Author: John Keay
Publishers: Harper Collins
Pages: 172
‘The Great Arc’ is the story of mapping India and discovering the highest mountains on earth.
It all began in the first decade of 19th century when the British were slowly establishing their empire, starting with Madras and surrounding territories in South India. An expanding kingdom needed mapping to define and survey its territories. An effort first started by defining the earth surface by a long survey line stretching from Madras to Bangalore. The subsequent surveys got larger and larger, and an ambitious plan was made to measure the terrain along a long line stretching from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari) to as far north as Agra.
Keay’s story of mapping India comes with some first hand research and some documentary evidences of the survey that have remained. He traces the grave of William Lambton, the great man who initiated the survey in Madras, to a small town in Central India called Hinganghat. He visits George Everest’s office and base station at Mussourie, and goes to many places where the survey team had passed as they made measurements.
Emphasized through the book prominently are the challenges that the survey teams had to endure. Tough and challenging terrains called for some ingenious solutions to carry on the survey. Suspicious natives who did not understand the reasoning behind the survey in those times often did not allow the survey teams in their territory. There was malaria and several other types of fevers to deal with in the monsoons.
The struggle of surveyors to ensure precision in data has been brought out impressively in the book. Just measuring a baseline that marked the beginning of the survey to precise length alone was a job of several months. The process involved considering all possible influential factors, like refraction of light rays from the atmosphere, plumb line deflections from aberrations of earth surface and adjustments for curvature of the earth.
The line from Kanyakumari to Agra eventually took four decades to complete, and was called The Great Arc. The implications of survey data were many – it helped measure earth’s curvature, and aided in making precise measurements of Himalayan peaks that eventually lead to discovery of the world’s highest mountain.
The story of the survey, besides taking the reader through each stage of it, is also a description of lives and temperaments of the great surveyors who toiled for it. While the gentle William Lambton was the initiator of the process, it was taken over by cranky George Everest (after whom Mt.Everest is named) who successfully completed it. Going through the initial parts of the book, which contains technical details of the survey, requires the reader to be equipped with basic knowledge of geometry, without which the book is hard to read and understand. But that hurdle surpassed, it is an excellent read on how India’s geography was understood and mapped.
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publishers: Anchor Books
Pages: 333
From the very beginning of the book, Jon Krakauer creates an impression that this is a book that keeps the reader hooked. At the end of the first chapter, it becomes hard to put the book down until it is read completely.
Krakauer is part of a 1996 expedition that is attempting to summit Mt.Everest. Even though the going is not smooth and people face hardships and struggle at the high altitude, nothing remarkable happens until the team summits and starts their descent back to the camp. A storm strikes them on the way back. At the end of an agonizing night in unbearable cold, strong winds, and little oxygen, it leaves many people dead and the others weak and shaken.
Krakauer tries to log the events that happened after the storm struck, desperate struggle of those who got caught in the storm and rescue attempts by those who were in safety, and the events leading up to and after the incident. Besides the story of devastation from the storm, the book also logs the entire Everest journey, how it begins and progresses, the kind of effort that goes into the climb and the impression that the mountain leaves on the people.
Besides being an adventure book that narrates the struggle for survival in the harsh environs, it is also a detailed log of methodical approach used by teams to climb Everest, the ecology, local people, and economics involved in climbing expeditions. An excellent read.
Author: Michael Palin
Publishers: Phoenix
Pages: 296
The unimaginatively named book is a journal of Michael Palin and his team along the Himalayan Mountains, shooting a documentary for BBC. Palin begins his journey from a nondescript location at Khyber Pass, a place where the armies have crossed over in search of rich loot in India from the days of Alexander, and more recently, British. The journey takes him through mountainous regions of Pakistan, Ladakh, Annapoorna Ranges, Tibet, Yunnan and other Himalayan provinces of China, Nagaland and Assam, Bhutan and concluding with Bangladesh where every drop of precipitation on these mountains drains into.
It’s indeed a long journey and eventful one as he meets the last members of the Kalash tribes, gets close to K2 and feels the high Himalayas from up-close, is humbled by the unforgiving weather as he treks through Annapoorna, lunches with ebullient nomads on the base of everest, and much more and more.
Palin’s experiences invoke a never-before jealousy in the mountain lover who is ever-dreaming of being in these less mundane locations. But for the BBC team, the going is not always easy. They are constantly on their tows, low on time and always having to keep moving and answering the call of the work before they can get a place sink into their minds and hearts. There are missed opportunities, cold weather and altitude sickness to worry about.
Even as Palin has a subject that can conquer the reader, his writing doesn’t shine as much as the mountains themselves. Written like a personal journal with lot of commentaries and humour thrown in once a while, the flow is not natural from page to page and the reader is left with a feeling that Palin could do more with the pen. Nevertheless the strength of the subject and a reasonable narration, put together with the variety that comes along the journey still makes it a worthy read, especially if you are some one who is always dreaming about the mountains.