Reading

Once my family and friends learned I was traveling to India, I received a near-endless stream of books, recommendations, and advice about India. While the "advice" aspect of my preparations is worth an entire post, I will here post the books and guides I have made use of in preparing for my trip. Some of these, like the Rough Guide to India, will seem obvious. Others, like Saul Bellow's Herzog, still less so. I won't try and bore the reader with explanations, but I hope this post will profit anyone who is thinking about traveling to India and learning more about it.

Without any further digression:

• A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (Harper Perennial). Even if I had known I was traveling to India a year ago, I doubt I would have been able to finish this tome in time. I've pushed through one hundred or so pages in the book thus far, and from what I can gather it's an epic family drama set in post-independence India. I've heard Seth's magnum opus compared favorably to Dickens' major works, but I don't think the comparison stands much in the face of examination. Seth seems interested in a portrait of Indian middle-class life: This novel is published in English, the language of the educated-middle class, unbound by provincial, religious or dialectical constraints. Rather than convey an essential message of social change as Dickens was, Seth seems to be more interested in providing wider perspective on the tumult of marriage, death and life which is essential to all families, not those of a single nation. 
• A Travellers Guide to India by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda (Arris). This is probably the book of the most practical intellectual value to me. Tammita-Delgoda writes this book with a mind to those interested in a far-reaching historical perspective but unable to really get past the veneer of Orientalist critiques and slipshod personal accounts which form an unfortunate preponderance of the books that furnish outsiders' understanding of India. Starting from the Indus Valley civilization approximately 5,000-6,000 years ago, the author details the historical, cultural, and philosophical currents that have shaped the subcontinent. Perhaps the most important feature of India is its separation from the rest of Asia. As a subcontinent, it has been dominated by a regular influx of foreign invaders yet paradoxically sheltered by the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. India is the only nation which can claim that a direct lineage to the peoples who began to first settle the peninsular subcontinent at the dawn of human civilization.
• Burmese Days by George Orwell (Vintage). An obvious choice, especially for someone interested in the decline and fall of the Raj. Orwell, typically in-form, skewers the infantile pukka-sahibism that was the engine of the British empire in India's ironic growth. Orwell depics his semi-autobiographical experiences in Burma through the avatar James Flory. As fascinated with Burmese culture as he detests the sneering indifference of British rule, Orwell (perhaps uniquely) gives us India under Western Eyes but without the Western sun's glare.
• The Rough Guide to Rajasthan - Delhi & Agra (Rough Guides). This book is essentially a filled-out reproduction of the section on Rajasthan in the Rough Guide to India. I've come to trust Rough Guides but when dealing with ubiquitous guide books you never know whether what you're looking at is the best India has to offer or (more likely) the best stuff is only known by insiders. Rough Guides will get you through almost any situation but in the end it's best to depend on them only if you need to. Otherwise, your trip ends up being a mere variation on a tired and well-traveled (excuse the pun) fugue.
• Herzog by Saul Bellow (Penguin). This is a bit of black sheep on the list. How does a book about an academic's personal trials make for good pre-India reading? Honestly, I don't know. Herzog is, however, a remarkable narrative that touches on the Western experience: progress distilled. No matter how hard our trials and tribulations, how triumphant our successes and dreadful our defeats, Herzog reminds us that there's always a point in time ahead of us, a point where progress, even if unlikely, is surely possible.