Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

Pub. Date: March 2008
List Price: $24

I first chanced upon Pico Iyer’s name and ‘Video Nights in Kathmandu’ at Hatchards on Piccadilly. The name intrigued me – Iyer I could associate with – but not Pico. I guess I picked up the book as much for the name ‘Pico’ as its title. It was a fun book – I enjoyed it – smart words in crisp English!

This spring I read ‘The Open Road’ – haunting, engaging, and subtle – a complex Pinot Noir compared to the youthful Beaujolais ‘VNK’.

A travel writer, a journalist, a novelist, an essayist – Pico Iyer has evolved in this order – as a thought-provoking writer. ‘The Open Road’ is about the 14^th Dalai Lama – and his global journey. It is not just a biography – it is Pico Iyer in his journalistic element. This time it is not smart words but smart thoughts and ideas that captivate the reader – both Dalai Lama’s and Iyer’s – a very heady pairing.

Iyer has de-layered the Dalai Lama’s persona and mind and handled his subject with great sensitivity, intelligence, and more importantly, integrity. He introduces us to Dalai Lama the Mystery, the Monk, the Globalist (not in terms of global marketplaces but inner and true globalism), the Scientist, the Politician, the Leader, the Traditionalist, and the Realist. Iyer’s elegant prose is infused with his keen observations on Dalai Lama and those around him. "I was intrigued by the quiet revolution he was promulgating, challenging us to see politics, globalism, celebrity itself, in a larger and more spacious light, and I was interested to examine all the challenges and questions his experiments entailed", says Iyer, who has known the Dalai Lama for more than thirty years – and maintained an ongoing dialogue with him throughout. The Dalai Lama’s humane side is common knowledge but his human and private face is what Iyer has written about – the paradoxes that define him. His Holiness has a doctorate in metaphysics and is known to keep a plastic model of the human brain on his desk, with labelled and detachable parts – and is also steeped in religious rites. He meditates for hours during the course of a day and urges forbearance toward the Chinese and is intrigued by technology.

The book keeps the reader riveted and absorbed as Iyer, throughout the text, shares the essence of his experiences acquired through his global travels and time spent with His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama.

A highly readable book – engaging, eloquent and reflective.

Star rating: Five (highest)

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