Children of Kali

It's a good read.

As many have pointed out it's a travel diary. A long one and a very interesting one. Though towards the end, as it happens with many books, Rushby just rushed through. Maybe he had a target number of pages in mind. He just went through the motions since in the beginning he had announced those chapters, chose places. Last quarter of the book felt unnecessarily haphazard.

It's not really a historical account or investigation. In fact far from it and while it disappointed in the beginning, I don't really mind it having finished the book. It's a travelogue with critical thoughts applied to things he has read, hears (a lot of that is just gossip and random blabbering from people and he admits that).

It's an unplanned, at his own pace whims kind of journey and he wrote about it.

Often he is quick to dismiss beliefs or even accepted narratives which are without evidence, countering with opinion which are - again - without evidence. I personally agreed with most of them but that's how they're done. Also, he doesn't seem to have consulted with anyone regarding spelling of names of people who he came across and just wrote it down the way a Brit in 1700s might have heard it written ot down.

For me one of the most fascinating part of the book remained author's equation, and later monologues and certain but subtle yearning and some kind of tension, with a fellow Brit he met in Jabalpur and explored the area around together with her. It lingers on the pages until the end without being talked about much. Or maybe I just read too much between the lines.

It's a good read if you're not looking for a history book, but a critical travelogue. Besides, I would appreciate the book just for the scenes author evokes by his description of the geographies of the places he visited, passed by, sometimes almost instantly pushing you to go and see those sparse places.