lukebrown

a regular writer and co-founder of Polo's Bastards Adventure Travel.

Book Review: “The Great Game” by Peter Hopkirk

(Oxford University Press – 562 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown Posted: 15 September, 2003 Although the phrase “The Great Game” was immortalised in Rudyard Kipling’s turn of the century adventure novel, Kim, it originated decades earlier, its source Captain Arthur Conolly, one if its early players. The phrase refers to that period in Central Asian…

Book Review: “See No Evil” by Robert Baer

(Crown Publishers – 284 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown The momentous failure of intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA, to prevent the horrors of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon is obvious, certainly with the benefit of hindsight. For Robert Baer, an ex-CIA field officer in its Directorate…

Book Review: “Karma Cola” by Gita Mehta

(Penguin – 193 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown Sometimes a book is published that is virtually unreviewable. Not because it is a mess, but rather because one can not do it justice. Published in 1979 and still being reprinted, Karma Cola is one such work. Recommended to me by someone who had just left India,…

Insults in Pakistan

A particularly contentious insult utilised occasionally by some Pathan people, when challenged or insulted, is to point to one’s groin and invite them to “take it”. It is only used rarely, usually when the circumstances are heated and one is willing to back up the challenge, sometimes with their own life. An argument once broke…

Azad Jammu and Kashmir Interrupted

“Life is slow here,” remarked the thirty-something man next to me, as a cock crowed outside the door of the pharmacy of a friend of his we were in, a few kilometres from the centre of Muzaffarabad. A cow lazily walked by along the dusty path running parallel to the flowing Neelum river nearby, emphasising…

Book Review: “Shah of Shahs”

Ryszard Kapuscinski (Vintage Books – 152 pages) Reviewer – Luke Brown The reporter studies a photo of a group of men standing on a street in Teheran, waiting for a bus to arrive. Nothing really unusual at first glance; a typical scene full of weary and tired people, that could be of anywhere. Our reporter…