BOOKS WE RECOMMEND THIS WEEK

From an environmental non-fiction on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to a book of travel writing by Kartikeya Ladha, our book picks this week, curated by Chirdeep Malhotra

ENVIRONMENTAL NON-FICTION

“Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story” by Pankaj Sekhsaria

“Islands in Flux” is a compilation of writings on key issues and developments in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands over the last two decades. Written by Pankaj Sekhsaria, one of the islands’ best known and most consistent chroniclers of contemporary issues, it features information, insights and perspective related to the environment, wildlife conservation, development and the island’s indigenous communities. The book is both a map of the region as well as a framework for the way forward, and essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our world.



ENVIRONMENTAL FICTION

“The Last Wave” by Pankaj Sekhsaria

“The Last Wave” is a story of lost loves, but also of a culture, a community, an ecology poised on the sharp edge of time and history. In the novel, Harish encounters members of the ancient – and threatened – Jarawa community: the ‘original people’ of the Andaman Islands and its tropical rainforests. He observes the slow but sure destruction of everything the Jarawa need for their survival, and is moved by a need to do something. His unlikely partners in the journey are Uncle Pame, a Karen boatman whose father was brought to the islands from Burma by the British in the 1920s, and Seema, a 'local born' – descendant of the convicts who were lodged in the infamous Cellular jail of Port Blair. As many things seem to fall in place and parallel journeys converge, an unknown contender appears: the giant tsunami of December 2004.



TRAVEL WRITING

“Life Unknown - A Passage Through India” by Kartikeya Ladha

In “Life Unknown - A Passage through India”, Kartikeya Ladha continues the adventure begun in his previous book based on his travels in Peru, South America – “Dream Beyond Shadows”, after returning to India. His travels take him to Ladakh, Dharamsala, and remote regions of India's far north, deep within the powerful energy of the Himalayan Mountains, and to the sacred waters of the Ganges river, and ultimately on a 1000 km pilgrimage by foot across South India. This story speaks directly from the author's heart to an audience considering the idea of leaving everything they know behind to embrace life in its raw and untamed magnitude and search for understanding and meaning.



POETRY

“A Moveable East” by Siddharth Dasgupta

In this excellent poetry collection, poet and novelist Siddharth Dasgupta unspools remembrances, dances through infidelities, downs carafes of wine, and lingers in cafés of quiet enigmas. Across seven sections and fifty-five poems, “A Moveable East” asks you to believe in the sacred and revel in the wayward. It asks you to inhale bookshops and relish the transferrable quality of flavour. Mostly though, it asks that you frolic in the fluttering of this restless east.