Book Review: Pathreeli Pagdandiyon Par (Autobiography of Dr. KS Valdiya)

Hard of Hearing, Harder of Determination

What happens when nature decides to up the ante against you in more ways than one?

You are born in a foreign territory that becomes a warzone, have to leave even that in a mass exodus, crossing borders and bodies, to your own native land, where, by the way, you have never been before.

You are sort of a refuge, a social pariah, in your own homeland.

To top it all, enroute to recovering from a life-threatening illness, you lose your hearing.

So, coming back to the question, when life throws all the above at you, what happens?

You either chose to go with the flow, like an oar-less canoe, and land wherever fate determines your positioning. Or, you become your own oar, fashion out your own GPS, engineer your own engine, and chart out your directions independent of the currents. You are the current.

That’s how “Pathreeli Pagdandiyon Par” (On Rocky Roads) sums up the life of renowned geologist Padma Bhushan Dr. Khadg Singh Valdiya. Written by Dr. Validya himself, his life journey establishes beyond doubt that the professor was as gifted with narrating history as he was adept at navigating geography. While his seminal work redefined Himalayan geology, one wonders if Hindi literature lost a gifted writer to rocks and tectonic shifts. On the one hand, he won countless awards as a scientist, on the other, his winning of 'Hindi Sewi Samman' bears testimony to his literary prowess.

Dr. Valdiya’s autobiography is a wonderfully prolific account that touches on so many aspects of his life and of the world of his time - academic, social, personal, political and regional. The underlying themes of struggle, indomitability, biases, lobbying, murkiness of academia, Indian fetish for western approval, apathy of bureaucracy, all have been depicted with razor sharp accuracy, much like the professor's super evolved literary senses.

His writing style can give any professional writer a run for their money. In fact, his poetic sense is sublime as well, especially his knack for interspersing alliteration seamlessly (Hello, the title! Of the book, and of the book review!)

Indulge into his Indian Jone-esque adventures experienced during his field trips across the length, the breadth, and the height of the Himalayas. The anecdotes, the ghost stories, the shikar tales, are weaved well into the narrative, and are the cherry on top.

Turning crisis into opportunity seems a hallmark of the professor. And, his hearing impairment was always trumped by his determination. Hence the title of this review!