Rereadings
The age of decline may have arrived
Ditio Syed-Haq gets fresh insight into some old ideas
I couldn't believe it. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined something like this would happen to me. Frustrated, anxious, irritable, I paced to-and-fro from shelf to shelf within the confines of our living room like a hungry tiger. Taking the narrow steps of our staircase two at a time, I proceeded to feverishly examine the contents of the collection in the upstairs den only to return crestfallen once again. The horrible reality of it all began to sink in. I had run out of books to read. It was in a dark, dark mood that I perched myself on the barstool in our kitchen, mulling over this very fact while munching on a biscuit and nursing a cup of lukewarm tea. It was then that a little flutter out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. It turned out to be none other than Mrs Syed-Haq, her outstretched hand tentatively proffering to me what appeared to be a colourful little paperback. Travel writing! The cynical side of me cocked an eyebrow while my curious side became, understandably, a little curious. Gingerly reaching out to take the volume in my hand, I turned it over to read the blurb on the back cover, all the while trying to contain my horror. I still had no books to read. "It's by a Scotsman writing about his travels in India" offered the missus somewhat timidly. Backpacker, I thought, my mind filled with images of straggly-haired hippies guzzling beer on a Goan beach and chomping on ecstasy pills like they were going out of fashion as they shuffled to the beat of the latest Bollywood rave. "I have a feeling you might even like it," she said hopefully, dragging me out of my reverie and causing me to return my gaze to the colourful item in hand. I didn't have much by way of choice. I could either see what this Dalrymple fellow had to say or I could choose to starve -- in a literary sense, that is. I chose the former. And looking back, I'm grateful that I did because it opened my eyes to a whole new genre of writing -- an entire realm of undiscovered prose that I would have been oblivious to had Mrs Syed-Haq not the innate courage to approach a grumpy tiger. My voyeuristic side demanded that I look up this author on the internet before I committed myself, a tendency I'm prone to whenever I come across someone previously unknown and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself landing on Dalrymple's personal site straight away. It appeared that almost everything this man turned his hand towards had won a prize. Moreover, he had written his first book at the mere age of twenty-two. Not a backpacker then, I mused as I settled down to read. Two things about the book became apparent before I even reached the end of the first chapter. Firstly, that this author was every bit as good as people claimed he was. Secondly, that this was not so much Travel Writing as Investigative Journalism with a twist. But whereas the latter is a genre that can lend itself to being clinical and dry, this book was anything but. The Age of Kali, explains Dalrymple, is a concept from Indian cosmology which divides time into four epochs based on a traditional game of dice, each Age representing an increasing period of moral and social degradation for mankind. This Age, or Kali Yug, represents the lowest throw of the dice, the lowest to which we can descend. India is in the grip of this Age, he argues, and sets out to demonstrate this through a series of informative and thought-provoking essays that are the culmination of a decade of travels in the subcontinent. In his words, it is "an epoch of strife, corruption, darkness and disintegration". What follows is a rollercoaster ride through the culture, customs and history of this magical land as Dalrymple snakes a trail from the north to Bombay via the deserts of Rajasthan, down to the south coast and Sri Lanka before ending all the way back up in Pakistan. He displays a power of observation that is not so much acute as razor-sharp and he puts across these observations with a satirical humour and wit that will leave you turning the pages long past bedtime. But it is not all pleasant reading. Dalrymple covers sobering topics such as the practice of Sati along with the tenuous lifestyles of people for whom poverty, violence and war have become a reality of everyday life and he does this with an enthusiasm and gusto that is at once fearless as it is brave. Picture yourself taking notes and chatting away happily with a bunch of armed thugs and drug-addicts in the backstreets of Kawran Bazaar and you begin to get the picture. One cannot help thinking upon finishing this book that the Kali Yug is indeed upon us. Discover an entire city filled with widows, remote tribal villages where guns and ammunition are on display in shops alongside jars of sweets and biscuits, ancient temples where the concept of blood sacrifice is kept alive and revel in the diversity of a land as diverse as Dalrymple's writing itself. I have assurance from reliable sources that travel writing on India is generally either gushing in praise or overly critical. This book I found to be neither and this was even more apparent in the sections where the author tackles issues such as the caste system without condescension or judgement and speaks of the horrors of partition without taking sides. It is apparent too in his reportage on the Tamil Tigers, an undertaking where he literally risks life and limb to provide the world with an insight into a secretive organisation never before witnessed by the world outside. Good thing he's a likeable chap or this book may well never have materialised. Add to that some brilliant ethnic artwork by his wife, the artist Olivia Fraser and you just can't go wrong. All in all, an outstanding read. My only gripe -- the fact that he went into so much intricate detail on India and Sri Lanka, devoted a good few sections to the Bhutto regime and even Imran Khan while completely glossing over the wonders of our own Golden Bengal. Oh dear ... here we go again.
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