The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Dehradun Kendra) is organising a reading by renowned English author Irvin Allan Sealy from his latest book 'The Small Wild Goose Pagoda' on February 15 at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH), Dehradun.
The reading will be followed by a panel discussion by well-known journalist Satish Jacob, Dr B K Joshi, Director of Doon library and Research Centre , and Arvindar Singh, freelance journalist and member of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Dehradun Kendra.
'The Small Wild Goose Pagoda', also called 'little Wild Goose Pagoda', is one of two significant pagodas in the city of Xi'an, China, the site of the old Han and Tang capital Chang'an.
The other notable pagoda is the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, originally built in 652 and restored in 704. The Small Wild Goose Pagoda was built between 707 and 709, during the Tang dynasty under Emperor Zhongzong ( 705-710).
Sealy's 'The Small Wild Goose Pagoda' is a natural and social history of 433 square yards of India. On this piece of land in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Sealy family have a small brick house with one and a half bedrooms, two and a half gardens, front, back and side, an old Fiat, an internet link with the world, and a terrace roof for walking under the sky.
Here, surrounded by trees litchi, rosewood, magnolia, silk cotton, jacaranda, pear, a profusely flowering peach tree, Irwin Allan Sealy looks back on his life as he turns 60 and goes from householder to forest dweller (the two middle stages in the life of a man - as set out in the Indian philosophy).
lending depth and texture to a narrative written in the form of an almanack is his experience of building, after a visit to China, a pagoda on his portico. As the pagoda takes shape we are introduced to a host of extraordinary characters who drift in and out of the 433 square yards.
In his first book in a decade, the award winning novelist and travel writer gives us an evocative account of small town life. At the same time, it is an extraordinary meditation on work, family history, nature, Indian society and the passage of time.
Irwin Allan Sealy was born in Allahabad in 1951 and educated in lucknow and Delhi. He is the author of 'The Trotternama'; 'The Everest Hotel' and 'The Brainfever Bird' as well as a travelogue, 'From Yukon to Yucatan,' among other works. He has made the Doon Valley his home. He has received the Sahitya Academy Award and the Padma Shri. His novel 'The Everest Hotel' was short-listed for the Booker Prize.