Title: The Geography of Bliss
Author: Eric Weiner
Publishers: Twelve Books
Pages: 325

Eric Weiner sets out on a world tour on a quest to find out what makes people happy. He journeys to countries where people are peaceful, happy, rich, poor and even unhappy, to find reasons for their happiness or the lack of it.

In the first chapter or two, ‘Geography of Bliss’ appears set to be a landmark book in travel writing that stands along with Theroux’s Great Railway Bazaar or John Krakauer’s ‘Into thin Air.’ It comes  across as a completely new approach to travel writing. Weiner seems to be after something really important and out to reveal a truth that can keep humans happy forever in future. But he looses track quickly as he tries to mix a journalistic research and scientific discoveries with personal experiences, and doesn’t steer the book in any particular direction. It has elements of Theraux’s mindless interactions with people encountered on the way; it has a typical journalist’s way of working using interviews supported with some data to come to some conclusion. None of these finally strike a chord with the reader, but the flow of the book and Weiner’s engaging humour takes you till the last page without much effort.

Weiner begins his journey with some scientific data. At a happiness research center in Netherlands, he goes through tonnes of data that gives an idea of most and least happy countries. He goes through some insights that reveal some obvious truths (winning a lotter makes a person happy) and some not so obvious (but the lottery winners quickly return to their earlier state of mind). The research center also helps him choose the countries to visit – Switzerland and Iceland – the countries that consistently stayed on the top of happiness charts and Moldova – the least happy country – a former Soviet territory sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.

He spends time in these countries speaking to expats, talking to a few locals and searching for a national attitude (or conditions) to find reasons for people’s happiness levels. The book comes dangerously close to being a dry reportage of a journalist, but is saved by Weiner’s continuous infusion of humour in nearly every incident, conversation and observation. It also comes close to Theroux’s style of writing in Railway Bazaar where people and interactions take center stage and leaves everything else behind, including Weiner’s search. But his humour too becomes overdone and appears deliberately forced at occasions.

Weiner’s interactions with people and his humour helps the reader stay with the book and go along with him in the journey, though it becomes quickly obvious that he is not about to unveil any secrets to happiness. But at the end of the journey he reaffirms time-tested wisdom that your social interactions, quality of living, faith, trust, all have their contribution to happiness. He discovers that money is essential but is not the biggest contributor to happiness. But his discoveries and the strength of the topic aside, the book scores in the narration that finally keeps you turning pages.

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Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Available for download from Project Gutenberg

Following the equator is a journal of Mark Twain’s travel across the world on a lecture tour. While we call today as the days of the world travel, Twain was a good hundred years ahead, embarking on such a journey in the last years of 19th century. My own reading of the book is limited to the chapters on India, which runs for nearly 200 pages.

Twain arrives in Mumbai, and travels to many places that include Calcutta, Allahabad, Lucknow, Varanasi and Jaipur. They stand as a tourist’s choice of destination even today. While the book is written more like a personal journal, Twain uses every chance to deviate from his explorations to add stories from history of India, related incidences from his own past, and never misses a chance to pass a sarcastic commentary on everything he observes. A paragraph on the  numerous crows that he encounters on the Balcony of the hotel window gives a perspective of Twain’s sarcasm.

They were very sociable when there was anything to eat—oppressively so. With a little encouragement they would come in and light on the table and help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was in the other room and they found themselves alone, they carried off everything they could lift; and they were particular to choose things which they could make no use of after they got them. In India their number is beyond estimate, and their noise is in proportion.

But it is not just humour that touches the reader. He digs deeper into government gazettes and documentary evidences on Thugs – the murderous dacoit clan that once stole from travellers from all over India. His visit to Varanasi includes extensive quotes from credible sources on the ways of Indian pilgrims, but quickly backed up with humorous notes on a suggested itinerary for the pilgrim. He frequently shifts between personal and neutral observations, sarcasm, history and events from his life as the pages progress. Interestingly, despite all the sarcasm that is packed in the book, he is never demeaning the local way of life and the native people, and often comes out as a kind person who sympathized with the subjects of the book.

Because it is written like a diary, occasional digressions may disturb the reader from a smooth flow in many occasions. But the humourous take that he always comes up with, makes up for the digressions. For the Indian reader, ‘Following the Equator’ can be more than a travelogue – it comes with some learnings on the history and gives a perspective of everyday life in India a hundres years ago, besides entertaining thoroughly through the pages.

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Information. ‘Ganges’ is a DVD of three episode TV series aired on BBC in 2007. It is distributed in India as DVD by Saregama. The video is approximately 150 minutes long. As of posting this, it retails for Rs.399.00 in India.

Review. The series takes the viewer along the river Ganges, tracing the river from its birth to the place where it discharges into the sea. The first part, called ‘Daughter of the Mountains’, is about the river originating from glacial melts and swiftly moving down the Himalayas to reach the plains in Haridwar. The second part – River of Life – is about the river, religions and the way of life of people in the Gangetic Plains, till it reaches the delta. Predictably, the third part is dedicated to the river delta and the Sundarbans, and is called ‘Waterland’.

The excellent quality of photography grips the viewer throughout the series. It is all the more evident in the first part where the Ganga flows through magnificent mountain ranges. Other best appeal of the DVD is in the portrayal of the wildlife, which begins with lamergiers and griffons in the Himalayas, and then takes us through the aquatic life in the plains and the wildlife of the delta region. For the Indian audience, the parts of the DVD covering the culture, and stories related to birth of the Ganges and evolution of culture seems like nothing new. Despite that, the narration remains excellent through the series. At the end of the three episode, it is the quality of photography that remains vivid in memory. Watch it on HD screen to do justice to the video.

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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.

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Related Posts

• Book Review: The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
• Recent Read – “Following the Equator” by Mark Twain
• DVD Review: BBC TV Series – Ganges
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• Book Review: Himalaya