Book Reviews: Land of the Seven Rivers, by Sanjeev Sanyal

The book, 'Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography' gives a narrative of the sub-continent's history looked at through the lens of its geography. Its nothing really new in terms of the history, I have read a couple of books which narrate it better. The difference of course is that this book brings in the geography as an essential player in the narrative, plus its very easy to read. All in all, time well spent.

So rather than writing a book review, I thought it might be more fun just listing some of the interesting facts that I read in the book which I had not known before. And here they are:

Early civilisation

• The Indian subcontinent was attached to Africa and Madagascar when the continents started drifting away
• Saraswati or Ghaggar was an actual huge river in Rajasthan which dried up leading to a big change in Indian history
• The Vedic people and people of the Harappan civilisation were not the same people
• There was no Aryan invasian in India. It was the Harappan people itself who are known as Aryans
• There was a big tribal war between many tribes like Pashtuns, Bharatas etc which the Bharatas won. So the other tribes left India and wandered 'abroad'; So what actually happened was a reverse Aryanisation of Central Asia. Also that's how we got the name of our country, not from a prince who played with lion cubs ;-)
• Being dark was considered better in India in the early days
• There was a constant flow of gold and silver to India from across Europe due to huge quantities of trade with the Greek and Roman empires. The author estimates that 25-30% of the world's gold must be in India ;-)
• People from Africa travelled to the Persian Gulf and then to India as the seas there now were earlier land (I have never read this before!)
• Gypsies or Romas who now inhabit Romania originally came from India
• Cleopatra was planning to escape to India via sea when she was found and killed!

The Middle Age

• There are a couple of iron pillars in India which contain inscriptions from rulesr from across centuries. The one in Allahabad has inscriptions from Ashoka, Samudragupta and Jehangir and the one in Junagarh has inscriptions from Ashoka, Rudradaman I and Skandagupta, all on the same pillar! I have visited both these places and no one even mentioned these antiquities!
• Around the Mughal times, trade and travel in India stagnated. Before that, Indians were outward looking, scholars used to travel to South East Asia etc. but it all stagnated around this time, when it started being considered unlucky to travel across the seas

The European Age

• The world maps of Europe showed Indian Ocean to be a landlocked ocean and hence prevented Europeans from discovering India for a long time. In fact an English writer wrote a highly popular book called 'Travels' where he detailed his imaginary travels to India, Sumatra etc and even mentioned that India was ruled by a Christian king called Preston John. In fact, when Vasco Da Gama reached India, he was expecting to see an India full of christians!!
• The Pope divided the world (or would be colonies) into the Portuguese and Spanish sphere of influence in the beginning itself to prevent conflict but of course other countries got in and spoilt the whole plan :)
• The Portuguese controlled trade around the world with an iron fist. They were very ruthless in comparison and were the last ones to leave their colonies (Goa is testament to that!)
• Chowringee Lane in Calcutta was named after a hermit who used to live here before the British rule. Of course, the street's name was changed to Jawaharlal Nehru road in 1980 :)
• Indians never really mapped their country or the seas around (or penned down their history), ever! Creating a map of India was a huge task and the British spent 60 years detailing it all out! George Everest was responsible for half of this work, hence the name Everest :)

The Modern Age

• Lions and tigers roamed across the sub-continent for years. Of these, Indian lions survived to a degree, tigers bit more but cheetahs didn't :(
• Slums are not really a sign of urban decay but rather of energy and hope of developing a foothold into the urban landscape. It should not be looked at as negatively as it is
• Chandigarh which was developed as a modern city failed to take off as a business centre, while an unplanned chaotic city like Gurgaon did, by itself! It kind of shows what the Indian preference is for ;-)
• There are 25-30 million Indian diaspora spread around the world

Hope you enjoyed reading these titbits!