Tag: Silk Road

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Musings

The Elusive Utopia?

By Farouk Gulsara

When I was growing up, the radio was the musical score constantly playing in the background. Blaring between Tamil movie songs and radio dramas were news of the hour and current issue discussions. The things that got imprinted on my impressionable mind as I was transforming from a teenager to a young adult were about violence, wars and bombings. I remember about the war in Vietnam as it was close to home. For every peace talk and the end of war announcement, there would pop up another bombing and a barrage of casualties. My simple mind wondered when the war would end, but it never did. It went on for so long that they had a Tamil film in 1970 named Vietnam Veedu (House of Vietnam), referring to a household forever in family feuds and turmoil. 

Along with the war in Vietnam, people came by boat to the shores of Malaysia. The then leaders, in the late 1970s, dealing with a poor economic climate as they were reeling from a devastating racial riot, were not so cordial with their arrival. Malaysia went into the bad books of the international arena when the Marines were issued a ‘shoot-at-sight’ order on Vietnamese boat people by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mahathir Muhammad. The refugees were eventually placed in barb-wired concentration camps-like holding centres. The last of the boat people left Malaysia in 2005. Even today, many former refugees who had started life anew elsewhere return to Pulau Bidong to perform ancestral worship or to remind themselves and their descendants of the hell they escaped.

Just as I thought Malaysia had seen the last of the people displaced from their homes gracing their shores, Malaysia had to play host to economic refugees from Myanmar, the ethnic Myanmarese and the Rohingyas. And the cycle of not wanting to spend the country’s precious resources and accepting them on humanitarian grounds continues to date.  

My ever optimist friend is dreaming of a utopia on Earth. Her idea of utopia is one where people are kind to each other, not hurling grenades or aiming intercontinental missiles at each other and accepting each other’s citizens with open arms. In fact, in her world, there would be borders. She dreams of a world where people are happy, able to enjoy the fruit of their existence, a world where there is no destruction of Mother Earth and none of the species of plants and animals go extinct. She envisages a space where everyone communicates with one another with kindness without hurting their psyche. The search is still on, where people do not look at each other with scorn and suspicion and are willing to accept another as a fellow sibling from a common mother. She dreams of a borderless world where heart, mind and territories are a continual flow of ideas and messages for the betterment of humankind. Unfortunately, despite all the strides the world has seemingly made, she remains unhappy and is getting more discontent by the day. 

“Why is there so much hate? Why is there war after all the wisdom we have supposedly learnt as evidenced by our scientific advancements?” she asks. “Are we just developing creative ways to annihilate each other until the whole race reaches the point of no return?” 

I see our newspapers and digital media. I became convinced that humans are evil and anthropocentric. They do not bother about other living beings. They are only interested in fending for themselves, fattening themselves, usurping treasures and fattening their coffers, and rapaciously wanting to leave a legacy for their descendants to savour to eternity. In typical situations, the world can accommodate all of Man’s needs, but not their greed. 

Innately, I reminisce about the times when I was young, trees were tall, the air was clean, and adults were trustworthy. We long to go back to those innocent days. 

Upon closer scrutiny, we realise we were presented with a false image of serenity. Beneath the surface of sobriety, even then, trenches were built to gun down brothers and chemical factories to neutralise them biologically. We think we are in the worst of times, but historians differ. Our current era is the most peaceful and safest throughout our existence. The chance of an average man in the current time, unlike his ancestors, to be directly involved or affected physically by wars is quite remote. 

Our ancestors did not need the media to know the world’s plight because it often happened at their doorstep. The swords carved out people’s fate line, not consensus or democracy. 

Life is cyclical. Peace and chaos have alternated all through our history. Like a phoenix, we keep rising from the rubble of destruction only to be broken to smithereens. Torrents of events around us bear testimony to this fact. It has been like this since time immemorial.

There was a time when Angkor Wat was the talk of travellers who could not stop praising man’s colossal achievement. With mind-binding engineering marvels, it testified to what the human mind could think next. Then, it got lost in the folly of human activities, only to be discovered as an ancient relic by passing foreigners. 

