The Surveyor-------pan macmillan
₹350.00
₹315.00
Intensely poetic, richly imagined, Ira Singh’s
landscapes are dream-filled and haunting. Her language maps the heart.”
Janice Pariat, Author of Boats on Land August 1947. Ravinder joins the
Survey of India, about to devote his life to mapmaking, traversing
unchartered territories, braving the elements. Alone in his tent he
devours books by the light of a lamp. He militates against a tyrannical
father and a faith he cannot be true to.
In 1958 he falls in love with Jennifer, an
Anglo-Indian, the daughter of Grace Robbins – a woman who will never
accept this marriage. But marry they do. They have two daughters,
Anushka and Natasha.
Natasha is the chronicler of this family of
outsiders, peering from the wings as her older sister takes centre
stage. Hers is a journey from the small town to the city.
Natasha’s father passes on to her his fierce love of
the written word and a curiosity about cartography. She traces, as he
did, the histories of those relatively unknown surveyors who mapped the
country, putting their lives at risk. She also, in the process, traces
his life.
The Surveyor, wistful and elegiac, spans several
decades and is about the search for identity; about solitude, longing
and the price we pay for freedom.
