Lakshadweep

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The least known of India's States and Union Territories, Lakshadweep is an archipelago of 12 atolls consisting of 36 coral islands. It is a tiny island territory, situated 250-500 kms south-west of the Kerala coast, a mere 32 sq kms in area with a population of more than fifty-one thousand. This detailed study gives a comprehensive account of the strategically situated territory. Besides describing its physical and natural characteristics, the book portrays the life of its colourful and simple people, the history of the island since 1500 B.C., and how modernism and change are fast overtaking this lesser known archipelago. While discussing the science of the coral reefs, the author acquaints the reader with the wide variety of marine life in the blue lagoons, the social and economic trends since the last hundred years as also the evolution of the political and administrative structure.

Omesh Saigal (b. 1941) is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, a well-known author and critic with several published works in English and Hindi to his credit. As an administrator in Lakshadweep from 1982 to 1985, Saigal had the opportunity of learning more about this land, its people and their culture. He has written and directed a short documentary film, "The Everlasting Now,' on this beautiful island territory. This apart, he has written several novels, articles, reviews and short stories.

It is over a decade and a half; yet Lakshadweep is so fresh in my mind that it is as if I am still posted there.

In the three years that I spent in Lakshadweep, I tried to understand it with my mind. I read, observed, wrote about, I took pictures, even made a documentary film. In the period since then I find that I have been able to deepen my understanding because I used my heart more than my mind. And the result has not just been many more articles, a book, two full fledged serials and couple of films but a rare feeling of upliftment and self realisation.

Some place grow on you, Tripura, where I was in the late sixties and early seventies, did on me. Many places haunt you, as does the house in the hills near Manali, now a forest dak bungalow, where I lived as a child when my father was the divisional forest officer.

But there are some places that possess you, grip your body and your mind. This is the way I feel about Lakshadweep and its people. More now, I must admit, than when I was posted there when the overwhelming problems of coping with the present clouded my understanding.

Lakshadweep is where I learnt photography (still); not just the art of it but the technique as well. Lakshadweep is where I self-taught to edit and direct films; and to do this, learnt the technique and art of film script writing. It is for the latter that I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to the land and people of Lakshadweep.