Isfahan, an essential stop along the Silk Road, was once hailed as heaven on Earth with the highest level of culture. People with exquisite taste for art, literature, music and architecture made it their second home. Babur, who established the Mughal Dynasty, never synced with India as he felt the Indians were less cultured than the Persians because of what he was exposed to in the Safavid capital. Isfahan’s own glory brought its destruction. 

All through Man’s sojourn on Earth, it has been anything but peaceful. The funny thing is that, amid all the destruction, we still managed to bring up our humanity and the science that would save us from extinction. In spite and amidst all the mayhem, we kept famine at bay, found cures for many infectious diseases and sent rockets to the moon and beyond. Paradoxically, the science that saved us becomes a thorn in our progress. From muskets to rifles to intercontinental missiles to the press of a red button, it is becoming easier to plan out our destruction. 

So, the world has never been peaceful, and humans have not been kind. What can we do about it? Do you brood at our shortsightedness, or are we like Sisyphus? Knowing pretty well that, Sisyphus destined for life with the punishment of pushing a boulder up a hill only to see it roll down and for him to repeat the whole exercise again and again, he can take two paths. He can perform the task without thinking, like an automaton, go mad and die, or the alternative is finding simple pleasures in the seemingly mundane task. He could challenge himself to do it faster, explore newer routes to roll the boulder or experiment with various tools to aid in his task. 

We continue doing our bit for humanity, knowing very well that it is just a drop in the ocean. Our efforts to promote peace and brotherhood will trigger small pockets of change and hopefully snowball into something earth-shattering for a good reason.

War, hardship and tragedy are bound to continue. It is too intertwined in our DNA. Many are even convinced that for seismic changes to occur, we need jolts and uncertainties. All these wars may be part of our search for a perfect system to pave Earth’s peace. A war to end all wars? Now, where have we heard that one before?

All through its existence, the Universe has seen it all before. If one were to believe Graham Hancock, the documentary maker or a pseudo-historian as some may call him, then one would be convinced that the world has experienced all these and even greater things before, only to lose everything because of human greed. Some other belief systems are confident that time does not go in a linear fashion but rather in a cyclical fashion. All that is happening today gives the Universe a deja vu.

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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.

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Excerpt

Roses in the Fire of Spring

Title: Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and other Garden Adventures

Authors: M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan

Starting to read our book you may well ask, why the title, why ‘Roses in the Fire of Spring’? The name is derived, in part, from Omar Khayyam’s lines in the Rubaiyat:

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring,
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly – and lo! The Bird is on the Wing.

The words of Omar Khayyam have a special meaning in the climate of the tropical mountain on which we have lived for the past forty years. On our mountain, the Palni Hills, at an elevation of over 2,000m, the monsoon rains are prolonged, and go on from September till almost the end of December. Nature, in our garden, produces a special effect in the last week of December. The Rosa gigantea plants climbing our many trees – cypress, callistemon and native magnolia – burst into spectacular bloom, in clouds of cream and white, an alternative White Christmas. There is an incredible surprise in store when suddenly the rains stop, and the sun comes out with the intense, rich brightness characteristic of mountain sunlight. At our altitude, the air is thin, pollution free, and the power of the sun in spring is stunning, the effect of the light further accentuated by ultra-violet rays. But the wind remains cold, like ice, the sun is like fire, and the result, if you are a drinker, is akin to whisky on ice. No wonder you are in a mood to discard the winter garment of repentance. The roses feel the same way, and there is a burst of bloom with a profusion of flowers much brighter in colour than on the plains. This same spring flowering of roses is, we are sure, a feature of the table-lands of Iran, at Nishapur, so romantically located by the side of the famed Silk Road where Omar Khayyam wrote his verses. There can be little doubt that he would have marvelled, as we do, at the spring sunlight. This same effect can be seen, to a lesser extent, in the rose areas of the Indo-Gangetic plain, where roses are in full bloom in February, and perhaps slightly earlier in the rose gardens of the Deccan Plateau of southern peninsular India.

