Customer Reviews

The Search for the Pink-headed Duck

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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A goofy book that would do the good Doktor proud with its gonzo traveling companions including ex-chefs for the governor of New York, now Hindu mystics, Kashmiri seperatists, and smugglers. Probably one of the last travel books to truely visit real unexplored territory. This book is a rollicking picaresque tale where the humor and liveliness of the people and country are vividly illustrated without an underlying self-discovery subtext. Not neccessarily a Pulitzer winner, but a great time, like a good Bond movie

Bird watcher Rory Nugent one day heard about the pink-headed duck (_Rhodonessa caryophyllacea_), a species of waterfowl once known from northeastern India. Its Hindi name gulab-sir, the last confirmed sighting of it was in 1935 by a sportsman hunting in the Darbhanga area of Bihar. Never a particularly common animal, it only turned up occasionally during in the Raj in such places as the open markets of Gangtok, Sikkim. Never successfully bred in captivity despite several efforts, the bird was presumed to have gone extinct when most of its prime habitat - marshland around Calcutta - was destroyed though some naturalists held out hope that it may have lingered on in other areas of marsh in the Bengal plain and in northeast India (much of it which is fairly isolated and not well explored by naturalists).

Nugent became enamored with the animal, sold his apartment, put his belongings into storage, and set out to India to try and find the animal. The book he wrote, _The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck_, is his account of his many months of travels in northern and eastern India.

The first half of the book is about him essentially asking about the bird, sometimes in areas and with people whom he suspects have little likelihood of knowing anything about the animal. He spends weeks investigating the fowl markets of Calcutta, checking in every day to see if one has turned up or if anyone knows anything about the bird. Though greeted with suspicion at first, the locals soon warm up to him, calling him the Duck Man, and while providing little if any information do show him many kindnesses. Eventually though as word gets out he is offering a reward for any information on the bird - or the bird itself - a parade of painted birds (including some birds that weren't even ducks) were offered to him for sale. After buying a few so that he could clean them off and set them free, he realized that he had established a precedent he didn't care much for - that he would buy just about anything - and he moved on.

Journeying to the capital of New Delhi, he spent literally months trying to get permission to visit some of the most remote areas of northeastern India. At first treated as if he were some sort of spy - though not a very good one - he is later treated as a crazy man (officials incredulous that he is looking for a mere duck), though later many of the officials at the ministry warm to him. Though they deny his requests repeatedly, they are not unfriendly and give him advice on how to appeal each decision as it is made.

As the lengthy process to grant him approval winds its way through the labyrinth of bureaucracy, Nugent took two side trips that had really nothing to do with his quest. During the course of his travels he met several individuals who implored him as a visiting westerner and obviously a journalist of some type to expose to the world their various causes. One, a Buddhist named Ganju Lama convinced Nugent to journey with him to Tibet to verify Chinese wrong-doing, but through a series of misadventures he does not actually reach Tibet. Another he met introduced him to key leaders - indeed the key leader, Subash Ghising - of the Gurkha National Liberation Front, people who impress among Nugent the "rightness" of their cause of Gurkha autonomy if not independence. All of this was interesting and at times hilarious but had absolutely nothing to do with the pink-headed duck (making for good travel writing but not so good natural history writing).

The second half of the book I found a bit more interesting and a bit more on-topic with the book's title. Just by happenstance meeting in a bookstore in New Delhi a man named Shankar Barua who had roughly similar interests, the two hatch a scheme (after Nugent finally won approval for his journeys) to buy a boat and journey down the mighty Brahmaputra River, an immense 2,900 kilometer river that begins in Tibet and winds its way through India and Bangladesh on its way to the sea. They purchase a boat that Shakar names _Lahey-Lahey_ (Assamese for "Slowly, slowly"), a tiny boat that is ten feet at the waterline, twelve long overall and "at her beamiest" is thirty-inches. Though Nugent, a sailor, admires her lines, the boat continually under whelmed most of the locals who saw it.

This journey was Nugent's best chance to spot the duck, and in truth he described very briefly a lot of the wildlife he saw, which included crested serpent eagles, storks, ibises, bitterns, kingfishers, Ganges dolphins, mergansers, pariah kites, and even a rarely seen fishing cat (though a bit too briefly I thought and there are no pictures of these animals; lots of nice pictures instead of the people he met, boats he saw, and some of the buildings and other sites). He saw lots of ducks - including a great many pochards, a species of which does faintly resemble the pink-headed duck in having a red head - I don't think I am spoiling anything by saying Nugent does not get his bird.

He has lots of adventures during his long river journey as he is treated with awe, suspicion, humor, or respect at various times because he was a "firang" or foreigner (being the first white person many along the river had ever seen; many had wondered what was the matter with Nugent that made him looked the way he did). Nugent and Shakar, warned of pirates and crocodiles, found little of either but did have trouble with a whirlpool. They met a variety of interesting people, including Tantrists (who believe that sexual energy is the purest form of energy) and "bongs" (sailors from Bangladesh, not recorded a great deal of respect by the Indians).

An interesting book, sometimes very funny, fairly light on natural history though a good travel essay otherwise.

I got a signed copy of this book years ago from Rory's mum Polly. It was during my "not reading very much" phase and so read it piecemeal over 4 years! Didn't do it justice at all. Currently re-reading it and just can't put it down. Unfortunately, I've only 20 pages of this spectacularly intrepid adventure left. MY ADVICE - Read this book. If there is even an ounce of adventurous spirit in your blood, it will move you to seize it, pack your bags and head off in a bold search to realise your daring dreams. RORY - please please reprint "Drums Along the Congo". If it's anything like your adventure with Shankar and the GNLF it will move me to quit my job and take flight! SUMMARY - an unforgettable book, an unforgettable journey, a true inspiration.

I love travel and adventure stories about India so this book has been on my long list of reading goals. You don't have to be interested in ducks to appreciate the book. There is a lot more to the book than "just" the Pink-Headed Duck search. However, the adventures Rory Nugent encounters in pursuit of the duck are hilarious, scary and often a bit reckless. I was amazed at the chances he took to pursue the pink-duck obsession! Just the political climate he encountered would have been terrifying to me! The book definitely gives one a great story to pass on to friends over dinner.The first chapter in particular I will never forget as long as I live. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt!

It's a great shame that The Pink-Headed Duck is out of print. Anyone who is interested in vanished species (what attracted me in the first place), combined with heavy-duty hiking/traveling to find them, should find much in Nugent's forceful tale.

This is a fabulous book in the true sense of that word. In all senses of that word.

Rory Nugent plunges into the absurd to find the real, the deep, and the human. I am amazed at his courage in doing this. But for him, it's obviously easy . . . in fact, it's the only way.

The book is a gift to the rest of us to read (and re-read once a year, for me) and marvel at the absolute ease and modesty with which he reports what he finds. It is a pure language of discovery. And good humor. He is an eye, an ear, a mind, and a heart. And he has preserved for us what it was to be in that time, in that place, a person, unique and absorbed there.

The Search for the Pink Headed Duck is a masterpiece. . . out of print and nearly extinct, itself, through the humorous modesty of its title and premise.

Find it. Buy it. Read it.

With a title like this, I just had to pluck it out of the bargain bin.

Although a worthy travelogue into unfamiliar parts of India, Bhutan and neighboring areas, there seems to be something missing in the overall scheme of things, and it is not just the duck.

While attempting to track down the elusive bird, we do learn of the many myths, legends and cultures of these regions, which is enlightening.
Perhaps too much emphasis on the political. Expected more high adventure.