Book Review - 1400 Bananas, 76 Towns & 1 Million People
1400 Bananas, 76 Towns & 1 Million People by Samir Nazareth is not a tour guide, but is the diary of a trip in India long desired and organized. The author reflects the most powerful impressions brought from the places he visited and the people with whom he came into contact. The book takes us a ride across western India through Gujarat, Daman & Diu, Silvassa, Maharashtra, Goa, and Karnataka. We then cross Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and end in West Bengal.
India is the impossible dialogue in front of any traveller, one between those who have not seen but would like to see and who has seen but cannot tell. How can the words embody the smell, the look, the thought, the excitement? On the one hand, India is a daunting premise, and on the other a fascinating challenge.
The book is written with heart and passion and is almost a sentimental rapture of trampled places. It fervently brings images of the country, the vices and virtues of an ancient land where we see slices of everyday life caught on the edges of roads. The author remains lucid and composed, giving little space to personal opinions.
The ambition of the author is to grasp India. He wants to find perhaps a key to common interpretation in all its many historical, cultural, geographical, racial, religious traits. It is a travel story with a timeless dialogue.
The author writes incisively and some descriptions are truly effective. It is a book that goes into great tradition of the travel report. It seems written to disprove an idea now widespread that the journey and the traveller would no longer exist. There is no substantial difference for those leaving and not going anywhere because everything looks the same.
Most seems to corroborate this view, certainly in the great trip. We can take comfort if we still believe that there are different ways of living and workable as well as travel. This book is a gallery, not only of people met during the path. From the beginning we see the building of a bridge. The chapters as pillars support links between people, places, writing, images, even dreams, to form a solid step.
Thus, one sees the journey there by itself. The author has himself brought by an apparent randomness, or rather by an organized randomness the long-meditated memories and the characters.
It is more than one path but is a network of strong things carefully observed and reported, as always happens to the sensitive traveller. There is a compelling counterpoint between the observed reality, dreams, visions, literary references, and memories. The book also forms a good melody. It follows with great pleasure without falling to the substantial narrative homogeneity and emotional climax.
The illustrations are certainly not just decorative but very well narrated and organized. It gives the entire work a tone of yesteryear trip. And so the narrative structure of the journey takes its shape, which, the author argues, there is already before the traveller knows him. There is nothing left to do but to be led by discovering his secret. In this case it is to consolidate the already strong ties with people to whom we owe a lot to different but all excellent reasons.
But to do that, the journey born in must have originated from something you've already before leaving without knowing it. We go looking for him and this is the difference between the journey of the tourist who does carry other knowing barely penalty where it is. What the traveller who brings himself to discover and perhaps also require confirmation of something that already belongs to him but it was circumvented.
This resulting text shows that you can still travel and be aware of what you are doing. It is worth what you are seeing and experiencing with different visions and sensations by the striking cultural diversity. The impressive book brings together under one roof different ethnic groups with their own socio-anthropological and religious baggage that constitutes the lifeblood.
It is a book that fully can be considered good literature. It showcases the excellent light pen of a author who deviates from the novel genre in his own way to tell a piece of humanity. The authors’ journey is definitely more passionate and engaging. He reveals an India that is magnetic and between the lines. The words are an immortal hymn to the trip that, in all its infinite variations and personality full of promise. India is there and waiting for you.
India is the impossible dialogue in front of any traveller, one between those who have not seen but would like to see and who has seen but cannot tell. How can the words embody the smell, the look, the thought, the excitement? On the one hand, India is a daunting premise, and on the other a fascinating challenge.
The book is written with heart and passion and is almost a sentimental rapture of trampled places. It fervently brings images of the country, the vices and virtues of an ancient land where we see slices of everyday life caught on the edges of roads. The author remains lucid and composed, giving little space to personal opinions.
The ambition of the author is to grasp India. He wants to find perhaps a key to common interpretation in all its many historical, cultural, geographical, racial, religious traits. It is a travel story with a timeless dialogue.
The author writes incisively and some descriptions are truly effective. It is a book that goes into great tradition of the travel report. It seems written to disprove an idea now widespread that the journey and the traveller would no longer exist. There is no substantial difference for those leaving and not going anywhere because everything looks the same.
Most seems to corroborate this view, certainly in the great trip. We can take comfort if we still believe that there are different ways of living and workable as well as travel. This book is a gallery, not only of people met during the path. From the beginning we see the building of a bridge. The chapters as pillars support links between people, places, writing, images, even dreams, to form a solid step.
Thus, one sees the journey there by itself. The author has himself brought by an apparent randomness, or rather by an organized randomness the long-meditated memories and the characters.
It is more than one path but is a network of strong things carefully observed and reported, as always happens to the sensitive traveller. There is a compelling counterpoint between the observed reality, dreams, visions, literary references, and memories. The book also forms a good melody. It follows with great pleasure without falling to the substantial narrative homogeneity and emotional climax.
The illustrations are certainly not just decorative but very well narrated and organized. It gives the entire work a tone of yesteryear trip. And so the narrative structure of the journey takes its shape, which, the author argues, there is already before the traveller knows him. There is nothing left to do but to be led by discovering his secret. In this case it is to consolidate the already strong ties with people to whom we owe a lot to different but all excellent reasons.
But to do that, the journey born in must have originated from something you've already before leaving without knowing it. We go looking for him and this is the difference between the journey of the tourist who does carry other knowing barely penalty where it is. What the traveller who brings himself to discover and perhaps also require confirmation of something that already belongs to him but it was circumvented.
This resulting text shows that you can still travel and be aware of what you are doing. It is worth what you are seeing and experiencing with different visions and sensations by the striking cultural diversity. The impressive book brings together under one roof different ethnic groups with their own socio-anthropological and religious baggage that constitutes the lifeblood.
It is a book that fully can be considered good literature. It showcases the excellent light pen of a author who deviates from the novel genre in his own way to tell a piece of humanity. The authors’ journey is definitely more passionate and engaging. He reveals an India that is magnetic and between the lines. The words are an immortal hymn to the trip that, in all its infinite variations and personality full of promise. India is there and waiting for you.
