One of the finest writers of his generation' Financial Times
Jungle-nama is a wonderful illustrated verse adaptation of a fable from the Sundarbans, the legend of Bon Bibi, which lies at the heart of his novel Gun Island,
The Ganga, in her descent, or so the legends go
would've broken the Earth with the force of her flow,
It was Lord Shiva who safeguarded the world
by catching the cascade even as it unfurled,
With his ashen dreadlocks he restrained the current,
braiding its strands into a life-giving torrent,
Smooth flows the stream till it meets the Brahmaputra,
another braided child of the Himalaya,
This collision of waters sets the tresses free
they become a liquid net, joining shore and sea,
Thousands of islands rise from the rivers' rich silts,
crowned with forests of mangrove, rising on stilts,
This is the Sundarban, where great rivers give birth
to a vast jungle that joins Ocean and Earth,
