From Heaven Lake: Travel through Sinkiang and Tibet
Vikram Seth
Rating : 4/5
Summary
I got this book from a friend who was leaving after having finished his PhD. I am assuming he bought this in a second-hand bookstore after noticing a familiar author’s name. Well when I saw this travelogue amidst the pile of books he was giving away, I thought, this can’t be the poet Vikram Seth. It is, the same Vikram Seth who wrote the poem “The frog and the nightingale”. And that was my only exposure to his works, uptil now. I read the summary on the back cover and I knew that it was goinng to be a fun read. So the next week when the cluster was under maintenance I decided to read this instead of some journal papaers relevant to my work.
The book has a map inside which dots the land route Seth took on his journey from “Heaven Lake” to Delhi through Lhasa in Tibet. Anyone who is acquainted with thegeopolitics of China, India and Tibet will realise this journey sounds impossible. And I think travel through land routes between Tibet and Nepal for Indians is still not permitted.
The journey begins in Turfan where the author was touring the place with a group of international students from Nanjing University. He was a graduate student inStanford at the time and was in Nanjing for his research for a year or more. If you look at the map, nanjing is on the east coast on the Yangtze river. Turfan is in the far, far north west, walled by both iMongolia and the then USSR. So this is where the travelogue begins, in the Arabic speaking, Muslim majority town(?) of Turfan, which is just below Heaven Lake, Urumqi.The Uighurs of Turfan are culturally very different from the Han Chinese. But as the author goes on to show, there are certain things like songs from the Indian film “Awaara” which can surprisingly unite the diverse patchwork of Kazakhs, Chinese and Russians. The golden age of Bollywood. The story only starts here and not from Nanjing, because miraculously Seth managed to get a travel pass to Lhasa, Tibet stamped here. Being a foreigner, Seth was a “friend of the country” but also at the same time the government officials could not get too friendly and give him a permit to go to Lhasa by land. So with this off-chance miracle Seth went ahead with this unplanned trip towards Lhasa. This book was published in 1983, Seth did not have a cll phone or laptop. He tried to send his family a telegram from Lhasa once he got there, which they never received. He was debating which books to carry whereas in today’s age of kindle and ebooks, this is not a concern. If I google how to reach Lhasa from Delhi, it shows me long circuitous routes through HongKong or airports in China. Some tourism blogs mention a more direct path through Kathmandu, but I think they are not as frequent.
The book only came to be because Seth got lucky more than twice. The second time was when he was granted an exit permit so that he could just walk across theChina-Nepal border.
The book is interesting, noy because of the route itself, but rather because of the people Seth encounters along the way. With little cash in hand and no way to Zelleor AliPay back then, Seth was a bebeficiary of he several truck drivers who let him hitch-hike for free. Not to forget the shopowner who made a custom hat for him for free, of the policeman who actually stamped his papers, the Tibetan family who were fond of him and Mr. Shah the Nepali official posted there.
There were three key points in the trip which I liked or remember best- The first is when Seth, Sui and Gyanseng manage to fall asleep in the truck, en-route to Lhasa, in the biting cold. An Indian, Chinese and Tibetan, all three longing to get home and perhaps sleeptalking in three different languages when asleep.
The second point is when Seth was visiting a monastery and found a tour bus. The tour guide axamined him and allowed him to hitch-hike to their next stop. But thisruffled a foreign tourist who felt cheated and that Seth should have to pay up the hundreds of Dollars worth of tour package that the tourists had paid. Here was a man with just a camera and barely enough cash and energy to walk back. Perhaps the cost of the trip was always on their mind, and thus they were disgruntled when a stranger was allowed to hop on.
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This actually reminded me of my own experience when I went to watch and orchestra performance for the first time. I was supposed to get a physical ticket at the counter after showing the code sent to me. But due to poor internet inside I couldn't get the code. When I narrated this to the security person nearby he told me that since I had paid for it, there was no way someone could prevent me from entering. This line of thought was very novel to me. Since I had paid money for this event, I had somehow 'bought' the right or privelage to the event. Forget whether I was in the proper dress code or had the physical ticket. It is quite empowering in a way, that we are all equal in front of money. Even if we don't agree on religious or political views, if you accept my money then you cannot reject me. But what if I don't have money, or enough money. Not to mention that it is a joke to put a price tag on everything. I suppose because of this experience of mine, the second point stuck with me. The third highlight in the book for me was when Seth crossed the China-Nepal border. He was trekking through the forest when a Nepali border guard accosted him. But when did he even cross into Nepal? That small stream that he hopped over, where the Nepali lady is washing clothes- that is the border.
All in all, the book is a fun, short read at only 178 pages. It does not delve too deeply into the history and culture of the people because, as I mentioned, this journey came to be only because the author got miraculously lucky. He laments that he cannot fully understand the people due to his lack of knowledge and inability tospeak Tibetan. He was restricted by his resources, but today this can be remedied by just a google search or reading an e-book.
I recommend the book to anyone who has ever wanted to just take off on a spontaneous land-trip through China, Tibet, Nepal - but would rather do it vicariously.
