ranges of North West Yunnan and consequent interactions with explorers and climbers who have been working in this region I understood that in spite of the recent Chinese mass tourism to North West Yunnan; many of its secrets are still hidden. An old Naxi lady walks the empty streets of Li J...