Manuel F. Medina
University of Louisville
Originally published in Al Día en América, Louisville, KY

[Spanish version]

A Ghost of Che - a writer in search of self-identity ("a writer trying to find himself")

The influence of El Che and his description of America have touched the lives of many people in the world, among whom we can now include Mauktik Kulkarni, a native of India and a resident of Louisville.  Inspired by the movie The Motorcycle Diaries by the Brazilian Walter Salles, Mauktik Kulkarni traveled to South America to duplicate the feat of El Che of traveling the Andes on a motorcycle.  Upon his return from his journey, he has written a memoir of his travels under the title A Ghost of Che:  A Motorcycle Ride Through Space, Time, Life and Love by iUniverse Books.   Kulkarni's book, like Che's book, reveals a narrator who travels to try to discover a new world filled with beauty, exuberance and exoticism and ends up finding himself.

The text fits within the long tradition of travelers who, motivated by their passage through America, have produced tales of their travels.  From the beginning, the encounters between the Europeans and the inhabitants of our continent have frequently given rise to formidable works of art and literature.  Christopher Columbus marveled at the beauty of our land, the beauty of our women and the heftiness of our men.  Reporters, successively dazzled with the beauty of the landscape, the advanced architecture and the organization of our governments, wrote fabulous works that we continue to read to try to decipher the mysteries and glories of the ancient pre-Columbian civilizations.

The Araucaniad elevates to a mythical level the indigenous group of inhabitants of present-day Chile who fought with all their force and could never be overthrown by the Spanish conquerors.  Centuries later, travelers armed with paintbrushes and canvases captured the beauty of America in their work.  Far fewer works have been written by Americas' own inhabitants.  For example, there is the text of Galeano that describes the history of the continent, contextualizing its creation from a perspective that includes our ancestors.  Pablo Neruda wrote an ode to the beauty of America and its people in Canto General (General Song).  But there are not many more.  For that reason, the reflections of Ernesto Guevara, better known as "El Che," draws so much attention of readers who recently gained access to the text in 2004 amidst pronounced controversy.  The meditations, as arranged by editors many years after his death, use a plot structure that allows one to see the evolution of an innocent young medical student into a person who questions existing social injustices in places through which he travels on his motorcycle.  Che's text describes the beauty of the landscape alongside economic inequalities.  Walter Salles, the Brazilian director, was motivated by the book about El Che to produce the epic film that would earn him Oscar nominations. 

Kulkarni's book is presented in 19 chapters that describe his trip chronologically.  The reader departs with the narrator from Louisville and accompanies him on his route, which takes him from Peru, through Argentina and Chile, on his return through Peru and eventually on his return to Louisville, Kentucky.  However, the human side of the story that occurs with the narrator, in fact the most outstanding part of the story, does not follow as linear a path as the trip on which Kulkarni embarks through the areas of South America.  In fact, what stands out most in the text is the mastery of narration that catches the reader from the first page and never lets go.  One continues reading because one wants to (needs to, in fact) know what will happen next.  The plot contrasts the trip through geographic points, the ponderings and reflections of Mauktik along his trip and his retrospective vision of his life.  The result is fascinating.  All of it awakens our attention. 

His way of telling the story emulates the method of other journalists in that at the beginning of the narration, they tell the story chronologically through their outsider perspective, completely alien to the world they encounter, and they go along discovering.  But eventually they change as they understand the culture and begin to feel or become part of it.  Kulkarni bounds like a complete outsider who comes with the hope of covering great distances with the speed that one expects if he is used to traveling highways in developed countries where one can easily calculate the time it will take to pass a set number of kilometers.  The narrator arrives in Peru and immediately discovers that he will need to recalculate his careful plans because of the reality of Latin America, in all senses, that things are far apart, as one who resides in the United States comes to realize, even if he lived in India. 

The text greatly benefits from the academic training of the narrator, who has degrees in engineering, biophysics and neurology, because it permits a thorough attention to detail.  Often, he describes the landscape, his own state of mind and the state of mind of the people who inhabit the world he visits.  This detail allows access to the beings that inhabit the marvelous landscape of the Andes or the desert.  We understand them as real people of flesh and bone filled with dreams, ideas and struggles.  The warmth of the people in the area affects Kulkarni so much that he constantly mentions how life among the inhabitants of this area of the world help him to feel alive and how to live:  “Having spent twenty-eight years acquiring degrees, I had learned a lot about how machines and brains work.  But how does life work?  Taking a time-out of my robotic life was helping me understand that.  It was my personal evolution. . . . my aimless wandering and bumping into strangers was helping me become a better human being.  (41)”.  The book turns into an account of stories of friendship based on acts of true altruism.  People that probably will never see each other again help each other without expecting any other reward than being able to help one's neighbor.

The book is a cultural/anthropological study that permits us access to the perspective of a person coming from another culture disparate from that of Latin America, a non-North American vision of our people and our customs.  What's fascinating is that the narrator does not speak Spanish fluently; a reader that has a command of both languages quickly notes the linguistic errors.  However, one immediately recognizes that the value and purpose of the book goes far beyond linguistic conventions.  A Ghost of Che explores the human condition, as told by a narrator who travels thousands of kilometers in search of the unknown and who ends up finding himself; in the process, he discovers the goodness of people.  Probably, the best tribute that one could make to the book would be to say that the reader wants to embark on a similar journey after reading it.