India’s emergence as an economic power, coupled with the popularity of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” has made the ancient country, with its rich cultural and religious heritage, a renewed subject of American curiosity.
Putumayo, a company best known for world music, offers a coffee-table book that nicely introduces a broad view of the country through excellent photographs by veteran travel shooters Laurence Mouton and Sergio Ramazzotti.
Divided into nine chapters, the book takes some surprising byways.
The first chapter, “Indian Pink & Saffron Yellow,” explores the importance of color in traditional Indian culture. “The Tumult of the Towns” extols the energy of the country’s cities, but does not neglect to show children sleeping on sidewalks.
There are chapters on bazaars and markets, the tea economy, the lovely landscape, India’s amazingly diverse religiosity, the importance of water, and the country’s monumental architectural heritage.
A chapter on tea includes gorgeous photos of tea plantations, but also pictures of tea shops in the cities, where people would rather buy tea from street vendors than make it at home. The Indians prefer chai — a tea concoction cooked with milk, sugar and spices — and making it properly is a venerable skill.
Travel writer Catherine Bourzat tends toward the brief impressionistic essay, usually focusing on a single person.
The music CD that matches this book, sold separately for $15.99 and also called “India,” proves that pop music is just as vapid in Hindi as in English. This compilation highlights the country’s musical variety, from Bollywood tunes to acoustic, traditional and electronica, but too many of these tracks have the soulless sheen of cookie-cutter hits.
Some exceptions: the jazz- and folk-influenced tunes by Sanjay Divecha, Susheela Raman, or Deepak Ram. Two tracks are especially outstanding. Kiran Ahluwalia’s “Vo Kuch” sounds like a happy marriage of traditional Indian music and tango, while Rajeshwari Sachdev’s “Maaven Te Tiyaan” places traditional sounds in a pop context without sacrificing beauty or rhythmic complexity.
