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In the White Mutiny of 1859-61--the largest revolt the British army ever faced--European troops operating on behalf of the East India Company rebelled against their transfer to the service of the Queen of England. Through an analysis of the White Mutiny, Peter Stanley provides a portrait of emerging working-class consciousness among the troops and reveals how the British army, the preeminent icon of English imperialism, first maintained, then lost, control over a vast and generally hostile sub-continent.

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Enjoying India is the ultimate how-and-why guide for foreigners that fills the gaps left by traditional guidebooks-practical and cultural information no visitor or expat can afford to be without. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

An honest review
Yet another book that needs an honest review; this book is so over-hyped and for no good reason.The practical information is thin to non-existent and the attitude of the author is preachy and condescending.I'm traveling to India and 2 weeks and about the only thing I got out of this is "yes" means "no" (in many instances) and, as a Western woman, I should dress conservatively - well thank you for that and thank you to the 10 reviewers that convinced me to waste my money.

The Best Book for Travel or Living in India
If there is one book you are going to read to prepare for going to India, this is the one. It is not only of value in preparing for a trip, those who have since returned from India will enjoy it and learn a great deal from reading it as well.

Having lived in India off and on for over 7 years I can say from experience that the detailed insights that you will find here will most definitely save you from a myriad of little problems, and quite possibly from some really big ones. However, Ms. Viharini goes far beyond helpful hints on how to handle the various challenges that may baffle the visitor (such as how to figure out a railway booking with all the confusion of 8 or more classes of carriage, booking windows, platform tickets, journey tickets, porters, etc.) She presents you with a colorful portrait that is quite comprehensive and subtle in its appreciation of the culture. For example, she carefully explains traditions and customs of India that the traveler really needs to know. I am not referring here to understanding ancient festival traditions that a tourist may witness so much as the description of "the way India works". She depicts most accurately the way people relate to each other, customs of everyday dress, what is considered proper behavior in many different contexts, and the key differences between the Indian and the Western visitor in these and so many other areas. Years of lessons learned are gracefully folded into its pages.

The title could not be more apt. This "handbook" should be kept "at hand" as it will inevitably prove itself essential again and again when it comes to enjoying India on a deeper level. It will serve as a real boon for those who wish to delve more deeply into the unfathomable mystery that is India.

How to Know India
Enjoying India - A Traveler's Handbook

An Indian tour guide once said that to really get to know and appreciate India one must live amongst its' people experiencing how they live their daily lives - walk amongst the crowded streets, shop at the local markets, visit the temples, and completely immerse oneself by living firsthand as an Indian does. Only then will one be able to truly understand and appreciate the people,the country and the culture.

Ms. Viharini's new book Enjoying India - A Traveler's Handbook is clearly written by someone who has done just that!Hence it serves as the perfect companion for any foreigner's sojourn throughout the country. In fact, I would strongly encourage anyone contemplating a trip to India to read it before leaving home and familiarize oneself with all the numerous topics covered then use it as a resource book throughout one's travels. You will quickly realize how Ms Viharini has very extensively covered everything that you might encounter on your travels e.g., preparation & arrival; cultural differences; numerous ways to get around India; safety & security to cite just a few.

Of all the hundreds of books on India, I find there is none that is a clearly "how to" book like Ms. Viharini's.Traveling with a copy of this book on your next trip to India can only enhance your experience. It is so comprehensive that a traveler would be truly lost without it.

Essential reading, for off-the-beaten-path India
I have also traveled extensively in India, and I love it. Others who travel to India tell me they "love it" or "hate it." It appears that the main difference is expectations and preparation. If you go looking for Mc Donald's and Starbucks everywhere, and are surprised that not everyone lives to the same standard of living as you do at home, you'll likely hate it. To be well oriented and prepared (and to ultimately come home loving India), read this book. It will make a huge difference in how you interact with India, and how much you end up loving the country and its people.

Most valuable cultural insights
This book has been very helpful to me in becoming oriented to travel in India. With wit, humor and obvious enjoyment of India on her own, the author clarifies some subtleties that are helpful in appreciating the lives of the people in this diversely unified culture-- and in doing so one can participate fully, and shed light on one's own cultural heritage. I recommend it very highly. ... Read more

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As India celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its independence, much praise was lavished on its emergence as a major player on the global stage. Its economic transformation and geopolitical significance as a nuclear power are matched by its globally resonant cultural resources. 

