Five must-read Indian travel books to satisfy your wanderlust

Another traveller, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a famous French merchant, supposedly made six voyages to Asia. On one of his journeys, he visited the court of Shah Jahan, the great Mughal Emperor, and later left an account of all his voyages for future generations. Again, a few centuries ago, another traveller, Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi, visited India in the early 1440s as an ambassador of Shah Rukh, the Timurid King of Persia. He too chronicled and published works about his visit.

Not only the medieval foreign visitors, but the Indians themselves have also travelled far and wide in this country and written about it. In this regard, famous scholar Rahul Sankrityayan is generally considered as the father of Indian travel writing. Also, the Bengali language had a glorious tradition of travel writing. Authors like Jaladhar Sen, Prabodh Kumar Sanyal and Umaprasad Mukhopadhyay had created prose of outstanding quality in their times to be savoured by posterity who can revel in them. These authors have made travelogue an art form.

In this article, we will discuss six exclusive travel books written on India. In fact, these books are a must-have while travelling in this country.

The first book on the list is one written by William Dalrymple, a writer who loved this country and made it his own. The title of this book alludes to one of the stages the world goes through as part of a cycle in Hinduism. The author also met writer Shobhaa De in Mumbai and spoke to her about her depiction of socialites in the maximum city.

The second book on the list is Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India’ by the much-acclaimed author Pankaj Mishra. Just like the name of the book, its entire narrative is full of quirky characters which the author encounters during his extensive travel through small towns in India. Mishra had several experiences of awe and intrigue while exploring places such as Mandi, Pushkar, Kottayam, and Murshidabad. The title of this book is linked to an amusing anecdote, which the author explains vividly. While sitting in one of the small-town eateries, he encountered a few drunken men from North India who while conversing in their inebriated state asked each other ‘What is the national bird of Khalistan?’ To which one of them shouted back ‘Butter Chicken’.

John Lang’s Wanderings in India and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan, Publisher: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge. (Price: Rs 228)

The third book on the list is Wanderings in India and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan by 19^th-century Australian lawyer and writer John Lang, who is now considered to be the first native-born novelist of Australia. Lang’s travelogue gives a fantastic account of India during the colonial times and the many lifestyle habits of the British. If you are to explore the colonial architecture of India in its various hill stations and cities now, it is best to carry this book which might transport you back to a bygone era with all its eccentricities. Lang’s grave in Mussoorie has been discovered by writer Ruskin Bond whose many books can also be read while travelling to the Himalayas. 

William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives. Publisher: Bloomsbury. (Price: Rs 314)

The next book on this list of must-read Indian travelogues is Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, again by William Dalrymple who has added so much to the historiography of India. Through this book, one can experience the spirituality of this diverse land. The book narrates the lives of nine Indians from different religious backgrounds and the uniqueness that each exudes.

The last travelogue on this list is the bestseller Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage through India by Alexander Frater. By his own admission in this book, Frater himself was born into the rains, when his mother gave birth on one of the South Pacific Islands during the Monsoon. His father was posted there then. Frater is probably the right person to chase the Monsoon in India and thereby explore this vast land in all its mystic glory. He has beautifully described many scenes of rain here, and just one line from the book will suffice to see the connection: “Flooded paddies, silvery in the soft, mellow light of late afternoon, flanked the road”. Such beautiful prose can only accentuate the heightened expectation of a traveller. The Monsoon in India is often long, and it can be enjoyed depending on one’s taste and mood. This book might help in the process.

So, these are the five books that one can read while travelling through India. Some notable omissions here are No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully. The title of this book itself has become a phrase now to describe India’s vividness, and City of Djinns by Dalrymple, which is about Delhi. Finally, let me conclude with two superb lines eminent poet DL Ray has written about India: “Dhono dhanne pushpe bhora amader ei boshundhora, Tahar majhe achhe desh ek shokol desher shera”, which roughly translates to ‘With wealth of grains and flowers, brimming this earth of ours, in which there is a land, which is the best of all the countries of the world’.