The Living Mountain by Amitav Ghosh
THE LIVING MOUNTAIN, A Fable for Our Times, by Amitav Ghosh. Fourth Estate Books.
This is Ghosh, back at what he does so effectively: holding up a mirror to our acts of ecological destruction, telling us there`s still time to get our act together, to stop our marauding ways, to clean up after ourselves.
This is an IYKYK book. Because if you know you know. You know just what we are doing to our planet. You know that much of the damage wrought by us is irreparable. And you know that we need to spread the lesson of sustainable living, far and wide.
Using an allegory about a living mountain, the Mahaparbat in Nepal, and how over time it went from being a revered deity that no one set foot on to a peak to be summitted, a massif to be mined for its precious metals, a mountain to be verily desecrated, Ghosh takes us through a series of moral lessons in a well-thought-out manner. The mountain is the point of focus and we are shown the results of man`s insatiable greed, of man`s desire to control other men, of what happens when nature strikes back.
Just 35 pages long, with illustrations by Devangana Dash, in a twin set containing the English and Hindi versions, with options for an e-book and audio book, this fable is a treasure for the young and old alike. And yes, it never is too late to reform and redeem ourselves.
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Sheila Kumar • May 25, 2022