Almost all of the Himalayas had been mapped by the time the Great Game - in which the British and Russian empires fought for control of Central and Southern Asia - reached its zenith in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Only Tibet remained unknown and unexplored, zealously guarded and closed off to everyone. Britain sent a number of spies into this forbidden land, disguised as pilgrims and wanderers, outfitted with secret survey equipment and tasked with collecting topographical knowledge, and information about the culture and customs of Tibet. Among them was Kinthup, a tailor who went as a monk's companion to confirm that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were the same river. Sarat Chandra Das, a schoolmaster, was also sent on a clandestine mission, and came back with extensive data and a trove of ancient manuscripts and documents. Bells of Shangri-La brings to vivid life the journeys and adventures of Kinthup, Sarat Chandra Das and others, including Eric Bailey, an officer who was part of the British invasion of Tibet in 1903. Weaving biography with history, and the memories of his own treks through the region, Parimal Bhattacharya writes in the great tradition of Peter Hopkirk and Peter Matthiessen to create a sparkling, unprecedented work of non-fiction.

The Caravan is India’s most respected and admired magazine on politics, art and culture. With a strong literary flair, the magazine presents the best of reportage and commentary on politics, policy, economy, art and culture from within South Asia. It has become an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the political and social environment of the country.

Just a hundred years ago, much of the world was unknown - believe it or not! Secret cities lay hidden in the intimidating Himalayas, the perilous passes to them known to only a few. Fierce monsters were said to lurk in the swamps of north-east India. The mighty River Brahmaputra flowed through Assam and Bengal, but its place of origin was a big mystery. And in the cold, windy deserts of Central Asia, the fastest horse on earth galloped wild. Yet, intrepid explorers - men and women - full of curiosity and thirsty for knowledge, travelled to these distant and forbidding places. They returned with extraordinary tales and important discoveries, forever leaving their mark on history. Read their stories and join them on their exciting explorations in this rare book! Find how a way to Tibet was discovered, who brought the healing cinchona plant to the subcontinent, why the north-west frontier was once a very dangerous place, where exactly the Brahmaputra began its journey, what led to the rhododendron becoming a popular plant in faraway Britain, and much, much more!

The beautiful hill district of Darjeeling has been in the throes of political uncertainty for several decades now. Mr. CR Rai, a retired administrator with rich experience who also led his political outfit after resigning from service, had access to some of the prime political actors and events at the height of the Gorkhaland agitation and brought his unique perspective on the issue in this unusually interesting book. Darjeeling: The Unhealed Wound discusses the people and circumstances responsible for creating political uncertainty. There are fascinating insights into the roles played by the local leaders and the main players as well as Dr BC Roy and Shri Vallabhai Patel in determining Darjeeling’s post-independence position. What influence did Nepal have? How did Sikkim’s annexation influence regional politics? These and other questions are discussed with great passion. Darjeeling enthusiasts will also be fascinated by the references to the many known and lesser-known figures who played a crucial role in the establishment of the original “Queen of the Hills”

For a few years in the early 1990s - when the embers of a violent agitation for Gorkhaland were slowly dying down - Parimal Bhattacharya taught at the Government College in Darjeeling. No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight is a memoir of his time in the iconic town, and one of the finest works of Indian non-fiction in recent years. As Parimal tramped its roads and winding footpaths, Darjeeling slowly grew on him. He sought out its history: a land of incomparable beauty originally inhabited by the Lepchas and other tribes; the British who took it for themselves in the mid-1800s so they could remember home; the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway - once a vital artery, now a quaint toy train; and the vast tea gardens with which the British replaced verdant forests to produce the fabled Orange Pekoe. And in the enmeshed lives of the small town's inhabitants, Parimal discovered a richly cosmopolitan society which endured even under threat from cynical politics and haphazard urbanization. Written with empathy, and in shimmering prose, No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight effortlessly merges travel, history, literature, memory, politics, and the pleasures of ennui into an unforgettable portrait of a place and its people.

In the late 2000s, when the three-decade-long Left Front rule in West Bengal was crumbling, Parimal Bhattacharya began to travel outside the well-trodden urban centres to different parts of the region - from the Sundarbans to tribal Jangalmahal, from the outskirts of Kolkata to villages on the Bangladesh border, from the floodplains of the Hooghly to the forests of Simlipal in neighbouring Odisha. There, he encountered: a woman who was branded a witch because she was listed in the census as literate; an island that vanished famously, only to resurface; a paralysed communist who dreams about the death of a river; a forest community who believe they are descendants of the Harappans; an old millworker and his wife who fight the ghosts of a dead industrial town with laughter; a fisherman uprooted by a river eleven times in twenty years; and many more. This book documents the missing narratives of these 'other' Bengalis, the largely invisible majority beyond the bhadralok that the rest of India knows. Moving between the personal and the political, and between travelogue, journal and memoir, Field Notes from a Waterborne Land takes the reader on a journey across a fascinating land peopled with unforgettable characters.

In 1874, the brilliant civil engineer Sarat Chandra Das was recruited by the British as a spy in Darjeeling. The Empire wanted to train local agents to gather in-depth intelligence about Tibet--a mysterious kingdom closed off to all outsiders for years--in order to consolidate their position in South Asia and outplay Russia in the Great Game. Equipped with hidden compasses, hundred-bead rosaries (to discreetly measure distances), and an excellent knowledge of Buddhism and the local language, Das set out into the harsh early winter of 1881, through the snow-filled passes of Sikkim and Nepal on his second foray into Tibet. Though an agent of its enemy, Das fell in love with the land of his mission. He stayed at the Tashilhunpo monastery for five months transcribing ancient Buddhist texts, studying the language and teaching English to the Panchen Lama. In his diary, he noted the various customs of dress, cuisine, architecture and the local politics throughout his journey. He also wrote about ordinary village life as he saw it--the extortion of the common people by the Chinese, and the ravages of smallpox in places with little or no medical help. When he finally reached Lhasa, he was struck by the grandeur of the city's ancient shrines and the monasteries dotting its mountains. He even managed an audience with the thirteenth Dalai Lama, then an eight-year-old boy with 'rosy cheeks'. Journey to Lhasa is the account of a treacherous yet illuminating adventure, which paints an intimate portrait of a people and a place that today exist only in memory.