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Book Review
MALAYALAM
Window on nature
H. RAMAKRISHNAN
HIMALAYAM-KAZHCHA DARSANAM: K. B. Prasannakumar — Editor; DC Books, DC Kizhakemuri Edam, Good Shepherd Street, Kottayam-686012. Rs. 110.
IT IS indeed a captivating and entrancing experience to see and walk among the world’s tallest mountains, which have lured innumerable trekkers and mountaineers.
This book successfully brings out the sweeping vistas of vast snow-clad peaks and the tough and demanding adventure to one of the most remote areas on the Earth. While you turn the exciting pages of this travelogue—nay, this travel literature—you in fact explore a world and a culture much simpler, traditional and spiritual than your own.
The book opens with verses from Kalidasa’s Kumara Sambhavam and Meghasandesam, wherein the poet describes the fascinating, inspiring, adventurous, sacred and sublime panorama that the highest summit offers. This is followed by 19 articles and two poems on the world’s tallest peak by different writers. Swamy Thapovanam in his essay rightly describes the Himalayas as the wonder-filled magical location that transports you instantly from the mundane world of agonies and anxieties to the ecstasy of a divine world bereft of anguish and grief.
Raymondo Panikkar in his essay, describes Mount Kailasa as the shrine of Monism: oneness. It is not a manmade shrine like a temple, church or a mosque and it was there even before religions came into existence, he says.
According to M. K. Ramachandran, the Himalaya is an experience of the soul.
This well-illustrated book, which throws open the window to the breathtaking views of nature’s setting where the Earth meets the sky, explores the wonders and mystery of the great Himalayas.
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