Travel classic: Indian Explorers of the 19th century

Ten years ago, a photocopied sheaf of papers that was actually a book arrived on my table through a circuitous route. Published in the seventies , Indian Explorers of the 19th Century by Indra Singh Rawat is an account of the famed explorers Pundit Nain Singh and Pundit Kishen Singh, who helped map the uncharted territory of the great Himalayan massifs. Rawat was a nephew of Pundit Kishen Singh, and accessed the records of the Survey of India in Dehradun, as well as the original diaries of the Pundit brothers as well as folklore, personal memories and family history, to tell his tale. “Going on an exploration is like getting married; a man has to live with his companions for months and years in the worst of circum­stances.“ In these vivid stories of Chhumbel, Hari Ram, Kinthup, Rinzin Namgyal, Ugyen Gyatso, I discovered a band of intrepid wanderers, spies disguised as pilgrims, who brought the geography and history of the great arc of the Himalayas alive for me. I read and reread the book (now contained in white plastic spiral binding) and travelled the high mountains in my imagination. The stories resurfaced, (as stories do) layered with fancy and intuition, in an essay in Travelling In Travelling Out, an anthology I have recently edited.

Namita Gokhale is a writer, publisher and festival director