New theme on my blog is now making me look very lazy. For, the dateline says “Posted … days/weeks/months ago” instead of just showing the date posted. I mean it doesn’t let others do the maths, which I’m sure most of us won’t. I don’t necessarily look at the date when reading blog posts from some of my favourite blogs. Although, due to RSS subscription I normally catch them within a few hours of posting. Anyway, I’m off the track here, so let me come back on track.
I finished reading this book - Secret Tibet by Fosco Maraini (Translated in English by Eric Mosbacher and Guido Waldman) on 27 January, and have given a taster of the book here, while I was still in my early days of reading this book. I have been meaning to write about it for a while (my usual line it has become now!) and finally on a cold morning in York, I have taken time off writing about biodiesel to write about Secret Tibet, which is definitely much more fun, as well as challenging. I have placed so many bookmarks on this book - on pages, paragraphs and pictures that have caught my eyes, thinking they would be good to quote while writing about the book later on (i.e., now). Since there are just too many of nice, strange, interesting things to read about in this book, I will just say that it is one of the must read books for those interested in Tibet, especially for an on-the-ground account of Tibet, its culture, tradition and its people before the Chinese invasion. The book is a travelogue but at the same time much more than that. It gives you a sense of reading a history book, but from the ground up. We all are used to reading the “victor’s history”, but this book is altogether different. It tells the story of ordinary Tibetans, as seen by an Italian anthropologist (and photographer) during his trips in 1937 and 1948. The book was first published in 1951 and has been updated with new facts (and additional commentaries) in the 1998 edition.
Continue reading ‘“Secret Tibet” by Fosco Maraini’
copylefT 2008
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