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                   A poetic account of a 1970s overland journey

to India and back, with other poems and a story

related to the journey.

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                                                ISBN number:  978-1-0683328-38

Having tried - unsuccessfully - to tell the story of an epic journey first as a journal,

then as a novel,  the author found, one locked down morning, that it naturally fell

into the time-honoured medium of narrative verse. The discovery led to him recalling

how he and his indomitable girlfriend journeyed through Europe

into Asia, spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan and finally arrived in India.

Wedding parties in Amritsar, the Tibetan community in Dharamsala and the deep Hindu

cultures of Varanasi and Puri are vividly portrayed, as well as the unforgettable

experience of hitching the legendary Grand Trunk Road. Then, having encountered

the Himalayas up close in Nepal, the couple made it down to the deep South,

to beaches and jungle in Goa, before an arduous return journey led to a challenging

return to the UK.

Written in an easy-going manner (and with room for reflections, jokes and asides),

the poem immerses the reader in different, some now sadly inaccessible cultures.

The supplementary material includes poems inspired by a visit to the Beatles’

ashram in Rishikesh, on the contrasting Moghul Emperors Akbar and Aurangzeb,

on the legacy of Omar Khayyam, and a daft but cheery short story about a heroic

mouse who lives in Chennai station.

Listen to extracts here