_The Indian Equator: Mark Twain's India Revisited_. By Ian Strathcarron.
Dover Publications, 2013. Pp. 226. Paperback. ISBN 978-0486-49110-3. $14.95.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by Martin Zehr

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


_The Indian Equator: Mark Twain's India Revisited_ is not, strictly
speaking, a sequel to Strathcarron's book, _Innocence and War: Mark Twain's
Holy Land Revisited_, but, from a stylistic and thematic standpoint, the
reader could be forgiven for thinking of this book as "deja vu all over
again." In the earlier book, Strathcarron set out to follow the route Twain
took when he traveled with the "innocent" American tourists through Europe
and the Holy Land, the "great pleasure excursion" that was the basis for his
first best-selling work, _The Innocents Abroad_. For _The Indian Equator:
Mark Twain's India Revisited_, Strathcarron applies the same strategy,
mimicking the 1896 trip taken across India with Livy, Clara, and his tour
manager, Carlyle G. Smythe, the trip that would constitute the basis for the
largest section of _Following the Equator_. As in the first book,
Strathcarron is obsessive in the detail to which he attempts to follow the
route of the Twain party, seeking out the sights Twain described, the train
routes they followed, and, where possible, the hotels they stayed in and the
places where Twain gave the lectures that paid off his debts after the
collapse of his Webster and Company publishing house. His determination to
replicate Twain's 1896 trip includes comic touches, e.g., renaming his
Indian guide Sita, after a Hindu goddess, an ironic tribute to Twain's
substitution of the unpronounceable name of his own guide with the more
accessible (especially for Twain) moniker, Satan.

The route followed in the "Strathcarron Re-Tour" replicates, as closely as
possible given practical and political obstacles, the route of the Twain
party through the India of the Raj era, the period of British domination
between the Sepoy uprising of 1857 and the partition and independence of
modern India in 1947. It includes the cities of Bombay (Mumbai), Poona,
Baroda, Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta (Kolkata), Darjeeling, Muzaffarpur,
Lucknow, Cawnpore (Kanpur), Agra, Jaipur, Delhi and Lahore and Rawalpindi,
the latter two in modern-day Pakistan, necessitating navigation through a
bureaucratic nightmare Twain likely never encountered. This is a journey
that Twain, with Clara, Livy, and his acquired agent for the trip, Smythe,
as well as Satan, covered in a span of two-and-a-half months, a reminder
that, despite his then six-decade cigar-smoking history, Twain was still up
to the strenuous requirements of world travel when circumstances, i.e., the
self-imposed moral necessity of paying his creditors, demanded it.

Twain had ample opportunity to record his travel observations in the course
of his India itinerary, since his speaking obligations consisted of
delivering variants of the "At Home" lecture he had been giving in the
preceding U.S., Canadian, New Zealand and Australian legs of his tour. From
the start, Twain was entranced by his encounter with Bombay, which he
described as "A bewitching place, a bewildering place, an enchanting
place"--a judgment quoted by Strathcarron, who is in apparent agreement more
than a century later. An encounter Twain likely could not have enjoyed
anywhere else in his world, with one of India's most revered gurus, prompted
Twain to write that "We got along very well together, and I found him a most
pleasant and friendly deity. Meeting him was a strange sensation, and
thrilling. I wish I could feel it stream through my veins again."
Strathcarron, as far as can be known from his account, did not enjoy a
similar experience, but nonetheless, like Twain, thought it important to
learn something about "that mainstay of Indian Life," Hinduism. His
digression on the subject of Hinduism is useful for its insight into the
undefinable array of ideas, gods and practices which somehow bind the
nation's 1.2 billion inhabitants.

Population, and crowding, are aspects of India, then and now, which figure
prominently in the experiences of the Twain entourage and Strathcarron's
party of three. As Strathcarron notes, however, given the estimated
population of about 150 million in Twain's era, and an eightfold increase
since then, Twain's experience of crowding must have been decidedly
different. Accompanying the population explosion is a concomitant increase
in congestion and noise pollution that presents a challenge to any but the
most determined modern-day traveler. Other changes include the deterioration
encountered by Strathcarron with depressing frequency when he locates the
site of a Twain visit. In Baroda, on reaching the guest house of the
Maharaja of Gwaekor, where the Twain party stayed, Strathcarron notes that
"the solidly cubed eight-room guesthouse has fallen on hard times, being a
crumbling squat for the lowest castes, feral dogs and listless--if still
holy--cows" (p.35).

There are, however, many sights common to both travelers, including the air
and water pollution, the dramatic disparity between the rich and poor
classes living in close proximity, and the packs of freely-roaming monkeys.
The caste system which was entrenched in Twain's time is no less evident in
Strathcarron's India, underscored in dramatic fashion by the cremation ghats
witnessed by both Twain and Strathcarron on the banks of the Ganges in
Benares. The extraordinary sight of burning bodies in open sight was
arresting to both travelers, who stopped at the Manikarnika Ghat, described
by Strathcarron as "the most auspicious place for rich or high-caste Hindus
to be sent on their way to the next incarnation" (p.74). Strathcarron then
digresses into a detailed discussion of the caste-driven differences between
"A-level" and "C-level" cremations which concludes with the fate of the
"D-listers" who don't warrant, and can't afford, cremation, but are instead
"soaked and drowned into the next life (p.85)" at the Harishchandra Ghat, a
spectacle witnessed by Strathcarron and Twain.

