BOOK REVIEWS

INSPIRING CREATIVITY. Edited by Bernadette McDonald. Pp. 175, b/w & colour photos, 2008. (Banff Centre Press, Canada, nps).

The drive from the Calgary airport to The Banff Centre for the Arts is a familiar one for most Canadian (and many international) artists. The long and winding road (no copyright infringement intended) takes you past some of the most spectacular and unforgettable scenery on the planet from rolling prairies to snow capped peaks. The Rocky Mountains alone have no doubt been the cause for an uncountable number of artistic creations over the years. Altitude aside, the vista can take your breath away. And nestled in this alpine valley along the Bow river lies the town of Banff, and just above it, the Centre itself - both the very definition of a symbiotic relationship.

• Drew Hayden Taylor's essay on finding inspiration in an essay

'Where the Sleeping Buffalos Lie'.

This then forms the backdrop of the Banff Centre. Inspiring Creativity is a very good looking book about this place and how it inspires creativity, as Mary Hofstetter, President and CEO, Banff Centre, says in her foreword - For 75 years, thousands of creative individuals have found their way to this remarkable and unique institution nestled on the side of Sleeping Buffalo Mountain in Banff National Park. They have worked together; they have learnt from and with each other; they have molded the evolution of this place sometimes gently, sometimes ferociously and always with passion and creativity. The Banff Centre inspires creativity. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary it is important that we tell our story, celebrate our legacy ...

It is our fortune that the Banff Centre chose Bernadette McDonald to tell its story and she tells it in a way that proves the need for such a soul satisfying place and she tells it through people who come from different artistic passions, talking about their relationship with Banff, in ways that they know best. These people have sometime in their life, made a pilgrimage to Banff maybe for a brief spell, or, maybe, stayed on for years in pure pursuit of their passion.

In 75 years, there have been thousands of such people who have passed by, leaving an indelible mark on the place, taking with them an indelible mark on their souls...this book is a mere symbolic offering, just skimming the surface of the creativity that Banff has inspired.

Where does one begin when talking about the contributors to this book? With the Swedish ballet dancer? Or the Tibetan musician? Or maybe the Chinese multimedia artist? Or the Canadian novelist? Or the quilted textile artist? Or the cellist? Or the landscape artist? Or the set designer? Or the wildlife photographer? Or even with our very own Harish Kapadia? (He is featured in this book with a small but inspiring piece of writing.)

The photograph, Elk Skull under Ice is mesmerising as is the simple story by the photographer Alec Pytlowany on how it came to be.

Wade Davis' essay On Creativity is definitely a piece of literature that I would recommend be on every young person's reading list - I

remember one time in college, one of those classic moments we all went through, sitting around with a group of friends, everyone in quiet desperation trying to suggest what they were going to become in life.... My turn followed and I blurted out that I was going to be a poem. It was simply inconceivable to me that you could find a single slot into which to plug an entire existence. The work you did, the job you held, was surely just a lens through which to view and experience the world, and only for a time. The goal was to make living itself- the act of being alive - one's vocation, knowing full well that ultimately, nothing could be planned or anticipated, no blueprint found to predict something as complex as a human life. And, further, he describes the writing of his first book.

Then there is the little story by Marni Jackson - Jimi and Agnes. Read it. Also there is a reflection on Teaching by Michael Ignatieff

- The secret of teaching, as every teacher knows, is that you learn as much, if not more than your students. The best way to learn something

- really learn something - is to teach it. That's what makes it creative.

The other essays are brilliant too and although they don't always directly reflect the Banff Centre, there is a symbiotic relationship between the place and creativity which gets communicated. One thought that strikes me as I leaf through the pages is that it has thankfully missed being just a catalogue commemorating 75 years - it could well have been. It could have been a memento for the closed group of people who are associated with this centre or who have contributed to this book. Fortunately it is more. I would not call it my most prized possession but it has told me so much about how creativity can be inspired by sheer beauty and also about people I did not know about but will now definitely look out for.

Most of all, this book must inspire us - that such a space is possible and if created, what it can do for human endeavour. We have the whole Himalayan playground - is anybody listening?

NANDINI PURANDARE

HIGHER THAN THE EAGLE SOARS. A Path to Everest. By Stephen Venables. 48 colour & 14 b/w photos, 14 maps & routes, 2007. (Hutchinson, London. GBP £18.99).

This book is the autobiography one of the great British climbers of his generation. It explores how and why Stephen Venables became a mountaineer, and describes his adventures spanning four continents.

Stephen Venables has had a hard climb to success. Mountaineer and writer, Venables was the first Briton to climb Everest without oxygen. He reached the summit alone, after climbing with a small American- Canadian team, by a new route up the massive Kangshung Face. This adventure also saw him become one of the few people ever to survive a night out on its summit.

Starting from childhood, Venables' path to Everest includes early alpine climbs, winter Scottish journeys, Afghanistan before the Russian invasion, the north face of the Eiger and an incredible journey through the heart of the Karakoram mountains. He spent his summer holidays in what many would consider, a strange way - in the Rockies, the Andes, East and South Africa and the European Alps where he has climbed and skied for over forty years. In a career in which there were first ascents of many previously unknown mountains, Everest was a thrilling highlight.

Venables went from Charterhouse School to Oxford where he occupied himself with music and theatre, got a second class degree and began the long climb that finally led to his 1988 expedition up the Kangshung Face of Everest.

Any climber will recognise the induction that Stephen underwent: the first real climb, the first real fall, the friendships, disasters, and conflicts of interest with the other parts of his own life. His enthusiasm often outdid that of his climbing partners. As one of his companions

says, The money runs out, or the season ends: the others go home but Venables stays on. While everyone else has a rest day, Venables is out in the deteriorating weather, soloing something slightly beyond his capacity. He's always saying things such as: that seemed to satisfy the others, but I was greedy to fill the last day before driving home, so . . . Then he leaves before dawn and makes an abortive one-man attempt on the north face of the Matterhorn in winter.

One of Venables' basics was to familiarise himself with the extreme. He was intoxicated by the very real possibility of completing this new route to one of the world's highest summits. Eventually he did what in ordinary human terms could be termed completely mad - he spent a night without oxygen on the top of the highest mountain in the world.

What is striking is that he lived on a plane where there was no finesse; all that mattered was survival. Choosing such a vicious path, abandoning other innumerable pleasures this path had its special rewards. Venables liked the idea of struggle, the prolonged meditation, the peaceful communion with a silent landscape. Watching the shooting stars streak across the sky, listening to the silence of Central Asia, he really felt at last that he had arrived - that this is what it was all about. When he wasn't climbing his whole life seemed out of tune, lacking direction.

