From Heaven Lake
I recently came accross a wonderful book by Vikram Seth titled " From heaven Lake". The book is actually a travel journal containing accounts and events at a friendly pace all jotted down with razor sharp observations and is full of surprises which are mcuh like the wonder of such unplanned backpacking travel experience. The book captures an account of young Seth's hitch hiking trip from China via Ladakh and Nepal to India. The book is a beautiful piece of realist work and all those of us who long for those carefree and wanderer days of yore would find it deliciously enticing. The narrative takes a 360 degrees view of the Chinese population and the experiences of the author with the common Chinese man without getting a wee bit judgemental or xeophobic but at the same time not mincing words about what irritated or jarred his self. The breezy style of narrative has a faint humor laced within the words where you feel the sniff or hint of the flavor but never going overboard.