One day while walking through Landmark book store I came across this book with an eye catching cover-page. It was this.
Then I decided to look for other books written by the author Amitav Ghosh. All his books have really nice looking cover-page. Though I picked up the book based on the cover 
I soon found out that the book is superb. Amitav Ghosh style of writing is much different from what I have read so far. All his stories seemed to be based in pre-independence India and at some point of time in the book he comes to Bengal. There is something endearing to read a story based in pre-independence Bengal.
I picked up one more book of his ‘The Glass Palace’ from a library. There are times when you hear or read something which makes you suddenly realize that such a thing has escaped your mind for so many years. I got such a feeling when I read the Glass Palace. It is Burma. When I read the book I suddenly realized all my life, even when talking about possible tourist spots, geography lessons, I have never heard or thought about Burma except when, in the movie ‘Motor Sundaram Pillai’ Sivaji Ganeshan comes back from Rangoon after Japanese bombing. It was a strange feeling that I missed such a big country so close to India. We talk about Malaysia, Thailand, holiday spots here and there. Anyways, the book Glass Palace tells the story which starts in Burma 1885 with the British invasion of Burma and keeps going back to Burma through a period spanning 90-100 years. It gives a vivid description of life in Burma, before the invasion and after the invasion becoming a so called colony of British where it becomes the sole supplier of high quality teak wood. The journey of teak wood from forests high up the mountains with armies of elephants and mahouts and other specialized workers, how they train the elephants, how the powerful mountain rivers are used as natural transport networks, the frightening episodes of Anthrax affected elephants, the planning involved in drying the tree before cutting it down so that all the moisture dries out from the bark and it can then float on water, is highly descriptive and interesting to read. The book also shows how innocent poor people from villages in Tamilnadu are tricked into joining the work force as laborers in rubber plantations in Malaysia – which happens to be a new wonder product in late 19th century. In short it is a rag-to-riches-to-rags story of a 11 year old orphaned boy working in a road side stall in Mandalay in Burma who becomes a millionaire later in life as teak and rubber industry booms and loses it all during word war 2 during Japenese invasion of Burma and internal violence against non-Burmese people, walks all the way across Burma to India and in the end dies a contended old man in Kolkata. It is an epic book and arguably his best.
fantastic da KRK!