This book explores India’s rich popular culture. Chapters provide illuminating insights into various aspects of the social, cultural, economic and political realities of contemporary globalised India. Structured thematically and drawing on a broad range of academic disciplines, the book deals with critical issues including:

-   Film, television and TV soaps

-   Folk theatre, Mahabharata-Ramayana ,myths, performance, ideology and religious nationalism

-   Music, dance and fashion

-   Comics, cartoons, photographs, posters and advertising

-   Cyberculture and the software industry

-   Indian feminisms

-   Sports and tourism

-   Food culture

Offering comprehensive coverage of the emerging discipline of popular culture in India, this book is essential reading for courses on Indian popular culture and a useful resource for more general courses in the field of cultural studies, media studies, history, literary studies and communication studies.

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India Abroad analyzes the development of Indian diasporas in the United States and England from 1947, the year of Indian independence, to the present. Across different spheres of culture--festivals, entrepreneurial enclaves, fiction, autobiography, newspapers, music, and film--migrants have created India as a way to negotiate life in the multicultural United States and Britain. Sandhya Shukla considers how Indian diaspora has become a contact zone for various formations of identity and discourses of nation. She suggests that carefully reading the production of a diasporic sensibility, one that is not simply an outgrowth of the nation-state, helps us to conceive of multiple imaginaries, of America, England, and India, as articulated to one another. Both the connections and disconnections among peoples who see themselves as in some way Indian are brought into sharp focus by this comparativist approach.

This book provides a unique combination of rich ethnographic work and textual readings to illuminate the theoretical concerns central to the growing fields of diaspora studies and transnational cultural studies. Shukla argues that the multi-sitedness of diaspora compels a rethinking of time and space in anthropology, as well as in other disciplines. Necessarily, the standpoint of global belonging and citizenship makes the boundaries of the "America" in American studies a good deal more porous. And in dialogue with South Asian studies and Asian American studies, this book situates postcolonial Indian subjectivity within migrants' transnational recastings of the meanings of race and ethnicity. Interweaving conceptual and material understandings of diaspora, India Abroad finds that in constructed Indias, we can see the contradictions of identity and nation that are central to the globalized condition in which all peoples, displaced and otherwise, live. ... Read more

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The disciplines of archaeology and art history came into being in colonial India, but were to be transformed over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into powerfully nationalized institutions. This book offers both an insider and outsider perspective on the growth of these scholarly fields, on their institutional practices, and on the ways they have constituted and recast their objects of study. It moves from a period that saw the consolidation of western expertise and custodianship of India's "antiquities," to the projection over the twentieth century of varying regional, nativist and national claims around the country's archaeological, architectural and artistic inheritance, into a present time that has pitted these objects and fields within a highly contentious politics of nationhood. One of the main themes of the book is the framing of an official national canon of Indian art, showing how the workings of disciplines and institutions have been tied to the pervasive authority of the nation. At the same time, it also addresses the radical reconfiguration of the meaning and scope of the "national" -the kinds of exclusions and chauvinisms -that lie at the root of the current endangerment of these disciplines and the monuments and art-objects they encompass. ... Read more

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The extreme diversity of Indian food culture-including the dizzying array of ingredients and dishes--is made manageable in this groundbreaking reference. India has no national dish or cuisine; however, certain ingredients, dishes, and cooking styles are typical of much of the subcontinent's foodways. There are also common ways of thinking about food. The balanced coverage found herein covers many states ignored by previous food writers. Students will find much of cultural interest here to complement country studies and foodies will discover fresh perspectives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Superlative Insight into a Culinary Heritage
As the author says, this is not a recipe book. What this book does is that it meshes together extremely well the relationship between a complex culture and its culinary heritage. Replete with historical tid-bits, cultural trivia, origins of different dishes that we have become used to, this is a simply marvelous piece of work that will satisfy even cynics. Whether you are into food or history, this is a must-read!

A valuable addition to any in-depth section on India
Plenty of college-level texts cover Indian history and culture with mention of food - but few focus exclusively on the connections between food and culture as does Colleen Taylor Sen's Food And Culture In India. Using a historical approach, Indian culinary expert Sen provides an analysis of how cultures and cuisines have mixed within India from prehistoric to modern times. There are recipes peppered throughout, but the heart of Food And Culture In India lies in its cultural approach and college-level collections will consider it a valuable addition to any in-depth section on India.
... Read more

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Latin and especially Greek texts of the imperial period contain a wealth of references to 'India'. Professor Parker offers a survey of such texts, read against a wide range of other sources, both archaeological and documentary. He emphasises the social processes whereby the notion of India gained its exotic features, including the role of the Persian empire and of Alexander's expedition. Three kinds of social context receive special attention: the trade in luxury commodities; the political discourse of empire and its limits; and India's status as a place of special knowledge, embodied in 'naked philosophers'. Roman ideas about India ranged from the specific and concrete to the wildly fantastic and the book attempts to account for such variety. It ends by considering the afterlife of such ideas into late antiquity and beyond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For a History of Rome and India Go Elsewhere

