David Abram, et al’s, India
Of the Rough Guide series. For sheer information, the best travel guide. My only quibble is that they refer to Theravada Buddhism by the term its detractors use, which they probably would not do for other religions. Outstandingly helpful guidebook, though.
Eyewitness Travel Guides: India
The best travel guides for illustrating sights and scenes, even various foods of India. Printed on photographic paper, therefore heavy, therefore not the best for backpackers. Details on lodging and eateries not as complete as in Rough Guides—the Eyewitness clientele probably stay in upper-bracket hotels and use travel guides more than would budget travelers.
Three nontravel notes: 1. At Matho Monastery, Ladakh, ‘oracles traverse the topmost parapet…blindfolded, despite the 98-foot drop onto the rocks below. The Oracles answer questions put to them about public and private affairs, and great faith is reposed in their predictions’ (p140). In the Bible, oracles are God’s Word through prophets (see, e.g, Isaiah).
2. At Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, ‘a seven-story victory tower acclaimed in contemporary accounts as Mandu’s finest structure. It was built by Sultan Mahmud in 1443 to mark his battle with the maharana of Mewar. Interestingly, the latter also built a victory tower at Chittorgarh after the same battle’ (p247)—each side claimed victory, as we see happening now politically.
3. Beypore, Kerala, ‘is believed to be the fabled Ophir, referred to in ancient Greek and Roman texts’ (p653).
However, the book’s editors don’t seem to understand the basic three broad groups of India—North, South, and Northeast, with the consequence that they divide crazily, and end up putting Orissa (but not Bihar) with NE India, UP and Uttaranchal in Central India, Rajasthan and Gujarat (but not Maharastra) in Western India, Maharastra with Goa and Karnataka in SW India, and ndia itself including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra and Andaman. So don’t take geography lessons from them, but their photography and history are great.
Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World: The Greek Philosophers
The author hails from Norway, formerly taught philosophy, passionarly believes in philosophy’s importance for everyone, and won an award for the novel Sophie’s World. The present volume excerpts two chapters and wittily introduces to the reader the Greek world’s most famous philosophers, explaining Socrates’, Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas. My notes:
Two ideas to distinguish: logos means universal, as contrasted with and at times opposed to, individual reason (p7); nous means mind or intelligence (p12).
The oracle at Delphi started thus: a Greek goatherd searching for a missing goat found it on a hillside acting strange, investigated, and found a fissure in the ground emitting gasses. Their society, not knowing the natural source, attributed this directly to gods and eventually built to Apollo, god of wisdom, a temple, with a hole over the fissure, and a three-legged stool (called a tripod) over the hole. A priestess, titled Pythia, would sit on the tripod, become entranced by the fumes, start babbling, and the result was taken to be divinely inspired (in Greek, breath, wind and spirit all come from the same word, pneuma). Delphi was located near Corinth, and one can see from this scenario the overemphasis that rose in Corinth on speaking in tongues.
Since a babbling provides no clear message to anyone from the god, a priest was assigned the task of ‘interpreting’ the ‘message’, and would do so in hexameters (prophecy in poetic form was common—indeed, much Old Testament prophecy is poetic, as is readily seen in a modern English translation). This enabled the priests to say what they chose. Since opposing forces often both came to Delphi for wisdom, the priests became circumspect and cryptic in responses, the most famous example being when the king of Lydia asked whether he should fight Persia, and the priests responding that if he did so, he would ‘destroy a great army.’ He did—his own.
Hippocrates founded Greek medicine, believed in moderation and a healthy lifestyle, ‘a sound mind in a sound body’ and started medical ethics by requiring his students to take the Hippocratic Oath: ‘I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider to be for the benefit of my patiens, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel, and in like manner I will not give to a women the means to produce an abortion. Whenever I go into a house, I will go for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption, and further, from the seduction of females or males, whether freemen or slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, I see or hear which ought not to be spoke abroad, I will keep secret. So long as I continue to carry out this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of of the art, respected by all men in all times, but should I violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot’ (p19-20).
Socrates, says Gaarder, ‘believed that this foundation [of human knowledge] lay in man’s reason. With his unshakable faith in human reason…’ (p31). Yes, rationalism is a faith.
Plato’s concept of the forms, or ideal reality, came because he ‘believed that the soul existed before it inhabited the body….But as soon as the soul wakes up in a human body, it has forgotten all the perfect ideas. Then….as the human being discovers the various forms in the natural world, a vague recollection stirs his soul. He sees a horse—but an imperfect horse….The sight of it is sufficient to awaken in the soul a faint recollection of the perfect ‘horse’, which the soul once saw in the world of ideas, and this stirs the soul with a yearning to return to its true realm. Plato calls this yearning eros—which means, love’ (p40). So when you see a pretty girl and think she’s ‘divine’, you’re on the right track, according to Plato.
Incredible India: Adventure Sports
Incredible India: Dance and Music
The first volume covers rock climbing, rapelling, mountaineering, trekking, biking, mountain biking, hang-gliding, paragliding, ballooning, river running (rafting, canoeing, kayaking), cruising, scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing, windsurfing and other water sports, skiing, angling, nature walks, riding, and safaris by camel, yak, elephant, horse and jeep.
