India: the elephant's blessing

Description

India: The Elephant's Blessing follows the author's 2,500km journey through Southern India. The work has elements of the travelog but is infused with perspicacious insights into the people and culture of India. The point of departure for these insights is often the curious mixture of India's ancient culture and its current economic development, and the relative ease with which people blend tradition and the trappings of contemporaneity. As with her previous two books, a central focus for the author is wildlife and heritage preservation, or the lack thereof. India's wildlife is one of its most precious resources, but it has suffered in the past and present from poaching and a lack of competent conservation methods. The work is narrated intimately, in the sense that the author's personality is everpresent, imbuing the work with a charm rare in travel literature. The reader views India at every level, from the poverty-stricken to the grasping rich, from the quiet beauty...