Bangalore – 
Ladakh – 
Patna (Bankipur) – 
Kerala – 
Kolkata – Thriller set in Bangkok and Ko Samet
TripFiction armchair travel by book – INDIA
29th April 2020
TripFiction armchair book travel – India.
We may all be confined to quarters for a while, but TripFiction is here to help you travel vicariously through books with a strong sense of place. The TripFiction team have been trawling through their database of thousands of books – novels, memoirs and travelogues – and hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve dug up.
INDIA
We have more than 300 books set in India. Check out our Great Books Map for some top 5 or 10 literary wanderlust suggestions around the world, but here are a few ideas to get you exploring India with a book…
Bangalore – Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shenbagh
In this masterful novel by the acclaimed Indian writer Vivek Shanbhag, a close-knit family is delivered from near-destitution to sudden wealth after a miraculous change in fortune.
As the narrator, along with his sister, his parents, and his uncle move from a cramped shack to a larger house and encounter new-found wealth, the family dynamics begin to shift. As the dream of middle-class, aspirational living comes true, allegiances and desires realign; marriages are arranged and begin to falter; and conflict brews ominously in the background.
Ladakh – Postcards from Ladakh by Ajay Jain
Ladakh, circa 2009
You never have a sense of déjà vu in Ladakh.
No place looks the same again. No moment repeats itself here. There is always something new to discover about the land and its people. Birds and animals always surprise you.
A travel handbook on Ladakh is thus best written in a whimsical manner. Postcards From Ladakh is a collection of frames, frozen circa 2009, when I drove for over 10,000 km in and around Ladakh. It can be a guide to the traveller. And serve as a time capsule for future generations. Neither guidebook nor encyclopaedia, it is intended to give you a flavour of what Ladakh holds for you.
I’ve written the book as if I were writing postcards to you from the scene. To share memorable moments, valuable insights. And I’ve clicked photographs to complement the text. Start reading from any page.
On a personal note, Ladakh has touched my life in many ways. Its people have reminded me of all the goodness we are born with. Spiritual leaders have inspired me to live a balanced life without necessarily subscribing to religious beliefs. Negotiating the tough terrain has made me seek adventure. Ladakh has made me reflect on my priorities in life.
Patna (Bankipur) – A Passage to India by E M Forster
When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore (based on Bankipur, a suburb of Patna), they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced ‘Anglo-Indian’ community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the ‘real India’, they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim.
But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal that rouses violent passions among both the British and their Indian subjects.
A masterly portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.
Kerala – The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother’s factory, and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala. Armed only with the innocence of youth, they fashion a childhood in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher) and their sworn enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun, incumbent grand-aunt).
Kolkata – Calcutta: Two Years in the City by Amit Chaudhuri
In 1999, Amit Chaudhuri moved back to Calcutta, the city in which he was born. It was a place he had loved in his youth and the place he had made his name writing about. But upon his return he discovered that the Calcutta of his imagination had receded and another had taken its place.
Lyrical, observant and profound, Calcutta is a personal account of two years (2009-2011) spent in one of the least known – yet greatest – cities of our time by one of our leading novelists. Using the historic elections of 2011 as a fulcrum, Chaudhuri looks back to the nineteenth century, when the city burst with a new vitality, and towards the twenty-first, when – utterly changed – it seems to be on the verge of another turn.
Along the way he evokes all that is most particular and extraordinary. From the homeless and the working class to the old, declining haute bourgeois: from the new malls and hotels to old houses being destroyed by developers: from politicians on their way out to the city’s fitful attempts to embrace globalisation, Calcutta brings a multifarious universe to life.
We hope these books set in INDIA help you escape for a little while. Let us know what other places you’ve heard of – or visited – in India, and check out our database for any books set there.
The TripFiction Team
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