May 24, 1999
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COBRA
ROAD: AN INDIAN JOURNEY Doing the Raj Tour Fishlock's book is more about lazy journalism than a racy travelogue. COBRA ROAD: AN INDIAN JOURNEY
In the opening chapter, A Ripping Yarn, Fishlock tells us of his family home in a remote village in England with an obviously Indian name, Panagarh. The journey he undertakes is in search of this elusive "home", which winds up in a suburb of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. This begins a search for the origins of Panagarh that takes Fishlock to 19th century police commissioner William Sleeman, the "thugee buster". Imperial Gazetteers of Jabalpur that provide records of districts covering their history, physical features, flora and fauna, mineral resources and other minute details. It turns out that Panagarh was a place of some antiquity and that his father had been based there with the Royal Engineers and when he returned from service to England he gave his house this "intriguing name". The pilgrimage in search of the real Panagarh takes Fishlock to different parts of the country, presumably to understand something of the mystique of the land and its people, which has had such a hold on the English psyche. The journeys must have been undertaken at different points of time during his stint in India because this is reflected in the randomness of the notes and reflections, with snippets of history thrown in. For instance, talking about the Punjab and the Golden Temple, we have some history of the Sikhs tossed at us, the Indira Gandhi-Bhindranwale story and so on. But it is a kind of nursery history perhaps all right for western readers in a hurry but tantamount nevertheless to lazy journalism. It won't be taken in by Indian readers. Travel writing is, in a sense, a search for the past and an explanation why things are as they are. Much of this is based on a study of the history of the land and its people, which is then backed up by observations and conversations with ordinary people about ordinary, workaday lives. There are plenty of observations and descriptions, some with a jaundiced eye, but sadly nothing of what the ordinary people have to say and feel. Fishlock confines himself to what the elite talk about at dinner parties and cocktails. This is never an accurate index of what's going on and why. It is not just that Fishlock has nothing to say and takes more than 250 pages to say it, but that he writes so inelegantly. There are passages here where it would be best to draw a veil. If it was worthwhile these could have been quoted in the same random fashion as he has written the book, but that would be giving him too much attention. It is best to move on to something better. NEW RELEASES » South
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Travel writing, the "in
thing" nowadays, is not an accretion of observations or a collage of separate scenes.
It is highly selective and is bound together by a theme that keeps the writing, like the
traveller, moving forward. This is what Trevor Fishlock, a former London Times
correspondent in India, has attempted with his travelogue Cobra Road: An Indian Journey.
The book is a highly segmented account of India, across the length and breadth of the
subcontinent. Beginning from the Khyber Pass, across Punjab, on to Mumbai and the Kutch,
and then through the south of Kerala, up again to central India before winding up in
Jabalpur, it is a cross-section taken at random but which takes you nowhere. 