It saddens me to read a new history that focuses on a fairly obscure topic that has fascinated me for decades and find it lacking.In "The Making of Roman India" I had hoped to find an assembled presentation of recent archaeological finds all along the Malabar Coast to update the classics in the field by Charlesworth, Warmington and Wheeler and to flesh out long-lingering uncertainties over ports mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. There is also a tremendous amount of new data available from digs at Greco-Roman ports along the Red Sea and new evidence of Roman trade in East Africa as well.

Not here.Historical tit bits are interspersed with the real agenda of modern historiography of `gendered' this and that and vaporings that genuflect to Foucault and Said.

Sometimes, it is just gibberish. Just read the Table of Contents on-line to get the idea.Below is a sample from page 191:

"It would, however, appear that differences of social status among the users of spatial information influenced or even created different registers of geographical thought.In the rest of this section, this thesis will be developed in two directions, namely the issue of experience in the acquisition of knowledge about India, and the specificity of India relative to a more generalized `east'"

So, when you finish the book -- I couldn't - you get a prize. A secret history decoder ring to wear when you enter the inner sanctum where today's trendy and hip historians gather to swap arcane argot and secret handshakes - oh so pleased to be part of an exclusive initiate.

What a waste.Here we have an author who clearly did the requisite research and has all the qualifications to write a splendid update on Rome's connections with India.Yet, to get published in today's history market - by Cambridge University Press no less - he had to spout postmodern claptrap.

At a hundred bucks a pop for this book you should consider downloading the Periplus from the net, buying the three authors I mentioned in the first paragraph and locating a copy of J. Innes Miller's treat on the Roman spice trade.They're a bit dated but I'll guarantee you intelligible and pleasurable English prose on a truly fascinating topic.Whether you save money or not, you'll come out ahead.
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21 informative chapters . on the concept of human body, surgery, unani medicine, hakims, siddha, ayurveda and its spread geyond India, folk medicine, plant and animal science, soma ... Read more

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This book focuses attention on an aspect of India's dynamic and vibrant street art: billboard size advertisements, hand-painted for the entertainment cinema industry and local political parties, that unfurl mural-like across the urban landscape of Chennai, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India. The making and consuming of this public art engenders a space for relay between film celebrities and political figures based on a visual cultural discourse of charisma. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ok, I'm biased
Yes, I've known the author for years.The point is, I really enjoy this book; I've read several chapters two or three times.The interviews, the photos, the history and analyses capture the pulse of a mass art world, inextricably entwined in the politics of South India, that few Westerners knew existed.You can see an interview of the author by the Indian novelist Manil Suri on Youtube.Preminda Jacob also maintains a website of some of the color images and interviews from the project. ... Read more

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This book addresses aspects of popular/public culture in a manner that connects with contemporary political controversy i.e. liberalization, Hinduvata, etc. This volume concentrates mainly on film and mass media, and includes contributions by Ravi Vasudevan, Patricia Uberoi, Sara Dickey, Nicholas Dirks and a number of first-rate South Asian scholars. ... Read more

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The economic reforms that began in the early 1990s brought many large multinational companies to India. A major challenge for these corporations was to manage the interface of global corporate culture and India's powerful, traditional and widely varying cultural practices.

Examining the Indian operations of five multinational organizations from three different cultural zones, this comparative analysis shows that each company brought to India its unique cultural imprint, while at the same time realizing the need to adapt management practices to the local setting. ... Read more

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This is a practical book about understanding Indian culture and travel scams in India and is based on real life experiences. This book will help you to avoid embarrassing mistakes and prepare you to feel confident in unfamiliar situations. Content in this book includes Indian social customs, their perception about Western women, their religion, what motivates them, travel scams targeted at Western tourists and of course what not to discuss with Indians, etc. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

India Travel
The author Subodh Gupta was born and brought up in India and has
explained in this book about the Indian culture and travel scams in such a way that by the time you finish reading this book you would developed the ability to read Indians' mind.

The author has covered about thirty interesting aspects of the Indian culture which are based on facts, for example:

(a) Gender bias

(b) Condition of women in the Indian society

(c) Caste system

(d) Superstition

(e) What Indian thinks about western women etc

With regards to travelling in India he explained in detail many travel scams. There is one story about a large number of British women that have fallen for in the Goa state of India and ended up losing thousands of pounds. He has also covered other frequent travel scams in India, some of which are especially targeting western tourists.