The second volume covers Carnatic, Hindustani, Ghazal, Qawwali, folk vocal music. Also the dholak, ektara, flute, jaltarang, ghatam, mridangam, nadaswaram, pakhwaj, santoor, sarod, shehnai, tabla banya, sitar, veena, violn, edakka, kombu, chenda instruments. Also the Kathak, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Mohinlattam, Odissi, Manipuri, Chhau and folk dances (Dumhal, Rouf, Lama, Pangi, Losar Shona Chuksam, Bhangra, Raas, Gidda, Dhamyal, Duph, Lahoor, Dhurang, Mali, Tera Tali, Naga, Hazagiri, Cheraw, Nongkrem, Bihu, Thang-ta, Karma Munda, Ponung, Brita, Hurka Baul, Kali Nach, Ghanta Patna, Paik, Dalkhai, Gendi Silt, Bhagoriya, Jawar, Garba, Dandya, Kala, Dindi, Mando, Dollu Kunitha,Dandaria, Karagam, Kummi, Kuttiyattam, Padayani, Kolam, Lava and Nicobarese (not that you can see this last).
Frank Kusy’s and Rupert Isaacson’s South India
Frank Kusy was born in England to Polish-Hungarian immigrants, attended Cardiff University, left to start a career in journalism, worked with the Financial Times, and ‘India is his first love, the only country he knows which improves on repeated viewings.’ Maybe he should have completed university—he might know more. I could suggest several countries that can grow on a person. He spends three months of every year in India. I spend five, and know better than to put up with his ‘hell-wait’ for India buses to start: ‘To secure a seat, you have to get on half an hour before the bus is due to leave, and for that time, wth the temperature hitting 40 degrees C, you must grit it out, the sweat running inside your shirt and from your hair into your eyes. Children selling fruit climb onto the bus and thrust their wares at you. Beggars proffer their sores and stumps, but you cannot speak or even think beyond the next breath.’ Improves on repetition? I don’t think so. He says the bus driver doesn’t hit the people. Headlines suggest otherwise. It’s true that, when you get out of the heat and into the hills, the natural beauty and coolness can make you feel better about life. He’s also right about the Hyderabad’s Golconda fort and about the ‘seething, stinking town of Madurai’, although residents might rightly call it a city. He says, ‘In India, the calmer you are, the smoother things will go.’ They just seem calmer. The chaos remains. The book is inferior to Rough Guide or Doring Kindersley’s guides.
Darwin Porter’s and Danforth Prince’s Frommer’s Portable London
Really useless guidebook unless your main idea of tourism is to spend LOTS of money to eat and sleep in historic surroundings. If instead you are active, prefer to save money on accommodation and food, eating healthy and spending time seeing things, then forget this book and go to one with budget accommodation and practical information on the sights.
P.G. Wodehouse’s Big Money
Lessons learned, with useful quotes: ‘stolid affection, like a cow inspecting a turnip’ (p38).
‘Feeling now as Elijah would have felt in the wilderness if the ravens had suddenly developed cut-throat business methods’ (p43).
A father ‘visited his son and heir, but in some mysterious way….the extraordinary idea [he] might possibly have a little cash in hand, and be willing to part ith somne of it to the author of his being’ (p43).
‘Opportunity pressed down and running over’ (p44).
‘Father’s natural bewilderment’ (p45)
Glancing nervously back, ‘as if expecting to see the Recording Angel standing there with pen and notebook’ (p57).
‘Like an enthusiastic but ill-advised sportsman in the jungles of India who has caught a tiger by the tail’ (p66).
‘Look at Othello and Desdemona. Othello hadn’t dreamed of saying all that stuff about moving accidents by flood and field, of hair-breadth ‘scapes I’ the imminent deadly breach, until that girl dragged it out of him with her questions. Othello knew perfectly well that when he talked of the cannibals that each other eat and the men whose grow beneath their shoulders he as piling it on’ (p68).
‘Wished to be elsewhere, and that right speedily’ (p72).
‘Grim and desolate spots where the foot of white man had not trod nor the Gospel been preached’ (p77).
‘Said something sharply in one of the lesser-known dialects of the Hindu Khoosh’ (p101).
‘In a slow, thoughtful sort of way like a man hunting for a lost collar stud’ (p102).
‘Groaned slightly and winced, like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch’ (p102).
‘A drove of dotards who talk across you about the time they ere given a half-holiday because of the Battle of Crecy’ (p104).
Hit on the ear by a hard dinner roll, he ‘leaped convulsively and for an instant forgot all about the girl. In similar circumstances, Dante would have forgotten Beatrice’ (p106).
‘A frame of mind which would have qualified him to walk straight into a Chekhov play and no questions asked’ (p108).
‘Suppressed elation as of one ho on honeymoon has fed and drunk the milk of Paradise’ (p119).
‘Lawyer tightened his lips another fraction of an inch, as if to say that something of this kind as only to be expected in a world in which all flesh was as grass…find himself legally debarred from being a feofee of any fee, fiduciary or in fee-simple’ (p126).
Do simple daily things ‘reverently, as one feeling that there is a home beyond the skies’ (p131).
‘Sudden apparition of a totally unwanted’ anyone affects one as ‘the ghost of Banquo on a memorable occasion affected Macbeth’ (p141).
Helping a visitor, a ‘stranger in a strange land’ (p141).
‘Hart that pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase’ (p143).
Breaking off a mistaken engagement and getting engaged to someone else is ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished’ (p161).
‘Should say no that God was in His Heaven and all pretty well right with the world’ (p163).
One man, called a Jonah, corrected ‘Judas’ because ‘he liked to get these things straight’ (p181).
One man puzzles over ‘the sort of thing Marcus Aurelius used to worry about’ (p211).
Another man paraphrases Longfellow (p212).
One man recommends another by saying, ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man!”’ (p224).
