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Kishkindha, by Robert Turner

Published December 2005

ISBN 1 905315 05 8 • £9.99


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There’s a bizarre atmosphere, growing beguilingly familiar, amongst these rocks which bathe still hot in the moonlight. There’s such a weighty sense of gravity that even the sky seems to rest lower. The ghost world keeps its silence, and the law of the jungle shadows the superstitious children working in the fields. The carved gods have been deserted by history, but the mischievous monkey spirit lives on.

In June 1991 Robert Turner arrived at the ruined South Indian city of Vijayanagar, which lies in a bend of the Pampa river known as Kishkindha, the mythical Kingdom of the Monkeys and Bears from the epic love story of the Ramayana. His visa had expired, he had very little money and good reason not to return to the UK. He ended up staying for four years.

Robert has superbly documented the landscape, history, myths and people he encountered there, from the local Raja and a mad sadhu to a vengeful hunchback and a capable country harlot. Interspersed with the tales of Kishkindha is the astonishing story of how Bob came to be in India in the first place after a colonial childhood that lead to a youth detention centre; a three-year sentence in a Lebanese jail; and many other adventures besides, across Britain, Pakistan and China among others.

Intriguing, compelling and surprising – you will not read another travel biography like it. In Robert’s own words, “To err is human – and to get away with it is fun.”

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