Book review
Mahatma Gandhi leading his followers on a march to the sea at Dandi to defy British salt laws. Jawaharlal Nehru being sworn in as independent India's first prime minister. The lifeless face of a young victim of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Boys diving into the Ganga at Banaras. These are only some of the memorable images featured in this book that is both a photographic history of India since 1858 and a cultural portrait of the country.

India: The Definitive Images contains stunning black-and-white and colour pictures by photographers of great repute—among them, Raghubir Singh, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Margaret Bourke-White, Raghu Rai and Steve McCurry—some of whom have captured the beauty, others the moment. Thus, along with timeless images of everyday life—women caught in a monsoon shower; crowds in the busy lanes—there are photographs of epoch-making events and personalities.

Compiled and edited by one of India's best-known photojournalists, and with an introduction by the country's most widely read columnist and author, India: The Definitive Images is an unprecedented record of the making of modern India and of what it is today, in all its beauty, ugliness and ordinariness.

Format: Z | 160 pages / Classification: Non Fiction / Published: 1/26/2004