Last but not the least Subodh has explained a number of well organized scams which are targeted by holy people "Gurus wearing orange cloths" in India especially at western women. Worth Reading

Not Much Info for the Price
This book is over-rated.Only 99 pages, and most pages contain only about 1/3 in printed text. There's not much information that is already widely known and not all of it is useful.Sorry, my rating on this book is a 2 out of 5.

India Culture & Travel Scams - Worth Reading!
This book highlights both the positive aspect of Indian culture and the hidden evil customs, especially the suffering of women in the Indian society.

This book shows what is usually not apparent on the face of jolly Indians when you meet them.

You may not like this book if you are planning to settle down in India. However you would definately appreciate it if you want to prepare yourself for the usual uncertainties in India and avoid being trapped from various travel scams targeting westerners.

India Travel Guide
I am planning to visit India for my Yoga Teacher Training Course near Goa and luckily I got this book as a gift from one of my friends.

While reading it I was shocked to find out about evil customs of Indian society and various travel scams targeting Western tourists,mostly women ,because I always believed that India is very spiritual and safe country!

The author`s analysis about Indian culture is very thought provoking and based on facts.

Now I feel more confident about facing unexpected situations while I am in India.

India Culture and Travel Scams
Very Good book if you really want to understand about Indian gurus, Indian culture, spirituality in India, gender bias and especially about travel scams which are targeted towards western women in India. Worth reading

Bozena ... Read more

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The neglected study of pre-colonial India is now currently undergoing a revival. Daud Ali views courtly life, through the prism of the famous Kama Sutra, in exploring the culture and polity of medieval India. Ali's analysis is meaningful to literary, religious, historical and cultural studies. ... Read more

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Explore the Beauty and Wonder That is India. Contents include:

Tip # 1: Adventure Travel In India: A Once In A Lifetime Experience
Tip # 2: Leaving For An Exotic Indian Vacation?
Tip # 3: India Train Travel – Commendable And Dependable
Tip # 4: How To Get The Cheapest Travel To India
Tip # 5: Estimating Travel Costs To India
Tip # 6: India Travel Guide – You Ticket To Explore The Country
Tip # 7: Picking A Good India Travel Agency
Tip # 8: Helpful Information On The Introduction Of Air Travel In India
Tip # 9: Discount Business Class Travel To India
Tip # 10: Dehli
Tip # 11: Applying For An India Travel Visa
Tip # 12: Free Printable Travel Guides To India
Tip # 13: A Train Ride To Remember
Tip # 14: The Great Importance Of Having India Travel Insurance
Tip # 15: India Wildlife Tour And Hiking Adventure - An Experience You May Never Forget
Tip # 16: The Travel Circuits Of India That You Shouldnt Miss
Tip # 17: Meher Bab's Shrine
Tip # 18: Travel To New Delhi - India's Magnificent Capital
Tip # 19: The Easy Way To Travel In India
Tip # 20: India Travel Destination Tips
Tip # 21: Travel To India And Enjoy Life's Pleasures
Tip # 22: Is It Safe To Travel In India Now?
Tip # 23: Travel To India And Visit Majestic Mumbai
Tip # 24: Travel Recommendations For Northern India In Winter
Tip # 25: Wildlife Reserves

... Read more

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COLLECTION OF FIVE RESEARCH PAPERS BY EMINENT SCHOLARS IN THE FIELDS OF PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, HISTORY AND CULTURE. ... Read more

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Strongly grounded in Persian manuscripts, many of them unpublished, this book makes an innovative and original intervention in the existing debates on the questions of medieval politics, patterns of governance as well as the relationship between politics, Islam and Muslim religious leaders. Exploding the myth that Sufis, especially Chishtis, kept aloof from politics, it shows how Sufis enjoyed royal patronage and helped legitimise Aghans' political cause. The author also explores the contributions of Sufis and Afghans to vernacular literature and devotional music. Contesting existing notions of the "tribal" character of Afghan political institutions, he argues that Surs and other Afghan dynasties drew upon Persian understandings of universal kingship to put in place a coherent monarchical system. The book also discusses how Rajputs and other non-Muslims collaborated with the Aghans to broaden the base of government apparatus. ... Read more

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Over the past hundred years, India has held an enormous fascination for western intellectuals and artists. Father Indiaexplores the life-changing influence of the subcontinent on western ideas and modernity by narrating the curious, spellbinding stories of a succession of twentieth-century Europeans and Americans--including Annie Besant, E. M. Forster, Carl Jung, William Butler Yeats, V.S. Naipaul, Christopher Isherwood, and Martin Luther King Jr.--who acted out their most secret dreams in India. Gandhi's answer to the question "Why now?" as he observed one westerner after another come to his own ashram, is telling: The contemporary West had misplaced its soul,and pilgrims to India were on a mission to retrieve it. In the process, their unconscious assumptions about politics, religion, and identity in their own cultures were turned upside-down and laid open to question. Father India tells the story of those people who attempted to comprehend or even to perfect western civilization through India, and of how their successes and failures retunred to the modern West a changed understanding of itself.

