Narcissism could make even salt less tangy!

In the normal course, The Great Hedge of India should have been a blockbuster. After all it breaks the story of a horror of colossal proportions: To levy a duty on salt, the British established a Customs line across the whole of India which in 1869 extended from the Indus to the Mahanadi in Madras - a distance of 2,300 miles. Guarded by 12,000 men, it would have stretched from London to Constantinople: an immense, impenetrable... hedge.,a monstrous system, to which it would be almost impossible to find a parallel in any tolerably civilised country'...perhaps something that caused unspeakable misery to millions then.

But no, Roy Moxham, could not become another William Dalrymple, an absolutely fascinating

William Dalrymple

interpreter of the sub-continentś recent pasṭ. Moxham is too lost in himself, in his own adventures, than in telling us a long-forgotten gruesome story.

I used to count my tribe as being among the most narcissistic, perhaps next only to film personalities. They will go on and on about how they cultivate their sources, hazards they face, remaining unfazed by the powerful and so on, convinced perhaps their own selves should be equally interesting to the reader too!

There was this colleague of mine deputed to cover the first Iraq war and whose first despatch went at great length into the problems he faced in getting a visa, arranging flight tickets, going without food somewhere, everything except the war itself. He didnt' cover himself with glory with his further despatches either.

And then this young man who was so entranced by his attempts to  establish contacts, trekking through forests, sharing very simple food, living it rough and so on that the story would end with his finally meeting the Naxal group. Of course very little of what they said or what they stood foṛ. May be the journo overshot his space and he had a tough choice - either more of the subject of the story or himself - and he had made his !

I remember once Suresh Menon dismissing Karnataka player Brijesh Patelś autobiography as an exercise in onanism!!

Roy Moxham seems to be in that league, reverting back to himself all the time. The hedge, the salt and the horrid conditions of the time occupy a very small portion, the rest is all devoted to the authorś own quest and experiences.

Well nothing of the hedge remains, yes, it having been demolished back in 1879 itself. And very few who can remember what happened theṇ. Not much of an archival material either on what the hedge did to peopleś liveṣ. How do you then spin it to a moderate book length was perhaps Moxhamś probleṃ. One can appreciate that, still, pages after pages of ego trip will do nothing more than raise a few eyebrows among the westernerṣ. Widespread poverty, haggling with auto-drivers, people defecating in the open are all blase.

Swapandas Gupta I dont touch with ten barge poles, but his critique here I should agree with heartily:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/book-review-of-the-great-hedge-of-india-by-roy-moxham/1/232950.html

Still there are delectable nuggets, worth oneś trouble. I chose to turn the pages fast, keeping close track of the hedge story itself.