Inwardly driven by extraordinary determination, his mindfulness is often at the fore. Many a time he talks of an overwhelming happiness

- a total immersion in the moment, a conviction that right now there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be. Despite the hunger and hardship and the terrible experiences like sagging snow cave roofs, this adventure had been so all embracing, so intense, so positive, that I couldn't have swapped it for anything, and again Once again I felt profoundly happy to be where I was. I felt deliriously happy.

Why couldn't Stephen be like others and enjoy the gentler things of life? Why did he deprive himself of so many normal pleasure? Because in his long journey full of doubts and fears, laughter and wonder and beauty there was a growing belief in what he was doing. Stephen had discovered that he could play this awesome high altitude game. Without those days and weeks of struggle and success, defeat and failure, this reach for the sky, for all its geographical supremacy would have held little appeal.

As he says - There was a thrill in creating an improbable route through those ephemeral ice towers. To have lived and worked for long on the mountain, unlocking the secrets of its vertical landscape. To have enjoyed that growing intimacy with one of the most beautiful valleys on earth. To have witnessed the little team grow in strength and confidence. To know that for all my occasional irascibility and selfishness, I had worked as hard as none, totally committed to making our project a success.

Finally at the top of Everest he makes the most of a lonely meditation, soaks up the whole experience. It seemed incredible to be moving there, alone in a cloud, listening to the deafening silence, still not quite believing that he was there.

By pure chance Stephen had found himself sharing a perfect adventure with a perfect team. And together they had staged a great performance.

NOELLA DESOUZA

THE LONG WALK. By Slavomir Rawicz. Pp. 278, 2007. (First published by Constable and Co., 1999) (Robinson, London, GBP 8).

When this book first came out in 1956 it caused a sensation. The incredible length of the journey, the harrowing detail and the stunning human moments so movingly described made it an instant bestseller, going on to be translated into more than 20 languages. It then went out of print for a while before being reprinted by popular demand and has sold over half a million copies. It became the inspiration for many, including explorers Benedict Allen and Cyril Delafosse-Guiramand. I read it myself a few weeks ago and found it a very well-written and moving saga of simple people behaving extraordinarily under the most extreme of circumstances.

The book tells Rawicz's story of how, as a 24-year old Polish cavalry officer, he was arrested by the Russians in November 1939 and then sentenced a year later to 25 years hard labor in the dreaded Gulags of Siberia. Transported 3000 miles jammed in a cattle-train in mid-winter, he and 3600 others arrived at Irkutsk, still dressed in cotton prison wear. From there they were issued winter clothing then handcuffed to long chains attached to powerful lorries and marched off at a brisk four-miles-an-hour for 800 miles north along Lake Baikal. Those who could not keep up died in their handcuffs, and were thrown into the snowdrifts along the way. Finally, reindeer-drawn sledges pulled the prisoners in their chains for nine days more before arriving at Camp 303, some 200 miles southwest of the northern Siberian capital Yakutsk. Here they were put to cutting and building their camp from the forests around. Rawicz volunteered with others to make skis for the Red Army in return for increased food rations, and found others desiring to break for freedom. The group finally comprising three Poles, a Latvian, a Lithuanian, a Yugoslav and, interestingly, an American earlier brought over to help build the Moscow Metro and jailed as a spy - after hoarding bread, sheepskins, furs, implements to make fire, a knife and an axe-head - escaped into a snowstorm on 10 April 1941.

Now they made their way back down to Lake Baikal, marching at the rate of 20 or 30 miles a day and supplementing their meager rations with whatever small game they could kill along the way. Crossing to the east side of Baikal they ran into a young girl, a 17 year-old Polish escapee, and agreed to take her with them. All eight now trudged down to the Russo-Mongolian border, having covered some 2000 km from the camp in about 60 days. Safe from the Russians they now fixed on India as a final destination, but with no maps, no guide - but also no choice - they soldiered on down, helped by the hospitality of the Mongolians they met along the way.

Crossing the extremes of heat and cold in the Gobi Desert became the next test! The young girl was the first to die of sheer exhaustion.

They staggered on into Tibet, meeting more kindness and hospitality as they made their way down to the Himalaya. A final supreme and frozen hurdle that ensured only four members made it across before they were picked up by a Gurkha patrol in India. Just prior to which, high in the mountains, Rawicz claimed they came upon two powerful- looking eight feet high creatures, standing upright and covered with a reddish fur and with no fear of them, whom they observed for nearly two hours!

They were taken to hospital in Calcutta, taking a month to recover before they parted, Rawicz to rejoin his military unit.

The story has several very moving passages as when, in the cattle- train taking them to Siberia, someone told it was Christmas Eve begins singing a Polish hymn and is soon joined by the entire convoy locked inside their separate trucks. And when they lay the young girl to final rest. Also when Rawicz is bid farewell by his remaining comrades at the hospital in Calcutta.

Rawicz reached England in 1944, personally recommended by General W Anders, legendary commander of the Second Polish Corps, to train as a pilot. He stayed on after the war, married there and settled in Nottingham. A journalist, Ronald Downing, ghostwrote his amazing story later. Both Eric Shipton, scoffing at the description of the yeti, and then Hugh Richardson, questioning topographical and other details of Tibet mentioned, disputed the authenticity of the story (Richardson reviewed it for the Himalayan Journal in 1957). Then, after Rawicz died in 2004 at the age of 88, the BBC suddenly weighed in with evidence contradicting details of his military record. Tantalisingly the BBC ended its piece with the revelation that Rupert Mayne, a Calcutta jute industry 'boxwallah' turned British Intelligence Officer during the war, and member of a family long associated with the British Empire in India, said he had interviewed three emaciated men in Calcutta in 1942 claiming to have escaped from Siberia. Mayne always believed their story was the same as that related in The Long Walk - but telling the story years later, he could not remember their names!

So was Rawicz a liar? My vote goes with Outside Magazine's summing-up The Long Walk in 2003, which I quote 'Ghostwriters do embellish things (ask Marco Polo). Faced with deadly obstacles, men do manage to pull off the impossible (Shackleton, anyone?). And plenty of authentic adventurers have exaggerated their achievements (Admiral Byrd, call your office). So while The Long Walk may never earn a secure place among the true classics of survival, here's my advice: Enjoy it as the great thriller it is.'

And for a postscript, the tale is currently under filming by the Australian director Peter Weir in Bulgaria and Morocco as 'The Way Back' with stars like Collin Farrell and Ed Harris. George Clooney had been hinted at as playing Slavomir Rawicz!!

