TRAVELS IN TRANSOXIANA By Jaswant Singh
Rupa
Rs 395

All kinds of books are written, published and sold. Some exceed even the expectations of the writer and publisher because of the fashion of the times. Others are left to languish in the bookshelves for not moving on with the times. Travelogues may not make sales records but they do have a niche among the reading public.

Travels in Transoxiana by Jaswant Singh is one such book that will appeal to this readership. Subtitled, In lands over the Hindu-Kush and across the Amu Darya, the book takes us along the trail across the Central Asian region that lies beyond the Oxus. Jaswant Singh needs no introduction. He is presently the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha. But few know him as a writer. Therefore, the reader, when he picks up this book, might be tempted to ask what prompted Singh to choose this particular region.

Singh claims that the romance of the region interested him first. The great Moghul emperor Babur’s exploits also fascinated him, as also the lands beyond the Amu Darya, which seemed to be the “crucible of mankind.” For, according to the author, it is from here that have “emerged, time and again, not just Babur but so many other more formidable forces of primeval energy, sweeping aside all that then faced them.” So far so good.

The beginning raises the reader’s expectations to a pitch that Singh fails to live up to later on. The reader expects accounts of the romantic beauty of the region. He expects something not heard earlier about the exploits of Babur. And, of course, about the other forces which, according to Singh, had changed the course of human history.

Singh begins by citing a number of English travelogue-writers as if he were unsure as to how to begin Then he casually talks about Islam, which no one expects him to do with an open mind. Before the author delves into the subject, he writes a short note on Babur which may not appeal to sub-continental readers who have read their history in school.

Finally, Singh starts his exploration of the region, beginning with Tashkent. He had toured quite a few places flanked by Afghanistan and Pakistan on the one end and India and China on the other. Ap- art from Tashkent, he writes about Samarkand, Bukhara,Ferghana, Kokand, Khi- va, Almaty, Frunze, Khirgizia, Siberia and Irkutsk.

He also describes how he lands at these places, is received by his hosts and how he moves about the respective towns that have accumulated such romantic associations over the years, and have moved men to poetic heights since the time of Babur. Singh too, sometimes, writes poetically about these places. But that is all.

The reader should not expect to know much about the places Singh had covered during his travels. Rather, what one does get to know more about is his own reaction to the people in those places and their governments. One also learns something about the men and women who took him around to see the towns and other places of interest. Singh fails to go beyond these minor details and give a fuller sociological account. Perhaps the author could not mingle with the people because of his own pre- judices or because of the communist government that prevented foreigners from being too familiar with the populace.

Singh is particularly guarded about his time or year of visit to the region. Nowhere in the book do we get to know when he undertook these journeys. The descriptions make one suspect that it must have been before the break-up of the erstwhile Soviet Union. If that suspicion is correct, the book loses all topical interest.

The reader would have appreciated more information about the conditions prevailing in countries that have broken away from the communist regime than about what now remains of the once mighty communist empire. Singh has given us neither romantic descriptions of the places he visited nor much about Babur, nor anything about the other primeval forces that he talks about at the beginning of his book.

Singh has written this thin book in his inimitable style. Besides, the book is laced with beautiful photographs taken during the journeys. Singh gives us a taste of what Transoxiana must be like, although, in the end, he does little justice to the beauty of the region.