There is so much to write about Central Asia, a region so long ignored that even a dedicatedly dull writer would have a problem keeping out the diversity and colour of this massive, but sparsely populated chunk of the earth. But the region stretching is in the news now. Throw in Pakistan and India (Kashmir) to get the full picture. Mainly this is because of the huge reserves of oil and gas in the region and partly the fall-out of 9/11 and the war against Islamic fundamentalism.
What is called the Great Game, has begun once again and this is what the Australian writer Christopher Kremmer has done with The Carpet Wars: A Journey Across Islamic Heartlands (Harper Collins, in association with India Today, Rs 595).
Kremmer