VIJAY CRISHNA

THE STRUGGLE FOR EVEREST. George Ingle Finch. Edited by George W. Rodway. Pp. 232, 70 b/w photos, 11 drawings, 2 maps, 2008. (Carreg Limited, Herefordshire, UK, GBP 20).

This is the first English translation of Finch's Der Kampf um den Everest. In the words of John B. West : Finch has always been one of my great heroes along with Alexander Mitchell Kellas, belonging as they did to the early Everest expeditions in the 1920s which certainly did not lack heroic figures. Yes Finch was certainly a heroic figure more so because he was unconventional and lacking in a certain social dexterity that was so required in those times in order to be a political heavy weight in the world of mountain exploration.

George Ingle Finch was an Englishman, born in Australia, educated in Paris and Zurich (where he became one of the most talented Alpinists), who then moved to England, fought the war, became a renowned research chemist and mountaineer, wrote his memoirs in English and gave them to a German translator and publisher - This Englishman's story was published in German in 1925 (the obvious question that arises is why on earth did an Englishman have his book published in German??). The first ever English version was finally published in 2008 - long overdue, but worth every penny. And yes some answers emerge in this fascinating book.

George Finch, along with Bruce, Mallory, Norton and Somervell among others, was a key member of the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition, a mountaineering endeavour when Finch along with the inexperienced Geoffrey Bruce, climbed to 8300 m using oxygen, in the world's first climbing foray up to this height. Despite this achievement, he was not picked as a member of the 1924 expedition.

His detailed account of this expedition forms the major part of the book. Although the 1921, 1922 and 1924 expeditions are 'officially' well-chronicled, this is the only personal narrative of the journeys, particularly the one in 1922, of which Finch was a part. The account itself, reads matter-of-fact and a bit dry, with much devotion to research and use of oxygen apparatus while climbing, a field that was dear to his heart and to which he devoted several years of research. Along with this he also researched clothing, fuel and food for high altitude use - it seems like he pioneered much research on which today's technology is based.

While Finch was left out of the 1921 reconnaissance expedition on flimsy medical grounds at the last minute, his disagreements with the Everest Committee on various issues also kept him off the 1924 expedition (even here, he was notified of the decision only after he had provided technical advice on supplementary oxygen use). However, he did write accounts of these expeditions of which he was not a member and so these may not be accurate; he made scientific observations that are obsolete, irrelevant and even inaccurate in today's context; however, if read in the spirit of the times, there is a wealth of description that awaits the reader on how the quest for adventure can drive human beings.

The book is well illustrated; many of the photos are Finch's own. He seems to have been a serious photographer - he took more photos on the 1922 expedition than the official photographer and developed all of them himself while on the trip!

Through the book we understand Finch - a fine scientist with a clear curiosity about and a great love for Himalayan people, a love for the beauty of the mountains and most of all a surprising lack of bitterness at the way he was treated by the Everest Committee in 1921 and 1924. Even when he did go up, in 1922, it seems like he was badly let down - he did not have a recognised experienced climber as his partner and so when his chance came for a summit attempt, he had to make do with Geoffrey Bruce, a novice. So many what ifs? come to one's mind - what if Finch had had a more experienced partner? What if he was part of the ill-fated 1924 expedition when Mallory and Irvine disappeared? Would the outcome have been different? Talking about their disappearance, Finch was convinced that they died due to malfunctioning of their oxygen apparatus and that they never did reach the summit. You also see that he had firm opinions, many of which would be later on proven wrong (for example, he strongly believed that no climber would ever summit Everest without the use of supplementary oxygen) and that he definitely was not an easy man to get along with. But he was passionate about his quest for the unknown and was proud to be an Englishman - The sons of Britain's emerald isles have the propensity for discovery and conquest in their blood; they have always known the lure offaraway places and for centuries a pioneering spirit has compelled them to leave their homeland and discover the world. Truly, George Finch is one of the most interesting of all prewar Everesters.

Editor George Rodway has painstakingly researched The Times, Finch's diaries and other accounts and official records of these expeditions and as a result has produced a book with an understanding of this controversial man and his troubled climbing career. Moreover, new material - written for this volume by himself, John West and Stephen Venables - offers an introduction to, and attempts to provide context for, his life and times. This is an important addition to the early Everest literature and a great complement to the official expedition book by Charles Bruce, as well as those by expedition members Tom Longstaff, John Morris, John Noel, and T. Howard Somervell. Stephen Venables' article in the appendix - A Thoroughly Professional Amateur talks about his mountaineering style. A report of the decompression test Finch underwent in Professor Dreyer's chamber in Oxford in March 1921 forms part of the appendix along with a reproduction of the two medical reports that were used to exclude him from the 1921 expedition.

The publication is definitely as much George Rodway's as it is George Finch's.

NANDINI PURANDARE

THIN WHITE LINE. By Andy Cave. Pp. 230, 45 photos, four maps, 2009. (Arrow Books, London, £8.99).

Andy writes the way he climbs his mountains. Pure and simple, direct, and above all beautifully. Having known him personally, it defies belief that such an unassuming man could be one of the finest contemporary climbers in the world who wields his pen with finesse equalling the swing of his ice axe. Starting off where he had paused in his bestselling debut Learning to Breathe, Andy now takes us on a whirlwind tour to some of the severest alpine challenges across the globe from the high echelons of the Patagonia to the cliffs of Norway and the remotest corners of Alaska.

Following his tragic loss and personal journey through purgatory in the high Himalaya in 1997, Andy question's his life's purpose and his relationship with the mountains, which gave him everything as well as took away what he held among his dearest. The initial part of the book describes his inner struggle and his efforts to come to terms with the price that mountains often demand from those who venture into their icy heights. While he is looking for answers to his inner turmoil he comes across a book on the Patagonia mountains and decides to go for the dreaded Fitzroy, perhaps in a kind of therapeutic-climb. Post Fitzroy he still finds his mind unsettled as to his mountaineering future and follows it up with no-holds-barred all fun and games kind of expeditions to Norway. No high mountains or vertical towers of ice but simple big walls of solid rock overlooking some of the pristine fjords in the world. Initially beaten by the fickle Norwegian weather, Andy completes some superlative climbs with his partner Leo Houlding and lives to tell the tale. Though satiated to an extent he again pines for the heights and solitude of remote mountains and then heads for Alaska, where he chalks up a series of intrepid ascents.

Thin White Line on one hand is a fantastic collection of climbing tales from across the globe peppered with amazing people and human impersonations and on the other it is a mountaineer's inner journey to find himself in the remote vastness of his soul. Most of us who climb for the sheer pleasure of climbing in remote mountains and are still struggling to find the answers as to 'why do we climb', would find a familiar soul in Andy and perhaps find words to their own thoughts. While the others who do know, would discover their own thoughts resonating through the book. Andy climbs and writes from the heart, the only way he knows and the only way a true mountaineer should be. Another masterpiece from a superb alpinist, Thin White Line is a must for any mountaineering aficionado's collection.

