'The Camel: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know... and Plenty that You Didn't' by Robert Irwin could have been a great session. It starts off promisingly, with lines from a pre-Islamic poem describing the slaughter - in almost sensual terms - by a traveller of his favourite racing camel in return for sexual favours from a 'fair virgin', but then loses its way somewhat.
All very well to learn that the camel is a retromingent animal, and that the Grand Union Pub on Westbourne Road in London serves meat from feral camels culled in Australia. Given the setting, however, Irwin might perhaps have dwelled a little longer on the rich camel lore and cultural significance of the animal in the Middle East.
Another session which didn't quite live up to promise was Sir Mark Tully's talk on 'India's Unending Journey'. It was clear that the audience - a capacity crowd of Indians and Indophiles - was there to listen to his sometimes maddening and sometimes profoundly moving experiences on the subcontinent. His little vignettes of Indian life (a frustrating but amusing journey on Indian Railways from Patna to Bangalore, the inconveniences of dealing with the neta-babu raj (the petty bureaucracy and corrupt officialdom), the intricacies of the caste system) were well-received, echoing - to a greater or lesser degree - the experiences of anyone who has ever travelled or lived in India.
His theme - the 'uncertainty of certainty' at the heart of Indian civilisation, its ability to absorb and indigenise external influences (such as languages and religions) and its syncretic spirituality (in contrast to the dogmatic fundamentalism of the monotheistic traditions) - is a grand and wide-ranging one, so it is a little perplexing that Sir Mark chooses to use that as the basis primarily for a diatribe against unrestrained consumerism for most of his talk.
Sir Mark supports the Indian cricket team and admits to passing the Tebbit test in reverse.
No comments:
Post a Comment