Nothing prepared Murray Laurence for India when he first travelled through the country in the 1970s. His first impressions were of its ‘surpassing weirdness’ but it soon cast a spell on him, and for the next forty years he kept returning to India over and over again.
His early journeys in the crowded third-class compartments of slow trains or in rickety buses to obscure towns and villages in the great Indian hinterland often led to strange encounters and travel disasters. Honey-tongued tricksters assailed him, bizarre locals and foreigners tried to explain the country to him, pompous officials waylaid him with impenetrable assertions and mystifying rules, and a myriad other picaresque entanglements with outrageous characters ensured that every trip he made was memorable. In all the chaos and quirkiness that surrounded him, the one thing he could always count on was the spontaneous warmth and generosity of Indians which often revealed itself in surprising circumstances.
Closely observed, stylishly written, and very very funny, Subcontinental Drift is an unforgettable tribute to India and its people.
Murray Laurence is an Australian travel writer whose first overseas trip, to Indonesia, sparked a lifelong interest in Asia. His early journeys in India, and subsequent writing, reveal a traveller who is curious and open to any experience, a writer who is funny and sharp, and a country that is at once fascinating, baffling and unique. Laurence studied Asian politics and history at university; his further education was acquired on the road. He taught briefly in Australia, England and France before becoming involved in Australia’s international education sector in marketing, management and business development roles. He was one of the industry’s first marketers, taking Australian education throughout Asia and beyond, and travelled often to India in this capacity. More recently he has worked as a consultant and teacher in a management college in Kathmandu.
Murray Laurence’s articles have been published in newspapers and magazines, and in two collections, High Times in the Middle of Nowhere and Accidentally in Transit, where several of the stories in Subcontinental Drift previously appeared. He lives in Sydney with his wife Maureen, a willing participant in those early Indian journeys. They have two adult sons, Daniel and Andrei.
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