COMMANDAR S. DAM

THROUGH THE EYE OF TIME. Photographs of Arunachal Pradesh 1859 -2006. By Tarr, Michael Aram and Blackburn, Stuart. Pp. 216, 203 colour and b/w photos, 2 maps, 2008. (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, nps).

THE SEVEN SISTERS OF INDIA. The tribal worlds between Tibet and Burma. By Stirn, Aglaja and van Ham, Peter. Pp. 168, colour and b/w photos, 2000. (Prestel Verlag, Munich, nps). Published in India by Mapin Publishing, Ahemdabad, Rs. 2750.

The land is not like our land,

Its sky is not like our sky.

Its sky sends rain down without the

Originating cause of clouds;

On its ground the green grass sprouts

Up without any aid from soil.

It stands outside the circle of the Earth

And the bowels of the enveloping sphere.

Three hundred years ago the Mulla Darvish of Heart, author of the Raja of Assam, eloquently described his impressions of the northeastern border of India. Coming from barren lands Mulla looked at this fertile land with astonished eyes. Lyrical descriptions of these lands by Darvish have not lost their relevance today. The land is still mysterious, fierce and almost immeasurably vast. The above two books leads to a better understanding of these lands.

Often, I am asked; 'Haven't you had enough of the mountains in the last few decades? What new experience you can get now?' In fact I often ask myself the same question - the travel, the roads, the taxis, the porters, the peaks, camping and many things look and feel familiar after some years. Soon one starts taking interests in flora, fauna, history, geography, etc. to stimulate one's intellect. This is what John Jackson, in his book of the same title, calls More Than Mountains.

For the last few seasons, I have been visiting the northeast Himalaya which is largely untrodden and rather different from the rest of the range. The above two books have widened my horizons, especially with regard to these areas. Through The Eye of Time covers the history of Arunachal Pradesh with some rare and historic photographs. The authors have undertaken this research through association with the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (SOAS), in consultations with many other scholarly organisations. The result is a very pleasing and authentic publication about an unknown area. More than 200 pictures, old and new, indicate that many traditions of the past are still alive. Books like these are excellent records, very necessary before father time takes over and past disappears.

The authors have an eye for history too; various tribes like Mishmis, Miri, Apatani, Khamti and many others have been covered in detail, with their festivals, religious ceremonies, dances and social customs. The photos, some archival and some contemporary, reveal this tribal culture. The introductory article places the photographs in a wider context. In 1910, Noel Williamson, representing the British, met the Governor of Rima (now in China) and that historic photo is reproduced in the book. The following year, 1911, Williamson travelled in the Siang valley but he and other members of his party were murdered near village of Kebang. The British dispatched a punitive expedition titled 'The Abor Expedition' which burned villages, including Kebang, arrested the murderers and brought them to justice. These historic events are covered, along with pictures, and interviews with villagers in 2005. It is an invaluable record of pictorial history.

Over the years these 'tribals' have shown that they have an advanced society and culture which we have failed to understand. It is in this ignorance, as Verrier Elwin says, that we try to 'civilise the civilised'. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister put it correctly when he wrote:

I am not at all sure which is the better way of living, the tribal our own. In some respects I am quite certain theirs is better. Therefore, it is grossly presumptuous on our part to approach them with an air of superiority, to tell them how to behave or what to do and what not to do. There is no point in trying to make them a second rate copy of ourselves.

The Seven Sisters of India covers all the seven northeastern states. Different chapters describe the tribal culture and religion as well as traditions of weaving, dancing and house construction. People of the region, such as the Manipuri, Nagas, Mishmis and Apatanis are described. Chapters particularly worth reading are on Shaman, the jungle spirits, the world of local magicians and fertility. With contemporary photographs (there are only a few historic pictures) the present day life of people in these remote states are portrayed. You see dancing Manipuri girls, and weaving by Manipuri craftsmen, Naga dances, traditions of the Sun and Moon god from Arunachal, wood carvings and Khampti priests in their beautiful temples. People of Arunachal follow the religion of Donyi-Polo, the religion of sun and moon, an advanced form of nature worship, where faith is in Nature. A Khampa widow is comforted with these wise words, 'Don't think that darkness overcomes you, because the sun and moon are ever present...'.

If the first book portrays how these areas were decades ago, the second book displays its riches and traditions as they are today. Between the two, you get a complete picture of these lesser known states and a wide canvas of the Northeastern state is painted. People in the area often feel neglected and less understood by other Indians and the outside world. Books such as these would therefore lead to greater appreciation of their cultures and acceptance, and attract people to its time immemorial beauty. On climbing to the Apa Tani plateau, McCabe wrote in 1897:

The sight is one I shall never forget, when we suddenly emerged on a magnificent plateau some ten miles in length, laid out in highly cultivated terraces watered by the Kale River. The valley was dotted with isolated hillocks, and low pine-clad spurs ran here and there into the valley from the eastern ranges. Our hearts warmed at the sight of primroses, violets, wild currants, strawberries, and I felt disposed almost to believe some of the wonderful stories we had heard of the fabulous wealth of this country.

HARISH KAPADIA

WITNESS TO OUR TIMES. By A. D. Moddie. Pp. 280, 2008. (Consul Printers, Nainital, nps).

Aspi Moddie, in his complimentary note to editor Harish Kapadia, says 'For slow, absorbing reading of a century of witnesses. And reasonable recovery'. This in very short is what his book is about. It is a book truly to be absorbed - a mini epic about India through the eyes of an astute, sometimes acerbic but always wise, witness, Aspi D. Moddie. Very cleverly, he has created a biography of his life and times with a backdrop of the life and times of a nation that he served for many years and in different capacities. Moddie was a member of the first batch of the IAS (1947- 48) and worked and travelled to many parts of India as well as Tibet. Later on he worked with the private sector as consultant and a representative of industry to the government. He has also authored several books, among them the well-known The Brahmanical Culture and Modernity. He was also, until recently, Chairman of the Central Himalayan Eco-development Group. He served as the President of the Himalayan Club for eight years and is the Honorary Member of the Club.

It is truly very hard to review a book that requires absorption of a different kind, that comes from a mind that inquires and runs so rapidly in different directions that sometimes making sense of the philosophy, particularly in the concluding chapters is hard. But let me try, by breaking it up and quoting extensively as this author definitely has mastery over his language.

In the Preface Moddie quotes an Arunachali poet :

We live in territories forever ancient and new...

I am an old man sipping the breeze that is forever young.