It is not as though this spring flowering of roses ignited our lifelong search for better roses for the warmer parts of India, and, for that matter, the warmer parts of the world, so far denied the intoxication of beautiful, easily grown roses. We had always been impressed by the words of India’s pioneering rose breeder, B.S. Bhatcharji, who, nearly a hundred years ago, stressed the need for a separate line of breeding for warm climates. Our rose-growing experiences, particularly in the difficult growing climate of southern coastal peninsular India, convinced us that Bhatcharji was right. These areas have their share of passionate rose growers but they get by with great effort, growing the roses of temperate climates with weekly sprays of powerful pesticides, hazardous to themselves, and a threat to the environment. In this background we come to the thesis of this book – creating better roses for a warming world, and the search for other plants to complement the roses.

(From the Preface, Roses in the Fire of Spring, by M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan, Running Head, 2023)

About the Book

Roses in the Fire of Spring records the epic journey, spanning more than half a century, of world- renowned rose hybridizers, M.S. ‘Viru’ Viraraghavan and his feisty partner-in-grime, Girija Viraraghavan, in their efforts to create roses better suited for a rapidly warming world. This account of their literally groundbreaking work is also part-travelogue and memoir. The Viraraghavans’ intrepid rose travels take them, and the reader, from continent to continent, up mountains, through forests, across oceans and rivers, from Uruguay to Japan, and from Germany to Australia. Join them on their journey as they plant-hunt, meet celebrated rosarians and plant enthusiasts, view some of the world’s most famous gardens, and trek indefatigably through a life rich with colour and fragrance. Replete with horticultural insight, engaging sidelights from their life, and photographs, this book, boasting an international cast of gardening luminaries, at once informs and entertains. It also presents a country-wise list of future possibilities in rose breeding in places as diverse as China, subtropical Asia, Africa and the Middle East. A must-have book for hobbyists, garden enthusiasts and professional plant hybridizers alike – for that matter, anyone concerned about the fragile environment of our planet.

About the Authors

M.S. ‘Viru’ Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan are gardening enthusiasts. 

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Excerpt Independence Day

Beyond The Himalayas by Goutam Ghose

Title: Beyond the Himalayas: Journeying Through the Silk Route

Author: Goutam Ghose

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Major Hari Ahluwalia was a young officer in the Indian Army when he climbed Everest in 1965. He was a member of the first Indian expedition to successfully scale the mountain and one of the first to reach the summit. Our then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, awarded him India’s coveted Arjuna Award and India had a new national hero. But within two months of receiving the award, he was wounded in combat along the India-Pakistan border and permanently disabled. Despite the setback, Hari continued organizing mountaineering expeditions and writing books about his life and travels.

It was as the chairman of the Youth Exploring Society of India that he invited me to film an expedition he was planning along an ancient trade route connecting India with Central Asia and Tibet. But most of the route lay within modern China. This would be the first time any group was being allowed to make a journey with its own vehicles – a diplomatic breakthrough and a personal triumph for Hari.

In 1962, a border dispute between India and China had erupted into a brief war which left the two countries estranged  for the next thirty years. In the two most populous nations of the world, a generation of young people had grown up, knowing little or nothing about one another.

Hari’s idea was to encourage peaceful dialogue between India and her northern neighbour through new cultural exchanges. In Beijing, he met with the president of the Disabled Federation, who, like Hari, is confined to a wheelchair. As it happened, he is also the son of China’s leader, Chairman Deng Xiaoping, and is thus perfectly placed to help Hari fulfil his dream.

I live in Calcutta and I make films about India. My country was run by the British for 200 years, yet it preserves an ancient culture that conditions every aspect of its daily life. Because we live in a world of our own, separated from the north by politics and geography, I have always wanted to see what lay just a few hundred miles from me on the other side of the mountains. Excited about Hari’s proposal, I abandoned my new idea for a feature film and began to think about journeying along the ancient Silk Road.

The first place I decided to visit was The Asiatic Society. Founded by Sir William Jones in 1784, the society pioneered the rediscovery of Asia and its past. All the early expeditions were organized and monitored from here. I was suddenly filled with curiosity and an impetuous desire to delve into all the rare books and manuscripts on its shelves. The Travels of Marco Polo describe the wonders of the Silk Road – cities far greater than his own and a world more magnificent than anything imagined by the insular backward Europe of the thirteenth century. But he was a late traveller. The Silk Route was one of the greatest trade routes in history and men had already been travelling there for four thousand years. Before sea routes were discovered in the fifteenth century, this trans-Asian highway was the sole link between the east and the west. It ran from Xi’an in China all the way to the Mediterranean. There were, moreover, many tributaries to the mighty river, not least of which were caravan routes across the Himalayan mountain range between India and Central Asia.

