BOOK REVIEW: Wanderings through the Garhwal Himalaya

Book reviewed by T.S. Bakshi | November 24, 2017

Author Ganesh Saili's readers have something to celebrate about, his latest book 'Wanderings through the Garhwal Himalaya,' just hit the stands, five years after 'Gupp and Gossip,' 'Mussoorie Years,' and  'The Letters of a Mussoorie Merchant' by Niyogi Books were released.  Saili's latest book is a nostalgic blend of photography and essays written over four decades and counting.

Twenty-two essays spread over two hundred odd pages takes the reader onto a journey recorded in words and images creating a world of magic. "The book is a journey to my roots, a nostalgic home-coming which was inspired by frequent trips to our home in the hills," says Ganesh Saili.

The Garhwal Himalaya begins with the author's father, all of sixteen years old, leaving his home in the hills, the ancestral village of Sail in the border district of Chamoli to find work elsewhere. He writes, "Out of here my father, as a sixteen-year-old, with little more than his dreams had joined the male exodus from our village in the remote hills of Chamoli, in search of any job that would give him some money. Were time travel were possible, you would have found a strapping lad, with little baggage other than his dreams, undecided what to do or where to go next." Little has changed since then, the Kumaon Garhwal Himalaya are bereft of male presence, leaving behind women, children and the invalid.

So what new does the book offer? 'Wandering Through the Garhwal Himalaya' makes excellent reading for those, "large-hearted sons of the soil, who, down the ages, have yoked the hills together, through thick and thin, good times and bad times, have laughed at the thunder and mocked the skies, have left for the plains only to return, again and again, to the call of the mountains.'

Wanderings through the Garhwal Himalaya

Author: Ganesh Saili

Pages: 238                                 

ISDN: 978-93-85285-32-5

Niyogi Books

The book is available for purchase online at Amazon here- Wanderings Through the Garhwal Himalaya

The writer can be reached via e-mail at tania_saili@hotmail.com