In my life I have lived many lives...

Instructed with history and miracles.

and then says - And like him, 'I am mingled in chance and fate in my life's touching of wider worlds'.

The author begins his book with his protected idyllic childhood wherein his father who worked as a servant of the Britishers. Of his early tryst with Independent India, he says of his father - Since then, he became a shell of his former self, living on the memories of the better days, in the pleasant shade of the memories of the banyan tree, which was the old 'Raj'. When that shade went, it took a large part of his self- esteem, as a broken, abandoned man in retirement. In him I saw what the 'Raj' meant to the upper classes of his generation. After fifty years of independence, our fathers are not to be scoffed at for that...

Moddie remains until the end, a cynic, analysing India since Independence and concluding that nothing changed for the better - that the 'Raj' merely changed hands - from white to brown but the evils of feudal rule continued and strengthened.

Through his years as a civil servant and postings in Tibet and Madhubani (Bihar) we get a close look at the Indian Civil Services. He has cycled and trekked and travelled to tour his districts, resulting in his disillusionment, cynicism towards corruption which is endemic at all levels - Far from being threatened, corruption is protected even by good men, who by the nature of our society do not find it in them to take action against culprits. The hard choice lies not so much in dealing with corruption, but with people, so we take the soft option of leaving them unhurt, whatever happens to the public interest. The permissive, protective instinct of the joint-family permeates nearly all organisations; and, of course, there was no distinction between the public interest and that of the Jajman and his minions.

Moddie, gives us a glimpse of his interest in anthropology -

No one told me that a tribal God opened the windows of heaven and poured water on a dry earth; which we may need with water-harvesting in the water crisis of the future. No one told me "the stars are flying, but that is Awana's daughter flashing her hair pin at the demon pursuing her across the sky"; an explanation for a shooting star. I only came to know about our wonderful tribal world from Verrier Elwin's writings years later. It was a charming revelation of original people, a world we have lost, and they are since losing.

And then as a very analytical historian -

So history was the intellectual framework with which I viewed my later contemporary world - the Indian world after 'Independence', the western world after the end of imperialism and decolonization, the

Chinese world since Mao, and the Islamic world of fundamentalism and terror; as also the American fluctuation between isolationism and economic cum missile empire. Whatever my wanderings into politics, economics, the sociology of development, and environmental science, History remained the window of my world perspective, the long conditioning factor of nations and societies.

His has his unique take on patriotism as well - I have never been able to shed my disdain for men who posed as patriots, but were patently after power and money. As a rule, they were also poor in other student accomplishments - in studies and games. For them, agitation, strike, and going to jail, were romantic escapes from honest, hard work and a preparation to be useful citizens.

The book continues, tracing the different phases of his life and of the country including India's freedom and after, years during war, the Bengal Famine, years in the Civil Service, encounters with freedom movement and its leaders, cynicism about the Quit India movement

- one grudgingly has to admit that he is brutally honest, mincing no words. He is definitely a rebel of his times, questioning Nehru's policies, looking at India's modern history, from the point of view of the common man - Panchayat Raj as a trap for caste politics, bad governance and so-called community projects.

The most satisfying and interesting phase of his working life was with the private sector - Unilever where he made life long friends. He traces the growth of this sector and of his love affair with the mountains

- This author's life was intertwined with trips to the Himalayas - a life long love affair, resulting in many books, published papers on the subject of its fragile ecology.

Towards the end, however, I felt the book getting to be chaotic

- not in terms of ideas, but in terms of their presentation. The linear approach of India's history and its fallacies make interesting reading but after an analysis of the failure of the Nehruvian socialist approach, the book discusses terrorism, the existence of God, and spiritualism. Moddie is surely a witness to these times as well but the intellectual, the philosophical and the spiritual essays, could maybe, make another book.

NANDINI PURANDARE

THE ENDURANCE. - Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. By Caroline Alexander. Pp. 212, 140 photographs, 2008. (Alfred A Knopf, New York, US $ 15).

SHACKLETON'S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE. Large-format IMAX film. Directed by George Butler. Narrated by Kevin Spacey, 41 minutes, made in USA, 2001.

Is it not amazing how even ordinary human beings can survive extreme, even brutal, circumstances with great leadership propelling themselves beyond their abilities and capabilities? The essence of the will to survive and succeed driving the body to exceed its own limitations, as in so many of the great Himalayan climbs. Such was the case with Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Caroline Alexander's re-telling of Shackleton's Imperial Trans- Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 reminds us why Shackleton's example has been quoted so widely in recent years, emerging from under the shadow of Robert Scott (Scott of the Antarctic, as he came to be known) and his more celebrated, tragic return journey from the South Pole. Today, Shackleton's is the relevant example of exemplary human behaviour under the most extreme natural conditions on Earth with his very careful planning and, of course, great leadership. Having read this I immediately went back to re-read Alfred Lansing's Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and Shackleton's own historic account South, and perusing my treasured DVD of the British Film Institute's restored version of South I had picked up at the Scott Polar Research Institute of Cambridge University a few years ago. Each book has its own distinctive voice - Shackleton's words conjure up the tough explorer's unemotional approach to life in the shadow of death, Lansing's his unlimited access to the diaries of Shackleton's party and personal interviews with most of them or their families. The film South contains the historic footage of Aussie cinematographer Frank Hurley, hand-picked by Shackleton to document his voyage knowing of Hurley's film of Douglas Mawson's 1911 expedition.

Caroline Alexander's book delights not just because of her illuminating words but also because it contains Hurley's wonderfully reproduced still photographs, many previously unpublished. They look astonishingly as if they had been taken yesterday! In fact Hurley was pretty extraordinary in his own right, hard as nails and able to rough it out with the hardiest of the party. He was also a master of 'Photoshopping' (long before the word entered our lexicon!), always seeking the opportunity to dramatise a picture!