Scattered throughout the book are references and asides relating to the
Sepoy uprising against the British in 1857 and its brutal suppression. These
discussions serve to re-create the context in which Twain would have
understood the India he observed, still under the rule of an imposed
bureaucracy and military presence that would last for another half century.

Twain's travels through the India of the Raj period are often punctuated
with visits to memorials to the British victors of the Sepoy uprising, e.g.,
the "Residency" complex in Lucknow in which British soldiers and their
families endured a siege lasting four-and-a-half months until saved by the
arrival of outside relief. Strathcarron underscores, through reliance on
Twain's own descriptions of these sites and his version of the then recent
history, Twain's strong Anglophile leanings and his tendency to view the
Indians as beneficiaries of the Empire. Having the obvious benefit of
hindsight, Strathcarron is not convinced by Twain's argument that the Raj
was, relatively speaking, less oppressive than the rule of the East India
Company it replaced, but the discussion is a reminder that the
anti-imperialism for which Twain would become known a scant few years later,
especially in such writings as "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," was not,
at least in 1896, all-encompassing.

Strathcarron's digressions are critical for an understanding of the cultural
and historical forces with which Twain was either familiar or made aware of
in the course of his itinerary. In addition, as an added bonus, his
digressions regarding the pitfalls of travel in today's India are of
consequential value to the reader who wishes to tackle the challenges
inherent in traversing the country. From eating, tipping, and proper temple
protocol, as well as the pre-eminent requirements of successful travel in
India, adaptability and patience, Strathcarron's book is a primer for the
prospective traveler in this exotic, but demanding, country. For matters as
mundane as city transport, for example, Strathcarron describes a useful
method for using the tides of foot and motor traffic to accomplish the
otherwise daunting task of crossing a street and, be forewarned, when your
turn comes, an ample supply of earplugs is an absolute necessity. Since
authenticity was one of Strathcarron's goals, his sacrifice, in his reliance
on rail transport, even when unnecessary, is salutary, although, by his own
account, required the acquisition of an ability to utilize his elbows likely
unnecessary for Twain, not to mention Clara and Livy. His advice is
experienced-based, without the taint of pedantry, and is often applicable to
specific venues, such as Kolkata (Calcutta):

"Kolkata is not an early riser so the sightseer or history hound has a
normally-populated city to explore until about 10:30 a.m. when the working
day starts. After that you have to take your chances with the broad masses
en masse, and boy, are they broad and en masse. There isn't one square piece
of sidewalk that isn't being slept on by night or sold from by day--or used
by rushing coolies with enormous bundles on their heads" (p. 114).

_The Indian Equator_ is bookended with clippings from contemporary editions
of _The New York Times_ which provide the context for Twain's 1896
trip--first, accounts regarding the debts he had accumulated with the
collapse of his publishing house and, finally, the successful payment of his
indebtedness following the equally successful journey and lecture tour.
Throughout the book are extended sections of Twain's observations from
_Following the Equator_. The illustrations are primarily contemporary
black-and-white photographs taken by Strathcarron's spouse, Gillian, with a
sprinkling of reproduced drawings from the original 1897 edition of
_Following the Equator_. There is no bibliography and no section of
endnotes, only scattered explanatory footnotes in the body of the
manuscript.

Strathcarron's research for this "Re-Tour" is implicit. This research is
quite evident in nearly every site visited by Strathcarron, when he finds
that library curators and bureaucrats alike are blissfully unaware of
Twain's visit to their city and require his assistance to locate ancient
hotels or public speaking venues.

Strathcarron's second effort at following in Twain's footsteps ultimately
suffers by comparison with his first, for obvious reasons. In _Mark Twain's
Holy Land Revisited_, Strathcarron's platform was not only Twain's
itinerary, but Twain's frequent caustic commentary on the fawning attitudes
of the travelers to Old World shams and the striking differences he
frequently encountered between the myth and reality of the venerated shrines
of the Holy Land. Twain also utilized comic relief in the form of the
foibles of the _Quaker City_ retinue, including such characters as Bloodgood
Cutter, the "Poet Lariat" of the group, and, not surprisingly, himself, as
the embarrassed observer of the Parisian "can-can" who placed a hand over
his eyes, but spread his fingers apart. These elements were missing from
Twain's India journey. Thus, Strathcarron's task in the present book is
hampered from the start, often confined to a literal stepping in Twain's
footsteps accompanied by a discourse on the history of a particular site and
a detailed description of its present state of decay and neglect.
Nonetheless, those who have read _Following the Equator_ can profit from
Strathcarron's contrasts and comparisons of past and present and his
detailed discussion of the political, economic and religious strains that
characterized the sprawling, densely-populated India of the Raj, and the
sprawling, densely-populated India in its present-day independent era,
smaller in territory following the division between Hindu India and Islamic
Pakistan. In a section of _Following the Equator_ quoted by Strathcarron,
Twain observes "You soon realize that India is not beautiful; still there is
an enchantment about it that is beguiling, and which does not pall. You
cannot tell just what it is that makes the spell, perhaps, but you feel it
and confess it, nevertheless."  _The Indian Equator: Mark Twain's India
Revisited_ reinforces the fact that Twain's assessment remains valid for the
twenty-first century.