cover image Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road: Calcutta to Khyber

Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road: Calcutta to Khyber

Anthony Weller. Marlowe & Company, $24.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-1-56924-751-8

The Grand Trunk Road slicing across the Indian subcontinent for 1500 miles from Calcutta to the Khyber Pass has been traversed by the likes of Alexander the Great, Kipling and Gandhi. Today, it's a truck route that cuts through Benares, Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Peshawar and a multitude of towns and mud villages. It's also one of the most dangerous roads in the world, according to the author, where tribal feuds and clashes between India and Pakistan are often played out. This is the road Weller (The Garden of the Peacocks) chose to travel, having, as he explains, time on his hands after he'd finished a novel and gigs for his guitar playing were scarce. His entertaining adventures on the road provide a vehicle for colorful evocations of the diverse landscapes and cultures through which the road threads, and they complement instructive histories, current political and economic reporting and perceptive profiles of the people he encounters. This is a rewarding journey for armchair travelers. (Oct.)