The Two Wanderers

byBappaditya Chakravarty

A ninth-century Viking and a Nalanda scholar converge in Tibet in a dual adventure about violence, learning, and what gives life meaning.

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Overview

In the ninth century, two men set out from opposite ends of the known world. Sriverma, a scholar-soldier trained at Nalanda, leaves Kanyakubja searching for something beyond learning and warfare. Snorre, a Viking warrior entangled in the politics of the Pechenegs on the Eastern Steppe, is trying to find a way out of a life defined by raids and killing. The logic of their separate journeys — across Central Asia, through the courts of merchants and monks, into the contested highlands of Tibet — brings them together in circumstances neither anticipated.

Bappaditya Chakravarty manages an unusually large cast across two parallel narratives, keeping the Viking north and the Indian subcontinent in tension before the stories converge. The Tibetan sections — involving rival princes, the destruction of Buddhist manuscripts, Nechung Gompa, and a politics of succession — form the centrepiece of the book's second half and give it a complexity beyond the adventure genre.

At its core, The Two Wanderers is about what a man of violence and a man of learning discover they have in common when the world strips them of their usual roles.

Contents

PART- 1

 

Chapter 1 

Snorre – Snorre the Unruly, a Viking 

Asa – Snorre’s mother 

Bjorn – Snorre’s brother 

Torgunn – Bjorn’s wife 

Ulf the Greyhound – a famous Viking warrior who led raids into England.  Also known as Ulf of Borresta. He was a famous Runemaster also 

Svein Gaptooth – also a famous Viking warrior. Not to be confused with  Svein Forkbeard, who conquered England 

Burya – son of Chief Artiga of the Kyla Pechenegs 

Artiga – the Chief of the Kyla Pecheneg tribe who gives an assignment to  Snorre 

Rybor – a rogue of the Uze tribe, killed by Snorre 

Chapter 2 

Sriverma – scholar, soldier and traveller 

Charushila – a lady of Kanyakubja who takes Sriverma under her wing Shresthi Virbhadra – her husband

12 The Two Wanderers 

Mallarjun – an Army Captain and veteran soldier 

Acharya Prabuddha – a sage and a teacher 

Chapter 3 

Erga – a Pecheneg soldier who later turns rogue 

Ishmail – a merchant 

Abu, Jamil, Ibn Salat – companion merchants of Ishmail Lyrga – initially, Snorre’s deputy, and later, boon companion Zyov – another of Snorre’s small band of faithfuls 

Martya – member of Snorre’s band 

Prince Kurya – Pecheneg chief 

Aziz Beg – Aide to Karim Khan Khanid, Governor of Kashgar 

Chapter 4 

Tribikram – son of Shresthi Gopaldas of Hansi 

Padmalobha – Tribikram’s wife 

Shresthi Gopaldas – a rich merchant and financier of Hansi 

Chapter 5 

Rabten Lama – a monk belonging to Nechung Gompa, who is charged  with recovering copies of sacred books and manuscripts destroyed in the  pogrom against Buddhists in Tibet 

Prince Ösung – Prince of Tibet, and successor to the throne 

Prince Ytride – Prince of Tibet and aspirant to the throne. Brother of  Prince Osung 

Saif – a muleteer, and part of Sriverma’s retinue 

Tsering – a Tibetan guide searching for his family 

Kuban – another muleteer

 

PART - 2 

Chapter 8 

Tsewang Lama – Tibetan mystic and Sriverma’s Guru 

Chapter 10 

Chö-jor Lama – Abbot of Ritugembi Gompa and a mystic 

Pema – Daughter of Lord Wangmo, a noble high up in the court of Prince  Ytride 

Chapter 12 

Tokmeh – Captain of the bodyguard of Lady Pema 

Tsehten and Puntsok – bodyguards 

Kelsong – Lady Pema’s handmaiden 

Tenzin Lama – Chief Lama of the Monastery of Teknang (Teknang  Gompa) 

Chapter 13 

Trinleh Lama – chief of the Nechung Gompa 

Wangmo – a noble, father of Lady Pema. An evil man 

Dargyeh – Captain of Wangmo’s guards, who later switches sides 

Chapter 14 

Rinchen Lama – spiritual adviser to Lady Pema and the go-between with  Lord Wengbo 

Wengbo – a great noble high up in the court of Prince Ösung.  Kūnchen – Wengbo’s adviser 

Chapter 15 

Jinpoh Lama – mystic, and senior Lama of Samye Gompa

14 The Two Wanderers 

Chapter 18 

Joongneh – shaman of Lord Wangmo 

Karmeh – chamberlain of Lord Wangmo 

Tsehten – a noble in the court of Prince Ytride. Pema had been promised  to his son 

Chapter 19 

Yangkey – minister in the court of Prince Ytride 

Norgay – adviser to Lord Yangkey 

Chapter 20 

Rigzin – a warlord 

Chapter 23 

Adirath aka Jaipal – son of Charushila and Virbhadra 

Prabahan – Captain of Police 

Srimala – A girl who Sriverma proposes to marry, but is killed due to the  miscarriage of Sriverma’s plans 

Chapter 24 

Oleg the Seer – adventurer and usurper of the throne of Kiev 

Author

Bappaditya Chakravarty photo
Bappaditya Chakravarty

Born in 1951, Bappaditya Chakravarty was educated at Delhi University and at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. After a working life that saw him journey from a Faculty position in IIM Calcutta to Director of one of the premier Management Institutes in the country, and ending as Director in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, he joined the World Bank as a consultant, ending up as the Task Team Leader for a large education project in Afghanistan. In between, he also worked at a couple of PSUs. He spent more than two decades in the field of education and a total of fifteen years plus in Development Management and Institutional Development. He has worked in many countries as an individual consultant and on behalf of the World Bank, from the West coast of Africa to the Southeast of Asia. The idea of writing a book first came to him when he was posted in Goa as Director (Planning) of the Mormugao Port Trust. While touring North Goa, he discovered ruins of mining machinery in the jungles. Much later, it gave birth to a thriller in Bengali that was published in 2012, and which has now been comprehensively revised and will shortly be published in English. Having published three thrillers in Bengali, and one in English, and two historical fictions in English, he now considers himself a storyteller and has settled down to writing after more than two decades of traipsing around the globe. He has published around forty articles in Bengali, many of them based on his personal experience in development management. Bappaditya Chakravarty lives with his wife-a Danish Diplomat - and their two rescued cats, switching between New Delhi, Rishikesh, Bishkek, and Europe.

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