It is surprising to see a senior bureaucrat from the capital city of India capture the sprawling landscapes spilling into the sea, touching the changing colours and spirit of the skies of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, just eighteen months into his stint. Only a person of an artistic nature could have captured such magic every day.
The title of this well-researched and exquisitely illustrated study of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a poetic reference to the conjunction of India’s peerlessly beautiful outlying isles and their unfortunate association with a notorious British penal settlement that confined but did not break the spirit of India’s freedom fighters. The Cellular Jail was opened in 1896 as a state-of-the-art penitentiary designed to demoralize the increasing number of Indian Home Rule activists such as the Maratha revolutionary Veer Savarkar who re-identified the sepoy mutiny as India’s “First War of Independence”. The book’s startling photographs reveal how Andaman and Nicobar’s natural beauty has overcome the dark colonial stain, and the sparkling turquoise has returned to host an abundance of brilliant marine life. ‘As an IAS officer acquainted with the islands’ administration, the author immaculately charts their colourful history which has seen Malaysian slave traders, Danish missionaries, British colonialists and Japanese imperialists come and go. He provides an authentic survey of the islands’ unique multicultural character that extends to the protection and welfare of the world’s oldest tribes. Against the “torture and tumult” of the past, this book celebrates India’s dazzling necklace of pristine forested islands, a paradise which most visitors are reluctant to leave.
Keshav Chandra’s survey of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a blend of visual delight and historical insight—everything that makes the place unique. [There is] never a dull moment in this chronicle of our most elusive twin islands. It testifies the author’s love for the place and the ocean.
Keshav Chandra has produced a deeply informative and richly illustrated tribute to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Their complex and disturbing history, as well as their ecological diversity, come alive through both text and photographs, celebrating the natural and cultural heritage of this beautiful archipelago. Deserves a place on every armchair traveller’s bookshelf!’
