Travel in India is a unique experience. The look of the countryside, the dress of the people, the crowded city streets with their signs in unknown scripts and their constantly changing smells, a cuisine of many delights where even the western food tastes subtly different, the temples with their brooding magnificence, the sculptured figures of seductive handmaidens and majestic divinities, the cool elegance of inlaid marble...all these provide a stimulus to the senses which changes with each place that is visited. But this forms only the visible part of the visit: behind it lies the continuing civilization of which it is a manifestation, a civilization made up of different elements and traditions, of many aspects of western thought and life style. Then, too, the enquiring visitor will have a sense of India as a vibrant democracy and growing industrial power, a vast country striving for economic progress, a society of many interests and views. Many are captured by India, and return to it again and again: nobody can be totally unaffected. This book, through its pictures, provides a visual dimension of the country - an invitation for readers who have not yet visited India, and a trigger for the memories of those who have.
