Nilima Sinha
LET’S GO ADVENTURING: TWENTY FIVE EXCITING TRIPS AROUND INDIA
By Supriya Sehgal. Illustration and design by Sharanya Kunnath
Hachette India Children’s Books, 2020, pp. 164, `299.00
THE RUNAWAY PEACOCK
By Niyatee Sharma. Illustrated by Shailja Jain Chougule
Tulika Publishers, Chennai, 2019, pp. 28, `175.00
Being homebound during lockdown, I looked forward to reading about travel and adventure. It would help get me out of the four walls of home and out into the beautiful, exciting world beyond. Therefore, I opened the book, Let’s Go Adventuring excitedly and am happy to say that it did not disappoint me.
The ‘twenty-five exciting trips around India’, as mentioned on the book’s cover, are indeed interesting, exotic, and succeed in gripping the reader’s attention. I turned the pages and read avidly until I reached the very end, without once putting the book down. eing homebound during lockdown, I looked forward to reading about travel and adventure. It would help get me out of the four walls of home and out into the beautiful, exciting world beyond. Therefore, I opened the book, Let’s Go Adventuring excitedly and am happy to say that it did not disappoint me.
The author has chosen well. The locales described by her belong to different regions of India, from the backwaters of Kerala to the snowy slopes of the Himalayas. Not just the scenes, the people belonging to those places, with their quirks and characteristics are also included. As mentioned in the introduction, the book includes ‘interesting people, ancient monuments and odd temples, history-rich mosques, gurdwaras and even cemeteries’.
In fact, it was a real pleasure to travel around with the author. The trip begins with the exciting boat race held every year at Alleppey in Kerala. The Nehru Trophy Snake Boat Race attracts thousands of people to Alleppey every August. The boats and the exciting race are described in detail. From there we accompany her all the way to Nagaland to learn about the Hornbill Festival celebrated every year in December. The travelogue goes on to describe various festivals, careers, monuments and scenic walks around our beautiful country.