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Journeying from the green, rain-soaked Kerala into the amphitheatre of the Sun, our traveller-journalist finds that there is no better metaphor than the desert to instill the lessons of life and death, love and hatred, thirst and water. From a single shower of rain which brings the gaaf tree back to life after a decade to the ever-shifting dunes of gold and thousand-year-old sand palaces, the mysterious poetry of the desert is everywhere on display, if one but has the eye and heart to see it. As the deserts of Nafud, Dahna and Rub’ al Khali in Arabia both embrace and trap the travellers, the outpouring of the landscape’s longing for rivers recalls a past filled with water. This narrative describes the history, prehistory, archaeology, legends, folklore and travails of the émigré Asian work force that tames the harsh desert as never before.

Contents: Introduction by P.J. Mathew. 1. Water war. 2. The Bedouin and the Gaaf tree. 3. Burn marks of death. 4. Cactuses drink moonlight. 5. Quivering ‘fossils’. 6. Mirage, mirage. 7. Madman of rub’ al khali. 8. Hoo Cho r’r’r’… 9. Blind Camel, enter not this garden. 10. On the Trail of Laila. 11. Apple Tree on Sinai Slopes. 12. Nails of the earth. 13. The hulls of history. 14. Footprints of civilizations. 15. Thirsty waterholes. 16. Necropolis. 17. People of ‘Daratt’ under the tree. 18. Heroines of the desert. 19. Snowfall turns camels into deer. 20. Textbooks of history. 21. River emptying into sand. 22. Paradise scattered. 23. Epilogue-life’s laboratory.