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Book Name:The Open Eyes-A Journey through Karnataka By Dom Moraes Illustrations By: Mario Miranda Publisher: Roli Books Pages: 127 Year 2005 Price: Rs.695 ISBN: 81-7436-404-8

I never met Dom Moraes, even though he was in and out of Kolkata several times, most recently to launch his last book. His father edited the Statesman and people knew him from that time on. Not that he ever hung around Kolkata often enough or came to lecture at my kind places, ones that were easily accessible after office, on days when I had the car. I ran into him in books, of course, poems and gossip columns. He was and remains the only Indian writer to have won the Hawthornden Prize. He is also probably the only Indian writer who confessed to acute writer's block, having had 'a dry spell' that lasted for 17 years. Years which he seems to have filled with romance and wanderings.

The stuff that legends are made on - a man married to a beauty who posed for every mainstream English painter including Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. A man who got up one morning, went out to buy cigarettes and never came back, or wrote to explain why. Henrietta was later to refer to him ambiguously as "that 24-hour poet". And she never recovered from those 24 hours, taking to drink and drugs to console herself.

Who decided to abandon England for India and married one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world, his old sweetheart Leela Naidu. An affair which caused more Page Three recriminations at a time when the concept of Page Three was relatively unknown. That affair ended equally mysteriously. 'But he was a fantasist, not to be believed or trusted.' Someone said. Others in England raved over his 'light brown beauty.' He was full of quotable quotes. His handshake he said, stretched all the way back to Shakespeare. Because he had shaken hands with T S Eliot who had shaken hands with Yeats who had shaken hands with Tennyson, who had -.you get the picture.

He died last June, just a year ago, of a tumour that he had christened Gorgi, and his companion Sarayu Srivasta arranged to have a book that he wrote in collaboration with Mario Miranda re-released on the occasion.

Called The Open Eyes, the book is a diary of wanderings around Karnataka, that combines wit, history and poetic observation. The story of Karnataka is told through the eyes of many different people in this book. Following the paths that these eyes see, Moraes’s personal experiences bring out the feel and smell of the place, but more, the hope that springs in all the inhabitants of Karnataka. Why Karnataka? Because his grandfather was an honoured engineer there, with his roots stretched deep into the ancient soil. And a Minister of State thought that it would make for a memorable tribute to his home state.

At one level the book is a history book told by a poet. So the rivers loop and whorl and have mellifluous names, names that are more appropriate to rivers than Thames and Hudson. The women are large eyed and heavy breasted with faces from temple sculptures. Dom tells the story of the State with the ease of a traveller who shifts between past and present. He begins with the eyes of a little tribal boy living 3000 years ago in a place that he did not know was called Karnataka.

There is occasionally a problem with getting a poet to write an official state text. The poetry and prose get tangled up and can sometime be remarkably self-conscious. Counterpointed by Mario’s well-known illustrations, the combination is unusual to say the least of it. Certainly striking. Tigers prowl like a constant thread through Karnataka. So do the immense eyes of the women and children. Karnataka is all about seeing and experiencing.

In between are refreshing stories like the one about Dom reviewing the girls at a school. He stands and takes the salute thinking that even in Vietnam he never did anything so absurd. And fiddles with his sunglasses so frantically that one lens falls out. The girls march past him and his one bare eye without a single giggle. Tipu Sultan, Belur scultpures and sausages, the book captures them warts and all.

And this excerpt from The Open Eyes: A Journey Through Karnataka "We drove through darkness to Karwar. ..

"Next day, since Karwar is only a few miles from Goa, I debated on whether I should send the driver across the border to collect some of the highly-spiced Goan sausages which I love. 'Why, why, what, sir,' inquired Mr. Bellary, my publicity officer from Belgaum, having inspected my breakfast, 'are not your eggs in condition?' I replied that my eggs were in fine condition. 'Why, sir,' inquired Mr. Bellary, 'you want saucy? Better you have fried eggs with omelettes. Omelettes are like saucies.' Before I could protest, I had omelette laid on the plate by my fried eggs. I had to eat it, Mr. Bellary beaming over me."

Dom’s eyes as Sarayu writes in the foreword, are shut. However they remain open forever in this journey through time.

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