Author: Dom Moraes
Sarayu Srivatsa/
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 359
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0670049751
Description
This book tells the extraordinary story of Thomas Coryate's 5000-mile journey on foot to India, across the forbidding Arabian desert and the treacherous Hindukush mountains. Interwoven with the narrative about Coryate's quest is an account of the authors' own travels through the cities the Englishman visited nearly four hundred years ago.
In the early seventeenth century, Thomas Coryate, an eccentric Englishman, a writer and a wanderer, decided to walk from his village of Odcombe in Somerset to the Indies - to the court of the Great Mogul, Jehangir, and onwards to Chin, the land from where the silks came. His search was for frame, not fortune he wanted to be the first man to write about those distant lands. Above all, he wanted to prove himself - to his many skeptics in Prince Henry's court, whom he amused for a living, and the lovely lady Anne Harcourt, whom he loved deeply, only to be hurt.
To reach the court of Jehnagir, Coryate survived penury, loneliness, ridicule and extreme hostility; but disillusionment awaited him at the end of his journey: despite her many wonders and charms, he was also shocked and repelled by India, and the emperor, possessor of fabulous wealth, made a mockery of his dream. Coryate died in the port city of Surat and was buried there in an obscure grave.
Interwoven with the narrative about Coryate's quest is an account of the authors' own travels through the cities the Englishman visited nearly four hundred years ago. In Coryate's footsteps, they go to Delhi, Ajmer, Agra, Aligarh and Surat and discover that while much has changed, in some respects the India Coryate encountered is not very different from the India that exists today. Part biography, part travelogue, The Long Strider written with elegance, wit and insight, is a compelling read.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Men, Women and Old Boots
Dairy One: April 1999-September 2000 / Delhi-London-Odcombe
Full Sail on Dry Land
Diary Two: October 2000-June 2002 / Odcombe-Mumbai-London
Oasis in the Desert
Diary Three: July 2002 / London-Mumbai
In Search of an Emperor
Diary Four: August 2002 / Mumbai-Delhi-Aligarh
A Demon and Two Priests
Diary Five: September 2002 / Agra-Mathura-Vrindavan
Waiting for Sir Thomas
Dairy Six: September 2002 / Agra-Pushkar-Ajmer
Exile
Diary Seven: September 2002 / Ajmer-Pushkar
The Roads of Torment
Diary Eight: October 2002 / Haridwar-Rishikesh-Jwalamukh
The Strider's Surrender
Diary Nine: December 2002-February 2003 / Varanasi-Allahabad-Mandu
Road's End
Diary Ten: March 2003 / Surat