The Hindu - India's National Newspaper

The Hindu - India's National Newspaper

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

by Suguna Ramanathan

THREE CUPS OF TEA: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin; Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi -110017, India. Rps. 395.

Looking at the blurb and the “New York Times bestseller” tag and the legend on the cover saying that it was one man’s mission to promote peace, one school at a time, I said to myself “One of those works meant for the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books” and began to read, I am sorry to confess, with some degree of condescension. While that was not a wholly inaccurate assessment, I found I could not put it down.

The very first page took me in to the Himalayas; the ninth line was “At eye level, we soared past hanging green glaciers, splintering under a tropical sun.” From that moment I was caught.

Building Schools

This is a crisply written account of the mission of an American mountaineer, Greg Mortenson, who has set himself the task of building schools in very poor villages in the Karakoram Ranges in North Western Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan. Starting in 1993, he carries on, 9/11 notwithstanding, school after school; at last count, the number was over 50.

How does a society so alienated from the Muslim world throw up such a person? The son of missionaries in Tanzania, this man, who enters so effortlessly the world of ordinary poor people in those remote regions and, through relationships of affection and trust makes nonsense of the civilizations clash argument, sets an example of human kindness and concern as might make the angels weep for the rest of us.

Hearts and minds? Here is how they are won.

Mortenson lost his way in 1993 trying to get to the summit of K2, and wandered into the village of Korphe, near Skardu, in Baltistan, in what used to be called the North Western Frontier Province. The warm welcome he receives from the village headman is in sharp contrast with the bitter cold of the elements that lash the children who sit outdoors writing their letters in the mud.

He returns to America, and, having no funds of his own, makes desperate efforts to raise money, living in his battered car. The story that follows is one that tells of the money that came in from an industrialist who was once himself a climber; of the struggle to buy the building materials and get them transported to the mountain heights across perilous unfortified roads past Wazir tribesmen wielding AK47s, only to find when he reaches the place that the school cannot be built before a bridge is constructed across the icy Braldu river. He starts all over again. Finally, the school is built; the children learn. Then more villages, more schools.

The attacks of 9/11 complicate both his fundraising efforts in America (where he begins to receive hate mail), as well as his safety in the regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan (where he continues his work as if nothing has happened).

Tea diplomacy

The narrative shuttles between San Francisco and the North West Frontier Provinces as Mortenson crosses and re-crosses continents, gets married, has children, is kidnapped by Taliban militants, set free, cheated by some, and loved by all those for whom he works.

When at the end of the book, Jahan, first seen as a little girl and now an attractive young woman, has the courage to face a meeting full of men and declare her determination to learn health management so as to train other women, the measure of his success is clear.

Two points may be made about this book.

The first is that it is well written with an eye for the telling detail and dazzling image, and an ear for rhythm and sound. David Oliver Relin, the co-author, was formerly teacher at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and it shows.

The second point is this: how simple it is to enter the life of another people and be at one with them, and yet how impossible it seems unless one does it. Haji Ali, the “nurmadhar” (headman, elder) of Korphe village, tells him that he needs to sit down and drink three cups of tea with them, learn about them, be one of them, and then proceed. These are words that American policy-makers (and all over the world) would do well to follow. But, alas, the good we see and do not.

http://www.hindu.com/br/2007/10/16/stories/2007101650041500.htm

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