TRIPTIK, a Journey in the Land of the Gurus and Yonder, is the debut book by journalist, translator, and writer Luiz Fernando Brandão.
The work recounts the ocean crossing of the author, then 23, to the Middle East aboard a refrigerated freighter. His goal: to graduate from the world's oldest known organized center of Classical Yoga training, located in Mumbai, India, where he resided for six months. The story also relates some picturesque, at times almost fateful events that marked his overland passage from India to Europe and the period spent there.
"During all these years, I've tired of hearing from people close to me, and even from strangers with whom I've shared my adventures, that I should write it all down in a book. Until one wag - I don't really remember who - suggested that I had adventures enough in stock for three books. I sort of satisfied his suggestion and produced a book in three parts, a triptych: 'Aboard a star', 'In the home of Patanjali' and 'Overland'".
The story was reconstituted from a travel diary and a notepad, a photo album "and impressions engraved in mind and heart." TRIPTIK is an inspiring journey by Brandão, who with a light touch and good humor shares his search for spiritual experience through a narrative that is valuable for those interested in Yoga, professionals from the corporate world and all who wish to live more complete and better lives.