Beyond the Devil's Teeth

Shah Tahir

Description

Forty-five million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwanaland split apart. This created what are now known as India, Africa and South America. The huge landmass was named after the Gond people of India. Meeting a Gond storyteller on a visit to Bombay, Tahir Shah heard their ancient saga. He vowed to visit all three parts of Gondwanaland. As he travelled he met an extraordinary range of wanderers and expatriates, attended magical ceremonies and sought mythical treasures. Roughing it most of the way, Shah's expeditions move through sweltering India and Pakistan, Uganda and Rwanda, Kenya and Liberia, Brazil and finally Argentina's Patagonian glaciers.Roughing it for most of the journey, Shah shared his travels and his tales with a diverting mix of eccentric and entertaining characters, from Osman and Prideep, Bombay's answer to Laurel and Hardy, to Oswaldo Rodrigues Oswaldo, a well turned out Patagonian version of Danny De Vito.

Informations

• Publié par: Secretum Mundi
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783011117
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tahirshah.com
Also by Tahir Shah:
The Middle East Bedside Book
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Trail of Feathers
House of the Tiger King
In Search of King Solomon’s Mines
The Caliph’s House
In Arabian Nights
Travels With Myself
Timbuctoo
Scorpion Soup
Eye Spy
Casablanca Blues
BEYOND THE DEVIL’S TEETH
Journeys in Gondwanaland
TAHIR SHAH
SECRETUM MUNDI PUBLISHING
Secretum Mundi Publishing
3rd Floor 36 Langham Street London W1W 7AP United Kingdom
http://www.secretum-mundi.com/
[e-mail]
Cover design by www.designbliss.nl
Secretum Mundi edition, 2013.
First published by The Octagon Press Limited, 1995
© TAHIR SHAH
Tahir Shah asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
Visit the author’s web site at: http://www.tahirshah.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form of by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS
Also by Tahir Shah
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
PART ONE: NORTH GONDWANALAND
India and Pakistan
Chapter 1 The Sword of Shah Safi
Chapter 2 Servants with Children
Chapter 3 Too-Feee and Eunuchs
Chapter 4 Send the Fool Another Mile
Chapter 5 The Alchemist’s Assistant
Chapter 6 Abdul the Warrior
Chapter 7 Leaving the Nest
Chapter 8 Here Comes the King
PART TWO: CENTRAL GONDWANALAND
West and East Africa
Chapter 9 Rats Eating Cats
Chapter 10 My Name is Zakaria
Chapter 11 In Search of the Source
Chapter 12 Beowulf and Buckweed
PART THREE: WEST GONDWANALAND
South America
Chapter 13 Beyond the Devil’s Teeth
Chapter 14 Opera in the Jungle
Chapter 15 For the Need of a Thneed
Chapter 16 The Mountains of Blue Ice
Glossary
Tahirshah.com
PART ONE: NORTH GONDWANALAND
India and Pakistan
Chapter 1 The Sword of Shah Safi
Chapter 2 Servants with Children
Chapter 3 Too-Feee and Eunuchs
Chapter 4 Send the Fool Another Mile
Chapter 5 The Alchemist’s Assistant
Chapter 6 Abdul the Warrior
Chapter 7 Leaving the Nest
Chapter 8 Here Comes the King
FOREWORD
Breaking in as a travel writer is virtually impossible these days.
No publisher worth their salt will take an unsolicited manuscript, and getting a commission is almost out of the question if you haven’t been published before. It’s the crème de la crème of viscous circles.
The standard way to get a foot in the door is by getting an agent and relying on them to sweet talk the publisher into taking you on.
But getting an agent is no easy task in itself.
I wrote Beyond the Devil’s Teeth when I was twenty-three. I had no agent, no publisher, but I did have a raging enthusiasm to produce a book from adventures in India, Africa and South America.
I had been obsessed by the theme of Gondwanaland and by the Indian tribe of the Gonds, and had written a book based loosely on these themes.
The problem was that once I’d finished the book, no publisher would take it. I sent the manuscript to dozens of publishing houses – great and small – and received the standard letters of refusal.
Undeterred, I tried getting an agent.
There was still no luck. I was turned down by absolutely everyone, and became very depressed. I thought the book would never get in print, and I put it on a shelf for three years.
Then, one morning, I had an idea.
I decided to get a letter-heading printed, a fabulous one, with many colors and expensive-looking type. It announced the services of a media agency, under the direction of a fictitious chief agent, Mr. William Watkins.
Then I sent the manuscript to as many famous people I could think of, including former US Presidents, heads of companies, illustrious explorers and corporate visionaries. A small percentage of them wrote back with very good quotes for use in publicity. I printed these on large sheets of brown wrapping paper, wrapped manuscripts of Beyond the Devil’s Teeth inside, and sent them out again from my own literary agency – Worldwide Media.
Then I waited.
Days passed.
Then a week or two.
I was about to give up hope when, one afternoon, I was sitting in my studio flat in north London eating Campbell’s soup from a can, wondering how I would ever make enough money to travel again, when the telephone rang.
