COFFEE TABLE

Crowds, colour and garam chai

The Indians: Interesting Aspects, Extraordinary Facets, Sumant Batra, Treepie, Rs. 8,500.

Sumant Batra’s recently released coffee table book reads like a banjara’s memoir — it’s eye-catching, experiential and feisty. A limited edition book, The Indians: Interesting Aspects, Extraordinary Facets, with a forward written by Cherie Blair and photography by Sonhal Nichani, is a book of riveting pictures, hectic pace and traditional focus. The proceeds from the sale of this vibrantly colourful book will go to the 500 Club, which, ironically, aids in bringing back colour and dignity to the lives of underprivileged widows and their families.

The passage through India takes you from the plains of Rajasthan to the peaks of Jammu and Kashmir. From the diversity of religion to the medley of foods. From coolies to the toothless smiles of old men. And from diehard habits such as drinking tea, eating paan and smoking hookah to the national obsession for cricket and Bollywood. Childhood games are well represented here with street children shown playing a game of marbles and flying kites.

This book draws out the fact that much of India does still live in its villages. It does underscore the point that for the average man on the street, life has not changed. It gets you to think about ageless Indian professions — The presswalla still exists, the golawalla still exists, the panwalla still exists. The colourful pictures speak to all the timeless qualities and customs of Indian life. Looking through the pages, this book could easily be representative of India in the 1950s or even earlier. In all the passing decades since Indian independence no profession has been retired, no service abrogated, no legitimate social custom met a time weary demise. And yet India has changed overtly and subtly, attempting redefinition and emerging as a country still in a state of flux. The story of the MNCs, call centre jobs and modern day white collar Indians is left untold. Nor does the book attempt to highlight the incongruity of contemporary and traditional at close quarters — the paanwalla side by side with a Baskin Robins ice cream shop, the vegetablewalla right by his new and serious competition — a Reliance Fresh retail chain store, or the barber taking calls on his cell phone.

The book conveys a carnival spirit, depicting restless crowds and much activity made more perceptible by its relentless use of primal colours. The colours red and orange are a recurrent theme in the book appearing in almost every other page, other restive colours, when they appear, come as a welcome relief.

Typographical errors abound — here’s a really garbled sentence on page 151 from “Saints and Sadhu’s” — There is a large presence of fakirs (or faqirs), who are a Sufi, especially one who performs feats of endurance or apparent magic. Another such sentence on page 67, titled “Garam Chai”: “Tea is not just the most popular drink for Indians in most parts of the country but an inseparable ritual in their daily.” Life got dropped from that last line. I have yet to figure out the following sentence on page 68: “The tea served in terracotta pots, called kullarhs, is the most detested variety”. Did they mean desired variety? Or this one on page 235: “A bus load of passengers travel in a vehicle much smaller than a bus luck”.

Articles are indiscriminately added or dropped all over the book, without thought to the rules of grammar. Makes you wonder if this Rs. 8000 something book was ever proof read.

Though it’s impossible to truly represent all of the spirit of India in a single book, the scope of topics is wide ranging and varied. Anyone who has had even a casual brush with India will recognise a reference point and make a connection. The one area missing in this representation is the Indian people’s preoccupation with music and dance.

What this book excels at doing is at drawing attention to the many faces of Indians. The book therefore is superior not in its story telling of what all these people do or how they live, but who they are. The stories of their wares and their unique situations pales in comparison to the openness of spirit, the candid expressions in their eyes and the experience in their weathered, wrinkled faces.

The outstanding photography throughout the book manages to bring out a deeper perception of quintessential Indian character. The panorama of photography is fascinating — the writing could do with much improvement.

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