The present pandemic has rendered most of us armchair travellers, attempting to slake our wanderlust by poring through a variety of travelogues. I chanced upon this particular book in the library and am so glad I picked it up for it's not the traditional coffee table book. Yes, it does have gorgeous drool-worthy pictures of Ladakh which does make one feel all the more terrible to be stuck here in the dreary plains. More than the pictures I found myself pulled in by the writer's account of a faith-healer's session. At the end of the book I was swept by the realisation of how brutally frank the author has been about himself. It was with a heavy heart that I put the book down knowing that there would be no more, for Bhattacharya died before he could complete this book at the age of forty-seven. I am so glad that the Niyogi Books decided to publish this book posthumously for it is a most worthy addition to the existing literature on Ladakh.
No comments:
Post a Comment