I picked up the receiver.
It was a big publisher calling from the top floor of a tall steel and glass building in the West End. A publisher had never called me before. The woman at the other end asked to be put through William Watkins, the chief agent. She obviously took me for a receptionist.
Thinking as fast as I could, I asked the lady to hold on while I put her through. Realising that an important chief agent would never be instantly available, I laid the receiver on a chair and took the time to finish my cold soup.
After three or four minutes, I picked it up, cleared my throat, and replied in the silky smooth obsequious voice I assumed my fictitious Mr. Watkins would have.
Yes, I confirmed, I was the agent for the up and coming genius Tahir Shah and, yes, Beyond the Devil’s Teeth was still available, although I said, lying, the work had sparked considerable interest in the literary establishment – in Britain and abroad.
The woman, a commissioning editor, said she very much wanted to meet Tahir Shah. She asked if I could find out when he was available.
"He is always available," I said quickly.
"Are you sure?" she replied.
"Quite certain."
" Always ?"
"Always!"
"But don’t you need to check with him?"
"I just have," I said coldly.
We made an appointment for the next afternoon. Before hanging up, the editor said that, as the agent, I was quite free to come along to the meeting as well.
"Madam," I retorted, "how very kind, but it may be rather difficult for me to attend as well as Mr. Shah."
Tahir Shah 2013
CHAPTER 1
The Sword of Shah Safi
In the Glens of Seven Mountains, Of the Twelve Hills in the Valleys, Is the mountain Lingawangad, Is the flowering tree Pahindi; In that desert so far out-spreading Twelve coss round arose no dwelling.
The Tale of Lingo , retold by J. Forsyth , The Highlands of Central India.
A maze of passageways stretched in all directions.
As I wandered from one cavern to the next, I could smell shish kebabs and coriander. Figures cloaked in desert dress murmured in Arabic from beneath their robes. Were they uneasy that I had discovered the source of their fortune?
One chamber was filled with ancient artefacts, dulled with age and guarded by an old man. He observed me carefully as I examined his hoard.
Hidden deep under a stack of papers and a torn shawl of silk I discovered the object. Only on picking it out did I realize something of the true significance of the find.
It was a sword of what seemed to be seventeenth century Persian design. Certainly worth twenty times the asking price. Holding the hilt, I slowly slid back the scabbard, to reveal an immaculate blade of watered steel, damascened in gold. Mughal, Indo-Islamic... Engraved in Arabic letters was the inscription of the master swordsmith Shah Safi: his signature, along with a kind of poetic spell, which read:
Chastise all evil with this fair blade And through its magic your glory shall never fade.
The guardian mumbled the price and, trembling slightly, I handed him a new note. Then, as I stood dazed before him, trying to come to terms with what I had bought, he said in a loud Cockney voice,
"’Ere d’you want a bag for that, mate?"
I had quite forgotten that this was London’s Bermondsey Market early on a Friday morning, and the treasure’s purveyor was a stallholder like any other.
He thrust my fifty-pound note under layers of wooly clothing and handed me a crumpled piece of wrapping paper.
As I was leaving, I looked back and nodded to my benefactor. He sat huddled against the cold under a sign, on which was scrawled in almost illegible lettering:
Thieves will be HURT.
* * *
Some weeks later I lounged at the back of a large London auction room. Against the low hum of conversation were the sounds of lot numbers being called, and a hammer clicking down at the end of each sale. My sword, labeled lot 732, waited to be sold.
As I sat there, thoroughly bored, I noticed a dagger, also numbered for the sale. The blade had been hammered from a coarse piece of iron: and its hilt reminded me of a weapon I had seen some time before. The design was typical of a people in Central India, a tribe for which I had an unusual fascination: the Gonds.
I thought back to a trip I had made to India some years before, and of a curious place in which I had found myself. One particular conversation had seemed important:
The waiter poured me a glass of straw-colored tea. He turned and went to lie in the shade, removing his artificial right leg, and using it as a pillow. Every few minutes the makeshift café under the railway bridge was swamped with steam and smoke from passing trains. I was in Gondia, Central India.
As the waiter snored loudly, a mysterious old man wrapped in a navy blue blanket came and sat next to me. His skin was dark, his face was square, and a clump of shiny black hair poked out from each ear. As I scratched away at a notepad, the man watched me in silence.
Observing my interest for his town as I looked around inquisitively, he said:
"It was once very different, you know."
"But it looks as though nothing’s changed here for centuries," I replied.
The old man chuckled, and the blanket rippled with