Caroline Alexander brings to life Shackleton's epic saga that began when, locked in the death-grip of the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, his dreams of traversing Antarctica vanished in an instant. Knowing the outside world knew nothing of his expedition after leaving South Georgia because the only radio on board, presented by the Argentinians, only permitted them to hear a weather report once a month! Always positive, he turned his focus to keeping the energies of his men alive as they sat out that winter, drifting northwards with the ice. Nine months later, the ice beginning to break up the ship, he changed plans to create a camp on the ice and concentrating on the safety of his men. He took hard decisions such as that to shoot the 69 sledge dogs and their pups born during the voyage to keep his men fed once food began running short and the Endurance was about to sink. An emotional blow for the men who had become very attached to the dogs. But he was right, because the broken Endurance finally sank and the breaking ice-floes made living on them impossible. With no option left but to take to the sea, he gave the order to launch their three lifeboats. Rowing for those six hazardous days across strong currents and between the icebergs, they made Elephant Island, a barren rocky outcrop and the last island before the open sea. When they beached, exhausted, they were setting foot on solid land after 497 days! But Shackleton soon realised that creating a camp on the hostile island by upturning two of the boats to create a habitation was merely a temporary solution. He had to get outside help if the party was to survive. Getting his carpenter to strengthen the third lifeboat, he took the courageous decision to sail 800 miles to South Georgia Island for help from the whaling stations there. Negotiating the Southern Ocean's wild waters and bad weather meant that if his navigation was off by even half a degree he would miss South Georgia entirely and perish in the ocean wastes beyond. As would the rest of the party, without help. It was to become the historic small-boat voyage. 16 days later, thanks to Capt Frank Worsley's pinpoint navigation they had braved a hurricane and the rough seas and fell ashore on South Georgia. Now, the lifeboat too damaged to go further and with them on the wrong side of the island, Shackleton again decided he would have to trek across the unmapped crevasses, glaciers and mountains to get the help his men were waiting for on Elephant Island. So he, Worsley and the only other person fit to walk fixed wood screws from the boat to their boots, took a 50-foot length of rope, a little food and set off.

The 2001 IMAX film features Reinhold Messner, Stephen Venables and Conrad Anker - three great names very familiar to Himalayan mountaineering - brought in to retrace Shackleton's footsteps on this trek over three days. We share their sincere astonishment at how Shackleton's trio - ill-clad, ill-shod, without climbing implements and worn out by the savage sea crossing from Elephant Island as well as their privations of the previous 497 days - went across those glaciers and mountains of South Georgia in one continuous trek of 36 hours! Reaching the whaling station at Grytviken, they were met by the incredulous Station Manager who could not believe he was seeing people he had given up for dead many months earlier. Immediately a boat was sent to pick up the three on the other side of the island and then to mount a rescue of the 22 left behind on Elephant Island. The ferocity of the seas and the pack ice was to delay that for another three months, but in the end they were all rescued.

Shackleton had done the impossible by leading his men from the front, keeping their minds and hopes positive and energized and finally bringing the entire team, alive and well, out of the jaws of certain death.

This was an unparalleled saga, undoubtedly the greatest survival story of them all. Antarctica is the most unforgiving place in the world - remember how Sir Ranulph Fiennes, that most intrepid of explorers who braved his fear of heights to scale both Eiger's north face and Everest, had to be rescued off the ice-cap when frostbitten, frozen and starving he had to abandon his traverse of Antarctica on foot with Mike Stroud in 1992.

Mountaineers and trekkers, and even those of us who aspire to all that from the safety of our armchairs, cannot hope for a more inspiring read!

VIJAY CRISHNA

DHARAMSALA DIARIES. By Swati Chopra, Pp. xiv+277, 2007. (Penguin Books, New Delhi, Rs. 295; US$10; ISBN 0-14-310306-7).

In 1960, when Jawaharlal Nehru offered a residential building in the upper Dharamsala to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, who had fled the Chinese Army's brutal occupation of his homeland a year before, few would foresee that this little town in the Kangra valley of the Himalaya would become a international centre not only for Tibetans but for Buddhism itself. As Swati Chopra recounts in this new book, Dharamsala has achieved its literal meaning of the 'Place of Dharma,' drawing millions of peoples - Americans, Europeans, Israelis, Japanese, Indians, Tibetans, journalists, tourists, pilgrims and refugees (both political and spiritual). Dharamsala is dubbed as the Little Lhasa, with no Potala Palace, of course, but still centered on the Dalai Lama's personality, teachings, and efficient organisational setup. However, it is no Shangri-La; poverty and filthiness coexist with commercialisation of things both material and spiritual.

In her diaries (actually 17 book chapters), Chopra systematically walks the reader through the topography, history, politics, religion, idealism of life and realities of the world, all embodied in this particular place. The story begins with a bus ride from Majnu ka Tilla, the Tibetan neighbourhood in north Delhi, to Kotwali bazaar in lower Dharamsala and then a steep ascend (a 550 metres relief over a distance of nine kilometres, to be precise) to McLeod Ganj, literally he 'Neighbourhood of McLeod,' or upper Dharamsala, named after Sir David McLeod, a British governor of the Punjab in the nineteenth century. Here we have a blend of Hindu, British Indian, and Tibetan Buddhist elements. A bazaar runs through McLeod Ganj, packed with hotels, restaurants, stores, and people of various colours and cultures. I myself walked through this bazaar many times in the early 1980s, and even had an honour of meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. But things change, and Chopra's diaries paint colourful images of both old and new in Dharamsala.

This book also provides a powerful voice, through the eye and mouth of an Indian journalist, to the plight of Tibetans, not only of the refugees in Dharamsala and around the world but also of those in millions who reside in Tibet. One important thing that Chopra discovers is that the flux of Tibetan refugees has not stopped. A case in point is the young Gyalwa Karmapa (the head of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism) who, despite being recognised by Chinese authorities, fled Tibet in 2000, and has since then built a large following. The painting on the cover page of the book comes from another refugee who arrived in Dharamsala in 2002. Or consider the statute of Avalokiteshvara (Buddha of Compassion, which the Dalai Lamas are believed to represent) at Tsuglag Khang in Dharamsala: It was built in 1970 from the bits and pieces smuggled from Tibet after the Chinese soldiers smashed the statutes of Jokhang in Tibet.

Chopra, a Delhi-based journalist, talks about her grand uncle who lived in Dharamsala as a wandering yogi, about her fascination with the simplicity and truthfulness of the Dalai Lama's teachings, her participation in the 2002 and 2004 Mind and Life conferences in Dharamsala which the Dalai Lama held (and continues to hold) to discuss the science of meditation with Western scientists; the classes on Tibetan Buddhism she attended at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, a fifteen-minute down McLeod Ganj (where like millions, I also spent much time to learn about Tibet and Buddhism many years ago), and so on. With no maps or photos, Chopra has managed to produce a lively reading material about Dharamsala's geography, inhabitants, passengers, and issues.

Chopra is also a poet. The last chapter on Nirvana contains some of her poems which paint in words the Buddha's Dharma felt through the landscape. Echoing Marcel Proust ('every reader is reading only about himself'), Chopra writes that every traveller is only making travels that bring her to own self. This is, indeed, true about Himalayan travels.

This is the first book I have read from Swati Chopra, and as it happens, this is also the first book of this young, talented, rising Indian writer. In the past she has contributed articles to Life Positive magazine, Times of India and other periodicals. This book was published by Penguin India but I purchased my copy at a Barnes & Nobel bookstore in the US - an indication of the book's wider popularity and significance. I read it during one weekend and read with interest and delight, refreshing my own memories of Dharamsala.