A facsimile of Hari’s letter to me –

Dear Goutam,

You will be delighted to know that we now have all our permissions. Because of the current turmoil in Afghanistan, we cannot drive through the Khyber Pass into the Central Asia as planned. All the members of the expedition including the jeeps and equipment will be flown from Delhi to Uzbekistan on the 18th of May.

I believe I told you about my London-based friend Michael, who is a filmmaker with a longstanding interest in Buddhism. He has wanted to make this trip for a long time and I’m sure he will be immensely helpful to you. Do please get in touch with him.

As per Hari’s suggestion I met Michael Haggiag in his London home. Michael was preparing for the trip with great excitement. I filmed him and his wife there.

A conversation between Michael and his wife Katherine in London –

Katherine – ‘Want some tea?’

Michael thanks her. ‘This is what Marco Polo had to say about the women of Hami and their very nice customs.

‘I give you my word – when a stranger comes to a house here to seek hospitality, he receives a very warm welcome.

‘The host makes his wife do everything the guest wishes and he leaves the house and goes about his own business and stays away for two or three days. Meanwhile, the guest stays with his wife in the house and does what he will with her – lying with her in one bed, just as if she was his own wife, and they lead a gay life together. The women are beautiful and vivacious and always ready to oblige.‘

‘I am not sending you there.’

‘No? It’s also very hot. It’s 40˚C in the shade – that’s over 100˚F. They also have the largest cockroaches.’

‘Sounds like it’s terrible out there!’

‘Anyway, I’m preparing for the trip. Look at these wonderful books here … this is Bukhara and this, Samarkand … these are some really old pictures of the way it was in the 1890s!’

‘Beautiful places!’

‘Do you realize how long Hari had to wait for permission for this? He started organizing his expedition eight years ago and he just got confirmation now. And if we don’t go within the next three weeks, we can’t go at all.’

The Armada starts on its journey. Courtesy: Extracted with permission from Beyond The Himalayas: Journeying Through The Silk Route, by Goutam Ghose (published by Niyogi Books)
Guri Amir mausoleum, Samarkand.Courtesy: Extracted with permission from Beyond The Himalayas: Journeying Through The Silk Route, by Goutam Ghose (published by Niyogi Books)
Goutam Ghose with the two Chinese. Courtesy: Extracted with permission from Beyond The Himalayas: Journeying Through The Silk Route, by Goutam Ghose (published by Niyogi Books)

About the Book: Filmmaker Goutam Ghose was part of the Central Asian expedition organised by Major H.P.S. Ahluwalia in 1994, the first of its kind. They undertook an arduous 14,000 km journey through Central Asia, China and Tibet tracing the ancient trade route. Ghose captured this once-in-a-lifetime adventure as a five-part series in his film Beyond the Himalayas (1996). This film book is a pictorial chronicle of Ghose’s incredible experience on the Silk Route. Much of the text is the narration of the original soundtrack of the series which has been adapted for the benefit of book readers. His lens captures breathtaking visuals of a less travelled road. The tapestry of history, travel anecdotes, local legends and titanic characters lend a cinematic quality to the whole narrative. The fabled past and the present are intercut by cinematic jumps in this fascinating record of an enduring memory in the collective consciousness of the history of mankind.

Goutam Ghose launched into documentaries, group theatre and photo journalism in 1973. His documentary, Hungry Autumn won him the main award at the Oberhausen Film Festival. Since then Ghose has produced several documentaries on personalities like Ustad Bismillah Khan, Satyajit Ray and HH Dalai Lama, in addition to ten feature films and a number of advertisement, corporate and short films. He has won fifteen National Awards, besides Filmfare Awards and a number of international awards like Silver Balloon, Nantes Film Festival, UNESCO Award at Venice, Golden Semurg at Tashkent, Fipresci Award and Red Cross Award at Verna Film Festival. He is the only Indian to win the coveted Vittori Di Sica Award and was awarded the Knighthood of the Star of Italian Solidarity in 2008.

Click here to read Goutam Ghose’s interview.

