From Southampton to Bombay

Gulshan Rai

India Book House Bombay, softcover, illustrated.

Undaunted by the disastrous end to their earlier voyage. Gulshan and Ujwala Rai set forth to sail from England to Bombay in Jaykus II - ­determined and confident. Impediments are many and success is achieved only in the teeth of enormous disadvantages: a harrowing escape from a near collision with a barge and a nerve-racking passage through a dark tunnel; a shattering encounter with hostile thugs and utter despair on the breakdown of the electrical system in the yacht .....

Hope, nevertheless, spurs them on and the end of their quiest coin­cides with the marking of a new record in Indian sailing history­ - Gulshan and Ujwala are the first Indians to sail from England to India!

Based on notes from the author's logbooks with eight pages of cólour photographs, the narrative emerges as a unified artistic and emotional whole, transmuting into prose man's inextricable bond with the sea - its ebb and flow symbolic of life's struggles and excitement.