Customer Reviews (4)

Amazingly insightful
Jeffrey Paine has written an amazing book, which is both sophisticated in its analysis and insightful in its perspective. Yet, the narrative is racy and easy to read - possibly because of his background in journalism.

Paine traces the careers and Indian adventure of eight well-known persons who were either Westerners or were Indians influenced by the West to begin with, but later became deeply influenced by India. Yet in the process, they also influenced India itself. The list includes Lord Curzon, Mahatma Gandhi, E. M. Forster, Shri Aurobindo, Mira Behn (Madeleine Slade), Mother (Mirra Richard), Carl Jung, V. S. Naipaul and Annie Besant, all well-known figures in India and outside.

In the process he weaves a magical yet sophisticated tapestry showing why India exercised a near-fatal charm for these people and how it changed them. He also adds a lot of tid-bits about their personal lives, and idiosyncracies, their struggles, their failures and their successes. Surprisingly, and without noticing it, by the time you finish the book, you would have developed a pretty good perspective on how India has affected and deeply influenced Western world through these people. A remarkable intellectual feat indeed.

His handling of each character in the drama is confident and skillful. He has a definite format to follow, and this adds rigour to a book, which could have become a maudling, sentimental journey otherwise. The connections he makes with other contemporary characters and happenings are simply astounding and marvellous.

However, he becomes less sure of himself as he comes closer to the present, possibly because the processes are still going on, and the advantage of hindsight is not available. As a result, his handling of the chapter on Shri Aurobindo and his spiritual companion, the Mother, is less deft. He also fumbles with the conclusion, possibly because India is an incredibly complex phenomenon and Paine is after all a mere mortal.

Notwithstanding this slight blemish, an excellent book, worth the time and money, for anyone interested in understanding India and the West.

A paperback edition is also available in Penguin India under the plain title 'Father India'.

Sobering
I admit I may have been mildly intoxicated before I read this book - intoxicated on Western Buddhism and New Age philosophies that legitimize themselves by associating themselves with Indian religions. This book sobered me up. Paine indicates that much of what many of us have mistaken for pure distilled India is really a hybrid mutation of India and its European interpreters and visitors. I honestly feel I came away with a much better understanding of characters like Madame Blavatsky, Krishnamurti, and Ghandi. There is also a great deal of material addressing individuals who adopted a homosexual lifestyle including E.M. Forster and Christopher Isherwood. I might wonder if Jeffery Paine is himself practicing homosexuality given the amount of time spent on the topic. (In fact, if he isn't, it would be a bit annoying.) The representation of this group seems a bit disproportionate but it may indeed be the case that a disproportionate amount of the Europeans experimenting with India in the early 1900s were of this group - well at least the ones that got famous. (In which case I shouldn't be so annoyed).

Certainly India has played a part in our present culture albeit in a roundabout and almost covert way. Paine's book suggests that it was more as a catalyst than a direct effect. A place to which people embarked on holy quests and often did not find what they expected. If you have read a few new age books that swear allegiance to Indian philosophy and religion and are feeling a bit tipsy, or if you have an interest in the psychological history of the waning British empire and India as the British empire waned, I highly recommend this book.

ANAND'S MUSE
The book delves into the feelings, emotions and travails as felt by some of the administrators, writers,social activists and reformers who have ';experienced ' India at close quarters.Curzon, Annie Besant,EM Forster, Chris Isherwood and finally Gandhi's experiences are chronicled indetail.The book tries to provide thereader with an understanding of Indiathat is gleaned from the spiritual and pyschological processes of thesevisitors and tries to enunciate a depth of feeling. These 'outsiders'twistand turn at every corner in India and the reasons for their doing si mightinfuse an Indian to think more deeply , and accord the foreigner with amore intimate view of the seething cauldron that answers to the name ofIndia.

An inventive and compelling book
I never would have thought of the theme of this book, but once immersed in it, found it totally engrossing. India has been the great seed bed for many Western thinkers. This is an exciting way of seeing the relationshipbetween India and the U.S...and a well-documented account of it withfascinating stories. ... Read more

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