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Independence Day Interview

In Conversation with Goutam Ghose

Goutam Ghose: Photo provided by Niyogy Books

Goutam Ghose is a well-known award-winning film director, scriptwriter and even actor. He has been the only Indian to have received the Vittorio Di Sica Award from Italy in 1997 and was awarded the Knighthood of the Star of the Italian Solidarity in July 2006. Ghose has won fifteen National Awards, besides Filmfare Awards and a number of international awards like Silver Balloon, Nantes Film Festival, UNESCO Award at Venice, Golden Semurg at Tashkent, Fipresci Award and Red Cross Award at Verna Film Festival.

But did you know he has also authored a number of books? Just as he bridges borders with his poetic films that touch the human heart with a range of emotions, he does the same with his books. He takes up burning issues with artistry, never inciting with rage or hatred but conveying by his skill with the camera and words. He has created a world without borders with his transcontinental outlook and approach.

His reaction to the Ram Janmabhoomi riots was Moner Manush (2010), a film based on Lalon Fakir’s life, knitting together the best in Muslim and Hindu traditions instead of filming the clashes and the violence. Published in English as The Quest (2013), the book is a powerful dramatisation with pictures from the film. The book, like the film, is also an emotional lesson in humanism. Based on Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel on Lalon Fakir’s life, the film is beautiful. But the book allowed me to mull over the words, which have been translated by Sankar Sen. It is a book that needs to be read when casteism and religious divides take precedence over humanitarian values. By bringing these songs into translation to readers unfamiliar with Bengali, both Ghose and Sen have opened a world of love and tolerance to new readers, who will hopefully find the time to mull over the wisdom of these songs.

‘What was your caste when you came here,
What caste did you take on arrival, dear,
What would be your caste when it’s time to go -- 
Ponder and tell me if you know.’

-- Translated by Sankar Sen, from The Quest

 His other book that traverses the silk route and journeys through China, Beyond the Himalayas (2019), transcends boundaries and fills the reader with a sense of exhilaration. It is based on his documentary of the same name. Both these recordings of their journey along the silk route are worth viewing and reading. They show humans are the same across all borders. The book, interspersed with lovely pictures of the landscape and mature writing pauses on history at the right junctures. The narration is poetic in both the book and the documentary.

Though Ghose claims that these texts and photographs capture memories of the film, both his books transported me to a different time and space. I saw the films after reading the books, but both were energising, emotionally charged and entertaining. The journey takes one through different parts of the world and gives a new perspective to a 4000-year-old route. Initiated and organised by Major Hari Singh Ahluwalia and Deng Xiaoping’s son, the travels in Beyond the Himalayas took me across borders to areas I have never visited and now, I hope to visit post pandemic. Both the book and the film acquainted me with cultures that excite. And The Quest reinforced the belief, through the depiction of Lalon’s life, that humanism exists despite the degradations of history. That riots can be calmed with the soothing notes of Lalon’s lyrics, rich in wisdom, would be a win for the human spirit.

Like all great artistes, Ghose speaks in beautiful poetic sentences about concepts that touch the human heart and imagination. In this exclusive, he speaks not just about his film-books, but about the real journey and issues he is facing through the pandemic, including the delay of his film with an Italian male lead and his new short film on the current times, Covid-worn and waiting…

You are a very well-known film director, cinematographer, and music director. You have directed award winning Bollywood and Tollywood movies. Normally books come before films but from two of these films, you have made books. Why did you go in for making books of the films?

I have loved books since my childhood. The shape and form of it, the touch and smell of a book fascinate me. They will never die even if we read on the screen rather than by turning pages of a physical object. A certain sense of the sacred has surrounded books from civilisations’ inception. In cinema, be it fiction or non-fiction, we write a script at the pre-production stage. A film-book is all about times gone by — a book of memories, of both cyclic and linear time. My producer from Bangladesh, Habibur Rehman Khan, had liked the idea of film books and had published three wonderful books on Padma Nodir Majhi (Boatman of the Padma River, filmed in 1993), Moner Manush (filmed in 2010 ) and Shankhachil (Unbound, filmed in 2016) in Bengali. Niyogi books of India has published a beautiful pictorial English version of Moner Manush as The Quest and also Beyond the Himalayas, my journey along the Silk Road. Another lovely film book is Pratikshan’s bilingual centenary tribute to Bismillah Khan (Bismillah in Banaras the film Goutam Ghosh made, 2017).

