Enjoyable read
In the past few months, I have got back to the habit of reading after many years. I am actually enjoying my return to books, although I have realized that there is a lot of ground to cover on various fronts. I just finished a book by Michael Wood on his travels to South India, specifically to the region of erstwhile Cholan empire and the plains to the south of it - The smile of Murugan. I chose to read the book after I was enthused by a television series on Discovery Channel, by Michael Wood - though on a slightly different subject – ‘The story of India’. He was so articulate and passionate about India and its past that I couldn’t help being drawn into the eddy of a whirlwind tour through India’s past – most of which I had learned from biased textbooks in school and had forgotten by now.
This revived interest in history led me to his other works and I stumbled upon his travelogue to Tamil Nadu. Although in the book he talks of his multiple visits to Tamil Nadu, I am not sure how long these lasted. I presume from the book that they were not long periods; but, in these short bursts of tours he has grasped more of the essence of life, as it is, in these parts than it is perceivable.
Owing to my Tamil lineage I was more discerning while reading this book than I usually am and I wasn’t disappointed. His love of India and admiration of the Tamil culture, its preservation and its duel with modernity are all too evident, yet he doesn’t miss a chance to step back and look at the practices and experiences with a rational bent of mind. For someone like me, who has lived for most part of his life outside Tamil Nadu, it was a learning experience, to view my world from a western scholar’s eyes. The book isn’t scholarly though I don’t intend to discredit it. It’s a breezy travelogue which transports you to every place the author travels to, engages you in every conversation the author has, pushes you headlong into every experience he has. Given my already existing knowledge of that culture, I came back richer at the end of the book.
Its an easy read and can be breezed through. It is one for my bookshelf.
