Getting to know so many facets of a great sub-continent
When a professor, novelist, writer, politician, educator, international speaker, teacher, former university Vice Chancellor and respected academic writes a book on travel, it jumps, perforce, onto the “must read” list for all serious readers. Add to the above that he is much in demand as a judge at literary competitions both in Sri Lanka and the UK and when one tops it all by mentioning that he is also a Gratiaen Prize winner, one realizes that here is a modern day Renaissance Man. (His various careers are naturally not in given order of importance).Rajiva Wijesinha dates his long love affair with India to his boyhood when he accompanied his mother, the well known Girl Guide Commissioner, Muktha Wijesinha, to Madras when she was on Girl Guide business. Arriving in modern Chennai he took off by himself on a tour in which no other teenaged schoolboy would be even remotely interested. That Rajiva was considered a child prodigy was accepted at the time, but his intellectual curiosity exceeded all normalcy and has led him down unusual avenues of exploration for the next fifty years of his life.
Having an Indian father, who was himself an academic, I thought I was pretty high up on the ‘know India’ landscape scale, but after reading ‘Exploring India’ I realize I have barely scratched the surface of understanding the scope of that vast and intriguing country. India’s ruins and architectural marvels and many that are off the beaten track are revealed with a love and understanding of that great sub-continent’s history.
Punctuated by excellent photographs taken through the years of his travels, the fascinating descriptions of cities, palaces, forts, temples and varied historical sites make ‘Exploring India’ difficult to put down.
The book is in six sections. Parts one and two describe his travels as a student and a teacher along with educational and academic perspectives. Parts four, five and six comprise intensive sightseeing of both old and new India. While this book is mainly about India Rajiva takes in his tours of the other SAARC countries in section seven of this comprehensively written book. Such an undertaking would have been impossible had not Rajiva kept detailed diaries all his life. He was preparing to write this book from his teen years perhaps!
Among the plethora of pictures I found several which were of particular interest. The Fort of Jhansi for instance, recalls an early heroine of mine (and of many Asian women). Pictures of Pakistan were particularly poignant as I had schooled in Karachi while it was still ‘Undivided India’ and had visited beautiful Lahore frequently as modern Pakistan was my family’s home in Sind before British haste messed up the Partition of India. Also in Lahore are tombs and works undertaken by Nur Jehan (another heroine), the famously manipulative and beautiful wife of Jahangir.
What is noteworthy about all these photographs is that they do not contain only the much pictured and widely reproduced touristy pictures. Little known aspects and lesser known attractions of India dot its pages. For example, Babur’s tomb in Kabul, the minarets of Lahore, monks at play in Bhutan, schoolboys in Thimpu wearing uniforms of sartorial elegance, the island temple of Pokhara in Nepal, etchings in the palace of Bikaner et al. All these go to enthral a reader.
Buddhists will be particularly interested in one fact of which most of them are ignorant. While exploring the higher reaches of areas round Harrapa and Taxila, Rajiva heard of tribes that still practise Buddhism though he did not actually get to meet them. There he found wondrous examples of Gandhara Art. From Peshawar he walked up a hill to the monastery of Takht-i-Bahi, 2000 years old! In the area, high up in the Karakorum range, lies a fabulous engraving of the Buddha out of rugged rock.
The chapters are interspersed with well known names thanks to Rajiva’s many academic connections and also his contemporaries at Oxford. In Karachi he asked a gentleman why the men of Pakistan disapproved of Benazir Bhutto and was told that they felt diminished at being ruled by a women. Also they had heard that she went to nightclubs in England! Rajiva thought it prudent to remain silent about the fact that he had himself taken her to a nightclub in their Oxford days!
Rajiva’s accommodations in India cause the reader considerable amusement. As an inveterate traveller he often went along on whims of the moment without making proper bookings. This led him to sharing a berth on a train with an old man and his grandson and then in stark contrast to having Nirmali Hettiaratchi as a fellow guest at the posh Hyatt Regency in Kathmandu and dinners with our High Commissioners in India like Sudarshan Seneviratne and Austin Fernando. He has enjoyed stays with Oxford friends at Bishop’s Palaces and pleasantly relaxed teas in Karachi with Benazir, his old friend from Oxford, who remembered his penchant for chocolate cake.
The educator in Rajiva is never quiescent. It surfaces all the time and his visits to India were often for literary and educational reasons. During the time he was a Member of Parliament, Rajiva was in in Delhi for an Indo-Sri Lankan Dialogue being held at the India International Centre. Our High Commission arranged for discussions with Indian Foreign Secretary, Nirupama Rao, an old friend of Rajiva’s from her days as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. The discussions were on the sad state of English in our country while India’s standards were zooming up by the day. Other participants in the discussions were Nihal Rodrigo, Sajith Premadasa and Harsha de Silva. Mrs. Rao was happy to provide him with all the necessary aid but the Government changed and the scheme was very unfortunately dropped.
There are too many names, too many incidents, too many pictures, too many amazing stories to relate in a short review. So let me just say “Read the book”. India is our closest neighbour. Let us get to know her every facet as best we can. Rajiva Wijesinha’s ‘Exploring India’will do just that for the reader.