I'm reading Two Wheels In The Dust by Anne Mustoe (signed 'Happy Travelling!' by Anne herself, but not to me). It's the story of her trip in Nepal and India with two companions, following the journeys of Sita & Rama through various holy places mentioned in the Ramayana, including the disputed temple at Ayodhya. This was 1998, and she had previously visited in 1996, when the dispute was still fresh. The descriptions of the two visits is very interesting.
I was a bit disappointed by this, I'm afraid.
It's meant to be structured round a narrative - the Ramayana - but in fact, it isn't a single journey, but a few, which does the journey out of order. It just makes it all a bit disjointed and, despite the research she has obviously done, seems cobbled together after the fact.
The descriptions of the travel are interspersed with retelling of the Ramayana story, which is a good structure, but she isn't a great storyteller, and she's inconsistent with what belongs in the 'story' bits, so the distinction doesn't really stand.
What grated most though was her attitude. I think she was a public school headmistress, and it kinda shows. She's rather a snob, and doesn't seem to like people much.
Now Josie Dew can sometimes be a bit judgemental, but she does it with wit and it adds to the narrative rather than takes away. And she knows she's doing it.
Mustoe, on the other hand, despite spending time with the people en route, makes sweeping (and inconsistent) generalisations about whole groups of people. It verges on racism at points, and that was uncomfortable to read.
She obviously loved India. But what was the India she aspired to? It's the Raj - a vision of taking tea with local aristocracy in opulent palaces surrouned by beautiful gardens, waited on by servants in crisp white uniforms. Now, I know that the Ramayana is a story wrapped about with the fulfilment of the duties of a ruler, in many ways, but this goes beyond an exploration of that. While she writes of her horror of the caste system, she is very happy to benefit from it.
There is much of interest in the book, and I learned a lot about the temples and visual imagery, as well as the complex web of Hindu deities, but I couldn't warm to the narrator.
Oh - and the final straw was ascribing the human development of Kerala to the benevolence of some long-gone ruler, instead of the government (inconveniently both Communist and massively popular) which was elected to improve conditions for ordinary people.
Disclaimer: I have never travelled to India (I have never had the funds nor the good health to do so). And I am a grumpy antisocial bugger, so no good at talking to local people wherever I am, so I'm not sure I'd be a good travel writer, except in a Bruce Chatwin-y vein.