RASOUL SORKHABI

RESOURCES ON THE SPELEOLOGY OF MEGHALAYA STATE, India. Part 1: Overview. By Gebauer H.D. Pp. 152, 2008. Part 2: Garo Hills. By Gebauer H.D. Pp. 130, 2009. (Berliner Hohlenkundliche Berichte Band 33. from Michael Laumanns, £15 each) Available from Michael.Laumanns@bmf.bund.de ISSN 1618572 and ISSN 1617-8572

The indefatigable Herbert Daniel Gebauer has done it again. In 1983 he had published his 181 Caves of India and Nepal which listed a mere 20 references to the caves in Meghalaya State. In 1995 he was co-author of the Speleological Bibliography of South Asia which included an increased 183 references to the caves, cave biology and geomorphology of that state.

This latest work of reference lists 24 maps and 857 references. The various caves can be found by looking under the areas in which they are situated. Also listed are items about cave tourism, cave biology, karst geomorphology, limestone exploitation, archaeology and history of cave exploration. The author has written comments on, with extracts from, many of the published and manuscript sources.

This enormous increase in the literature of the Meghalaya caves can be attributed to the work of the members of the Meghalaya Adventurers Association and its Brian Kharpran Daly (40 published works), and of many other locals who are listed by name. They have been working with conspicuous success during the past two decades with visiting expeditions from Europe and America.

The second part of Herbert Gebauer's thorough compliation of references to, and descriptions of, the caves of Meghalaya is also available. He has listed 323 references, two maps, 44 surveys and nine photographs. After a brief geological introduction and list of available maps he records 139 caves, many of which are unexplored and unsurveyed. Much of the exploration and survey continues to be done by Brian Kharphan Daly and his Meghalaya Adventurers Association in association with visiting cavers from Europe and America. It is encouraging to note that members of the Indian Navy have been in the Meghalaya caves 'seeking to establish the sport as one of its main adventure activities' (Descent 2009 No. 208 p. 27).

These are essential items for everyone who is interested in the Meghalaya limestone. It should be in every reference library in India and elsewhere with Part 2 which is an essential companion to Part 1.

STEPHEN CRAVEN

K2 - LIES AND TREACHERY. By Robert Marshall. Pp 232, 7 b/w photographs, 1 map, 2009. (Carreg, UK, GBP 20).

Since reading Lacedelli's book on his climb of K2, many of us were wondering when we could have the Bonatti version of the story. Though it comes from the pen of Robert Marshall because of his deep involvement with this controversy since he read Banatti's 1985 book Processo Al K2. He pursued the issues involved with the precision and inquisitiveness of a good surgeon, the profession he belongs to, and the outcome is K2 - Lies and Treachery.

History of the attempts and ascents on K2 is well known. The 1939 American expedition under the leadership of Fritz Wissener almost succeeded in reaching the summit of K2 but in the end, lost Dudley Wolfe and three Shrepas. The blame was squarely put on the shoulders of Jack Durance and it took a book, written after five decades by Kauffman and Putnam, to set the record straight.

Robert Marshall in the same vein has successfully tried to exonerate Bonatti from the accusations and has analysed the events to unfold the real story of the last part of the climb to the summit. His painstaking efforts to collect all the available data, since the first inquiry held immediately after the conclusion of the expedition till the official acceptance of the facts by CAI and the analysis of the allegations, counter allegations, court proceedings and evidence, is convincing and fitting.

Achievements in mountaineering in general and in the ascents of the giants in particular are never without the great superhuman efforts. What saddens the mind is they are spiced up by imaginary deeds that are almost always unnecessary. The first ascent of K2, the toughest nut to crack, by Compagnoni and Lacedelli never needed the label of an ascent without artificial oxygen as it was standard practice of those times to climb the highest mountains with supplementary oxygen. But then to support the original lie, a card castle was built by additional false statements and imaginary evidence that collapsed when the correct situation was brought in to the open.

Marshall is almost like a lawyer, in that through his writing he unfolds the events in their logical sequence - this helps the reader to follow the story, logically. Unfortunately he also suffers from the universal habit of many lawyers - to go for overkill when they have a strong case. Many repetitions could have been avoided; a more concise text would have made the story much more effective. Also one observes a lack of good reproduction of the illustrations and the only map in the book is actually used twice (page nos. 30 and 80) without any real purpose. Also he refers to a few passages in the earlier chapters by the numbers of the chapter but in the text the chapters are not numbered. This creates confusion and much page turning. And last, but not the least, the book lacks a comprehensive index.

However, despite all the drawbacks, the book retains its historical importance. For the larger English reading audience, this book plays a vital role of providing the accurate story of the major event of the first ascent of K2, though one is left wondering why it took the Italian Alpine Club such a long time to accept the truth. The book is not about Bonatti's climbing exploits but his persuasion of the historic truth. As Robert Marshall has written: Even if all Walter Bonatti's exploits were to be forgotten, he should be remembered for this - to have pursued for half a century the affirmation of historic truth, which is not a matter of emotions, sensations, misunderstandings and lies but of deeds and incontrovertible facts.

Walter Bonatti will not be forgotten as long as the sport of mountain climbing is alive. He will always be remembered for his futuristic exploits in the Alps as well as in the Himalaya and his passion for the truth. In the end, truth always prevails.

RAJESH GADGIL

BUDDHIST HIMALAYAS. By Olivier Follmi, Danielle Follmi and Matthieu Ricard. Pp. 416, 2008. (Abrams, New York, US$29.95, ISBN 978-0-8190-8405-9).

The Buddhist Himalaya include Tibet, Ladakh-Zanskar (in northwest India), Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, which all have been influenced by Tibetan traditions. Therefore, photos of lamas with red or yellow robes, statutes of the various Buddhas, snowy peaks, and vast dry landscapes are the main themes in the book. The 176 photographs collected in the book are superb. They are the fruits of 25 years of travelling and living in the Himalaya; so this book is a life achievement for its producers. Olivier (husband) and Danielle Pons (wife) Follmi have been fascinated with Himalayan lands and peoples for nearly three decades and have published several photographic books. This French couple has adopted four Tibetan children and divides their life between the Alps and the Himalaya. Matthieu Ricard (born in 1946), also from France, has a rare combination of being a Ph.D. in biology and a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Author of several books on Tibetan Buddhism, he lives in a monastery in Nepal and acts as the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. The producers' affection for the Tibetan people and their passion for the Himalaya and Tibet cry out from the pages of the book, which is dedicated to their Tibetan guru yogi Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (one of the Dalai Lama's teachers).

