The Open Eyes: A Journey Through Karnataka

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He begins in the dense woods roamed by wild tigers and panthers. He begins with a little native boy whose large eyes open and see his changing country with mild curiosity and at times shocking fear. Dom Moraes borrows this pair of eyes to see his world the way he sees it, and then tell you a story. In this entertaining and witty mix of history, diary and the ramifications of the modern age the story of the land of Karnataka is told through the eyes of many people. Following the paths gazed by these eyes, Morae’s personal experiences bring out the feel and smell of the place, but more, the hope. Karnataka has layers of culture, civilization and history and it is this, the enthralling and enigmatic features of this ancient-modern state, that the author sets out to trace and move more through time than space. He tells the story with the ease of a preoccupied traveller who shifts between past and present because he believes they cannot be separate. Watching the roads and rivers that loop and whorl through the land, he travels through the rivers that flow constantly through the minds of its people. And more importantly, through his own. Until his eyes become a sum of theirs and of that little native boy’s when the beginning began.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dom Moraes

Dom Moraes was born in Bombay in 1938. In 1954, he met Stephen Spender and Karl Shapiro, both famous poets who edited literary magazines. Spender published his poems in Encounter and Shapiro in Poetry Chicago. At Oxford University he received criticism and praise from W.H. Auden and Allen Tate. Still an undergraduate, he published his first book of poetry, A Beginning, which was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Reviewing the book, Edwin Muir said that it â€˜had remarkable maturity and the promise of greatnessâ€™. After leaving Oxford, Dom became a well-known journalist and foreign correspondent. He covered the Eichmann trial, as well as wars in Algeria, Israel, and Vietnam. He traveled to some of the more remote and dangerous parts of the world. In later life he was employed as a literary consultant by the United Nations agency UNFPA. His early poetry showed a natural lyrical talent allied to precocious technical skill. As his perceptions deepened and his subject matter acquired more range, he developed a remarkable mastery over his art. He has published ten volumes of verse, two books of translation from Hebrew poetry, and over twenty works of prose. Dom Moraes lives in Mumbai.