Is dubbing or subtitling the film not an easier option than doing a film-book?

Well, dubbing or subtitling is for watching a language film, but a film book is meant for reading. It becomes a part of your book collections. I have some wonderful film books published from Europe and United States.

Moner Manush is based on Lalon Fakir’s life and on the novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay. Why did you feel there was a need for a separate book after you made a very powerful film on it?

Lalon Fakir is an eternal savant. Scholars have been doing research on Lalon’s life and philosophy since long. It is heard that Lalon was an illiterate man. But going through the words of his songs and the implied significance, it seems as if he was an erudite scholar tutored in an age-old system of education.  His faith was not guided by any particular religion, rather it could be said to be comprised of the mysticism of Sufi and the love and forgiveness of Vaishnavism and the liberalism of the tantric sect of Buddhism. My film on Lalon fakir is research on this great man aswell. The Bengali film book contains important articles by scholars besides the script, reviews and memoirs.

Do you feel that the message of Moner Manush is relevant in a world beset by not just divides but even a pandemic? Is there something we can learn from the story?

Yes, of course the message of Moner Manush is even more relevant in today’s intolerant world, a world of greed and opportunism. The pandemic has victimised the togetherness of the human race but how can we survive without empathy? I don’t know how good the film is, but Moner Manush will serve as a gospel to those who revere humanity.

Lalon says as his own introduction “I am a human.” How important is that for humankind to see themselves as humans over titles of caste, profession, and economics?

The baul (minstrels in Bengal) community had renounced all recognised institutions of religion and revolted against long established rites, customs and faiths. Breaking down the barriers of the narrow confines of communal faith, they had found a large expanse under the sky which had served as a bountiful meeting place of many religions. Under that open sky, Lalon had found the truth in Humanism.

Lalon dreamt of a borderless world. Do you think adopting his outlook can change the outlook of nations which draw borders between the species? Do you think it is implementable at a personal, national or international level?

I think all mystics believe in borderless space of Earth where all centennial beings live in peace and harmony. But the wheel of time had moved in the direction of Divide and Rule. John Lennon’s Imagine has become the iconic song on the dream of a borderless world. It may have been a failed dream, but I confess it might have been one I shared growing up in India and will cherish till the last breath of my life. Let it be a dream and a wonderful utopia.

Beyond The Himalayas was first a documentary film. How long was it and when was it screened? How many episodes is the film?

Beyond the Himalayas was made as a documentary film during our expedition through the Silk Road in 1994. The final edited version is four-and-a-half hour long. It was shown in Discovery Channel in five parts in the late nineties. A shorter version was screened in BBC as well. The Indian national TV had screened a Hindi version of all five episodes.

The book seems to cover lesser than the documentary. Is that true or do the visuals/ music just seem to impact us more? Why did you leave out Pakistan?

Well watching the film with arresting visuals and absorbing the soundtracks of the trail is a linear viewing of our journey along the fabled Silk Road. It is very, very exciting indeed. But the film is also a journey back in time with many references and anecdotes from history. For instance, while showing the travel through the deadly Taklamakan desert, I referred to Sven Hedin’s(1865-1952) expedition of the region. I quote: ‘The first European to map this desolate region was the Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin. His first expedition in 1895 was very nearly his last.  The local guide supplied enough water for four days in the desert instead of ten requested. When the caravan lost its way, the guide was the first to die. The others became insane with thirst, drinking anything — even Sheep’s blood and camel’s urine. By the fifth day, the men, camels and other livestocks were all dead except for Sven Hedin and one other man. Hedin writes in Through Asia, “If I was doomed to die in the sand, I wanted to be properly attired. I wanted my burial clothes to be both white and clean.” But fate was on its side. Spying the dark green side of an oasis, he dragged himself to safety. “I stood on the brink of a pool with fresh cool water, beautiful water. I drank, drank, drank time after time. Every blood vessel and tissue of my body sucked up the life-giving liquid like a sponge.”’

Here the film-book helps the readers. One can refer back to the time past and time present more deeply to understand time as a metaphor of history.

How many days were you on the road? What was the experience like?