This photographic book is enhanced by 58 short essays (33 written by Matthieu Ricard and the rest by the other experts) on a host of topics; these essays provide an overview of the Tibetan Buddhism and Himalayan cultures. Take for example, the salt traders of southern Tibet. One wonders why there are so much salt deposits on the southern parts (Changthang) of the Tibetan Plateau. As the book explains, the High Himalaya forms a precipitation divide between the monsoon India to the south and the arid Changthang to the north; therefore, salt deposits accumulate in depressions on the plateau. Or consider this question: What is the meaning of prayers flags which are such characteristic feature of the Tibetan religious life? We read that while the prayer flags were recommended by the eleventh-century India pundit Atisha, this practice goes even before Tibetan Buddhism because the followers of the Bon religion in Tibet also hung woollen flags from trees as an offering to the gods or to bring good luck. The book also touches on the relatively less-known aspects of Himalayan cultures, for instance Tibetan calligraphy (Bod-yig).

At the beginning of the book, Ricard gives an interesting account of the 14th Dalai Lama's daily life in Dharamsala (known as 'Little Lhasa' where the Tibetan leader and his followers have lived in exile since fleeing Tibet in 1959). The last two essays are by the Dalai Lama, one on the future of Tibet, which he hopes to be a free land with Tibetans living peacefully with their Chinese brothers and sisters, and the second on the twenty-first century, which he prays to be as a century of dialogue, tolerance, and peace.

I have travelled several parts of the Himalaya and did my Ph.D. thesis on the geology of Ladakh in the late 1908s and remember with fond the Follmis' early photographic book on Zanskar. It is a delight to see that they have continued this visual chronicling of the Himalaya and Tibet. I don't know why the Himalaya are Buddhist? Of course, the Buddha was born close by. But how did the Buddha reach his ideals of enlightenment and nirvana? Perhaps, as some anthropologists have suggested, there was a Himalayan influence. The Buddha, as far as we know, did not climb the high mountains but lived and died in the relatively hot and humid plains of northern India. Then perhaps, even glimpses of the lofty Himalaya from a far were enchanting for him and his disciples.

Overall, Buddhist Himalayas is a work of art blended with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history, geography, religion and culture of the Tibetan and Himalayan peoples. The book was first published in French in 2002 (Himalaya Bouddhiste), and now its English edition on the market, with a reasonable tag price, is not only a fabulous book to own but also makes an excellent gift to those who are friends of the Himalaya.

RASOUL SORKHABI

THE BOYS OF EVEREST. Chris Bonington and the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation. By Clint Willis. Pp. 535. 26 b/w photographs, paperback edition, 2008. (Portico, London, GBP 29.95).

This book is an omnibus volume covering Bonington's and his friends' exploits from the late fifties to mid-eighties. All major expeditions from the Alps to the Himalaya are covered, but from a different perspective. What could have been a repetition of once- told stories is transformed in to a new insight because of Clint's unique analysis of the climber's mind and his lucid narrating style. He has successfully tried to enter the brains of those humans who live on the edge. What he saw in there, he has narrated, thus giving us an idea of why they have reached where they have.

We all know and revere Chris Bonington as one of the greatest achievers of the sport. This book underlines a very humane side of his personality. It brings out his emotions and feelings about his lost friends. It also brings out his respect towards the abilities of his friends but at the same time never conceals the shrewd leader in him when it is time to select his teammates and decide their actions on the mountains.

Clint Willis was surely on a tight rope walk when writing this book, but to his credit he never stumbles and carries himself and therefore his readers with to the other end smoothly. The only hitch is the poor quality of the black and white photographs, of which there are very few. Possibly the hard back edition has a better presentation.

For anybody who loves exploits in the rarified atmosphere, this book is a compulsive read. So many great men with great achievements and equally great egos and eccentricities are very rarely chronicled together. It gives one a perspective of that unique era of climbing, from the north wall of Eiger to the Northeast Ridge of Everest and its legendary exploiters, from Joe Brown and Don Whillans to Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker.

RAJESH GADGIL

Short reviews by : Nandini Purandare

INTO TIBET. The CIA's first atomic spy and his secret expedition to Lhasa. By Thomas Laird. Pp. 384, 14 b/w photos, 2 sketch maps, 2003. (Grove Press, New York, US $ 26).

Into Tibet is quite an incredible story, of how in 1950, the CIA made a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans just weeks before Communist China invaded it.

Apparently, Douglas Mackiernan, USA's first atomic spy, as he is known, went into Russian territory to collect intelligence about uranium mining and Russia's efforts to build the N-bomb. Alongside his activity of setting up receivers to detect Russian atomic tests, he also began organising anti-Chinese nomads as fighting forces in Central Asia. When his cover as an American spy for Russia was blown, he set off for Tibet. Mackiernan met another agent Frank Bessac in Central Asia and together with some Russians, they embarked on a 2000-mile trek into Tibet. It was harrowing and Mackiernan was killed on the way, in a gruesome manner ironically, on his birthday. He was shot by Tibetan guards who had not been 'informed' about the imminent arrival of the Americans. CIA truly lived up to its reputation. Bessac went on to reach Lhasa, meet the Dalai Lama and convince him to turn to the US for help. This is the amazing story of the amazing spy, Douglas Mackiernan. It is also the story of survival, courage, and intrigue among the nomads, princes, and warring armies of Central Asia.

The whole account is quite murky as always when the CIA is involved - denials, deceit, bungled actions, many secrets and many interpretations make some parts of the narrative a bit disjointed. Also evident is how concerned America was, about spreading communism in Russia and China for that was the time of McCarthy hysteria. This mission was to deliver arms to the Tibetan resistance - which, Laird maintains, the CIA funded and supplied until the 1970s, when it abandoned the Tibetan freedom fighters. The mission was a failure on all counts, and the surviving participants were carefully hidden away. It is an uncomfortable book in the current context, as the US is trying hard to make progress in its tenuous relations with China.

All in all, it is a very gripping book by a very able writer - Laird is an American writer and photographer who has made Kathmandu his home for thirty years and so has a good understanding of the subcontinent. He has managed the first ever interview with the Dalai Lama on these events. Most of all Into Tibet rewrites accepted history about the invasion of Tibet, hinting that bungled American actions may have hastened China's invasion and also caused this agent's death. The job undertaken by Laird was really tough because till date Bessac swears that he never worked undercover and the CIA will still neither confirm nor deny Mackiernan's very existence! But this was the first spy to have been killed in the line of duty and he would have stayed anonymous but for Thomas Laird.

MANIMAHESH. By Umaprasad Mukhopadhyay. Pp. 194