Author: Ravina Aggarwal
Editor(s): Ravina Aggarwal
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 239
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143029118
Description
This volume brings together essays and creative works by some of India's best -known contemporary writers. With an insightful introduction, this anthology is essential reading for the mountain lover and armchair traveler alike.
Cold and forbidding to some. A comfort and solace to others. India’s mountains capes are a testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. From the Himalayas in the north to the Nilgiris in the south, there exist a diverse range of physical, cultural, and aesthetic lifestyles. Into the high Ranges brings together essays and creative works by some of India’s best-known contemporary writers as well as fresh writings by other authors whose imaginations have been fired by these high reaches. Covering a broad spectrum of themes that delve into literature, history, culture and politics, these narratives present an intimate view that differs from stereotypical musings on mountains.
Namita Gokhale writes about returning home to the Kumaon Himalayas to search for calm and meditative silence, while Agha Shahid Ali’s poems long for the solace once provided by his home in the Kashmir valley. Jamling Norgay risks everything to retrace his father’s historic journey to the top of the world, and David Tomory reminisces about the seventies and his rock and roll youth in Mc Leodganj. Ruskin Bond shares his passion for the great trees of the mountains, even as Suketu Mehta points out the hazards of their rapid depletion and exploitation. Gita Mehta traces the relationship between the river and the mountains just as lucidly as Allan Sealy describes the magic of the rains in the hills.
Also contained in this collection are stores that highlight the culture and lore of mountain communities, descriptions of the daily labours of mountain folk, articles on the havoc created by war in border environments like the strife torn Siachen glacier, and many such thought provoking accounts.
Contents
Introduction
PART I: NEW JOURNEYS, OLD ROUTES
In Search of Snow
An Ominous Forecast
In Search of the Fortune-teller from the Hills
Journey to Miraji’s Mountain
PART II: MOUNTAIN MEMOIRS
Coming Home
The City and the Hill
Myth, Memory, and Other Himalayan Labours
A Season to Remember
The Hills Are Alive
PART III: VIEWS OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Great Trees I Have Known
Cliff Goats
If a Tree Falls in the Forest
The River’s Source
The Old Man and the Dam
PART IV: HIGH CULTURE
White-bearers: Views of the Dhauladhar
Mountains of Milk
Leaning from Mountains
The Goat in the Shawl
PART V: FRONTIER DREAMS
The Saga of Siachan
The Mizos, Mautham and St. Francis
Poems from The Country without a Post Office
The Wind