We were out for almost ten weeks covering a distance of 14,000 kms. The journey was fascinating for the entire team. There can be no journey more enchanting than the route we took. The collective trove of memories has made the Silk Road so memorable. We had to negotiate extreme weather conditions in Central Asia and Tibet. In a single day, we experienced two extremes. While negotiating the desert, temperatures rose to 48 degrees Celsius, and by nightfall when we pitched camp at Tianshan mountains, the temperature fell to 2 degrees. The situation is almost like the scenes of Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne — desert to snow in the blink of an eye.

Did you travel through the part of the route Marco Polo used? Did you find it much different from what you had imagined?

Well, the travels of Marco Polo described the wonders of the silk road, cities far greater than his own and a world more significant than anything imagined by the insular backward Europe of the thirteenth century. But he was a late traveller. The silk road was one of the greatest trade routes in history and men had already been travelling along for 4,000 years. Before sea routes were discovered in the fifteenth century, this trans-Asian highway was the sole link between the East and the West. It ran from Xian in China to all the way to the Mediterranean. There were many tributaries to the mighty river, not least of which were caravan routes across the Himalayan mountain range between India and Central Asia.  We could not follow the planned route through Pakistan and Afghanistan to Central Asia via Khyber Pass because of the civil war. The government of India did not want us to take such risks. All the members of the expedition, including the jeeps and equipment, were flown from Delhi to Uzbekistan on 18th May, 1994.

With the silk route being revived, do you think this film has significance?

Xuanzang took back over 600 Sanskrit text. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Yes, the film is still significant because it carries the memories of time. We were the first group of travellers after many, many years to cross three new republics after the collapse of Soviet Union and a vast territory of China. Now, the route is open to tourists, and I was told that many travel packages are available all along the mighty river and its tributaries. I would like to revisit the cauldron once again to understand how those multi-ethnic republics have survived the onslaught of modern times with its regional rivalries, new mafias, and consumerist pressures. I wish the new silk route trade brings peace and harmony in this intolerant world. Travellers today can choose from many trails as we did during our expedition. My favourite was Xuanzang’s (602-664 AD) trail. I quote from my book. “At 27, he set out his pilgrimage until he was 43. Unconvinced by the translations available in China, he sought the true teachings of Buddha in the holy lands of India. He walked alone into the great unknown, crossing the world’s greatest deserts and its highest mountain ranges. He faced death many times and his courage and equanimity impressed kings, bandits and barbarians alike. He lectured at monasteries and debated with learned monks and by the time he reached his destination, his reputation as a great sage had already preceded him. Xuan Zhang was not the only Chinese pilgrim to visit the homeland of Buddhism, but he was the most important. Like a death star that keeps releasing energy for thousands of years, he continues to be a valuable source of knowledge and inspiration.”

You are making a new film I believe rooted in the present pandemic. What is it about? Will you be making that too into a book?

My 2019 film Rahagir or Wayfarer, starring Adil Hussain, Tillotama Som, Neeraj Kabir, had travelled to many festivals and received awards and appreciations but unfortunately, we could not release it in public theatres due to the pandemic. Another multilingual film is also stuck for obvious reasons. I could finish the Italian shoot in January 2020, but the Indian shoot did not happen till date. It is so frustrating.

Meanwhile, I have finished a short film Memories of Time on pandemic days. It is about a happy, cultured couple living in the heart of Kolkata. Like everyone else, they are caught in the claustrophobia of the pandemic and the consequent lockdown. The film travels back and forth in time as they try to navigate through these hard times and search for fresh air and sanity. The film is an exploration of their fears, realisation and going back to nature. It’s from my own experience — how I have navigated 2020 and moving through the course of this pandemic. I think one can really publish a film-book because it has so many elements, the fear of people and the inhuman approach of the human race and then the migrant labours — their terrible conditions, the psychological problem of people confined inside their home and the most importantly, the problem of the children. They are confined as if in a prison. They can’t go to school. They can’t really meet their friends. I think this could be a very, very interesting material for a film-book.

Thank you for giving us your time.

Click here to read an excerpt and see photographs from his book Beyond the Himalayas.

Goutam Ghose: Courtesy: Creative Commons

(This is an online interview conducted by Mitali Chakravarty)

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