Coffee reads

Travelling in India is an experience. No two places are alike. The author, Adrian Mayer, pictorially depicts India in all her glory. Mayer tries to capture the essence of this mystical land, the rich diversity of contemporary India where the ancient juxtaposes with the modern. The energy, vibrancy and pulse of everyday India has been captured candidly, inviting travellers to experience India’s many moods.

“Travel in India is a unique experience. The look of the countryside, the dress of the people, the crowded city streets with their signs in unknown scripts and their constantly changing smells, a cuisine of many delights where even the western food tastes subtly different, the temples with their brooding magnificence, the sculptured figures of seductive handmaidens and majestic divinities, the cool elegance of inlaid marble…all these provide a stimulus to the senses which changes with each place that is visited”.

This book has a brief informative backgrounder given by the author on India. India’s rich history, delicious food where tantalising aroma wafts through the air, Indians in their expressive attire, spirituality and religion are expressed vividly in this beautiful photo essay.  

Name: India colours and shadows of spirituality
Price :  Rs. 564
Publisher : White Star Publishers
Author : Adrian Mayers
Pages : 128
Format : Hardcover

A picture speaks a thousand words

Magnum photographer Raghu Rai, one of India’s most illustrious photographers, whose work has appeared in international publications such as Time, Paris Match, National Geographic, The New York Times, GEO amongst others, celebrates India through his lens, capturing the lives of Indians cloaked in different moods and taking you on a voyage of discovery of India. 

This book with the finest colour photographs, has captured a slice of life in India in all its colours, culture and people. The energy and vibrancy of each coloured photograph speaks of simple people: their daily rituals, their poise and spiritual fervour, showing how life is lived. Mr Rai has captured the subtle rhythm of the human body, the kind of people they are, and has responded brilliantly to the nuances of artistic expressions, making his photographs seem like poetry caught in a frame.

Norman Hall of The Times (London), says “This lavish production of the finest photographs taken by India’s most distinguished photographer, Raghu Rai, proves once again that his is a mark at which all lensmen will shoot in vain. It is a silent demonstration, but an eloquent one, of what photography—and India—is all about. It is my personal opinion that he has an individual way of seeing things and reproducing them as images on bromide paper which is unsurpassed by any photo-journalist in the whole wide world”.

Name: Raghu Rai’s India: Reflections In Colour
Price : Rs 5995.00
Publisher : Viking
Author : Raghu Rai
Pages : 168
Format : Hardcover

Tuning into the world of maestros

‘Voices Within’ is a work of love by two leading Carnatic exponents Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna, and is India’s first coffee table book on Carnatic music. Panegyrising the spirit of seven gifted maestros, both Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna pay tribute to these giants through this book. Voices Within portrays the ‘times and lives’ of these seven inspiring virtuosos who revolutionised Carnatic music forever, shaped its growth and left a distinctive mark through their innovation and creativity in the musical firmament at a time when it was a highly ‘tradition-bound and conventional’ form of music. These seven stalwarts, who dared to dream different, set the foundation for Carnatic music as it is known today.

 Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, the margadarshi, who changed the face of the kutcheri format forever by introducing it in a new light.

The Nagaswara Chakravarthi (emperor), T N Rajarathnam Pillai, fought to give his nagaswaram (an oboe) its deserved place.

Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, along with being a huge influence on music, also transformed the organisation and administration, and had the longest tenure on stage.
  
GN Balasubramaniam had a style of his own and bani that opened new doors, earning him the ardour of the audience.
 
Palghat Mani Iyer, a legend in his lifetime, he started the golden era of percussionists taking the mridangam to different heights.
 
M S Subbulakshmi, fondly known as MS, was the finest exponent, and was known as the nightingale of  Carnatic music. She enthralled national and international audiences and gained a place for Carnatic music internationally.
  
T R Mahalingam frequently travelled the road others dreaded to tread, was a maverick and a genius more popularly and reverentially known as Flute Mali. He revolutionised the way the flute was played.

This book, a mark of respect, is a simple and precise photo essay which brings out the distinctive personality of each of these visionaries without being garrulous, and with insights into their lives interspersed with some rare photos that remains imprinted into the readers mind.  
 
Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna have said that, “Voices Within is a result of our intense desire to find ways of giving back something to an art that has been our passion, our livelihood, our life breath. While there are many endlessly fascinating aspects of the art that can be written about, we decided to first pay our tributes to some of the maestros who had a seminal influence in shaping the system. Voices Within is a salute to seven gifted, inspiring Carnatic musicians who revolutionised the system, shaped its growth, and left their mark on the musical firmament. It is with both great pride and much humility that we showcase them in a book such as this”.

Through the help of this book, Jayashri and Krishna conducted a creative workshop and demonstrated a technique on how they could help ‘businesses in a fast changing world, where the biggest barrier to progress and growth is traditional mind sets'. This was an experiment to get a fresh perspective on how one field, such as traditional Carnatic music, can influence another field such as the world of business, to be innovative and retain core values, but without the compromises. “The unusual connection is not about music and business- but practice of creativity and innovation in music and how it can influence business”.

Name: Voices Within
Price : Rs1900.00
Publisher : Matrka
Author : Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna
Pages : 170
Format : Hardcover

Claire Nouvian’s ‘The Deep - The Extraordinary Creatures Of The Abyss’

Denizens of an underwater realm

What is the fascination about marine life that keeps us mesmerised? Especially the deep sea? Could it be for the fact that very little is known about the deep sea life? After going through Claire Nouvian’s ‘The Deep - The Extraordinary Creatures Of The Abyss’ , you’ll be amazed at the teeming life that exists in the abyss, and your notion of a bleak, dark and gloomy world is dispelled with the parade of weird beauteous creatures seeming like they are from a completely different planet or straight out of a fantasy world.

An astonishing visual tour of about 220 fantastical, breathtaking photographs showcases some unbelievable life-forms, from known remarkable critters to a few magnificent unknown, some of which have been photographed for the first time, and whose existence was a ‘deep-secret’ until now. Each of these species will elicit gasps of delight with their, sometimes comical, unusualness such as the dumbo octopuses which measures about 20 centimetres, a ping-pong tree sponge which can be found in the depths of 2600-3000m resembling light fixtures or spookfish which is far from spooky; or make you shudder with its nightmarish contours such as the scaly dragonfish measuring about 25 centimetres, the fanfin sea devil which look like the shape of what horror films are made of, found in depths of 700-3000m or  football fish, which incidentally, don’t look sporty at all. But, though they look monstrous, they measure just mere centimetres. Some of these delicate bioluminescent creatures are translucent and gelatinous such as the cockatoo squid, where the only part of its body which is not transparent are its eyes, the glowing sucker octopus which looks like it’s dancing with its tentacles wearing a billowing skirt, the telescope octopus which looks like an alien eerily staring at you and the iridescent mertensia ovum, making the deep not so dark after all. 

Accompanying these photographs are Nouvian’s excellent captions describing each creatures size, lifestyle, habitat and a useful depth chart. Punctuating these spectacular photographs are short but highly informative and articulate chapters written by respected deep-sea biologists from leading marine institutes such as: Woods Hole, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, Smithsonian, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who give nuggets of scientific facts related to their interest area that include the non-existence of deep sea monsters, the purpose of bioluminescence in marine life, methane seeps, hydrothermal vents and marine conservation. Altogether, this book is brilliant.  

Claire Nouvian says that, “This collection of images is fantastic because it portrays what even the specialists have never had the opportunity to see: the ‘créme-de-la-créme’ of all the dives carried out by their colleagues in the four corners of the world over the last 20 years”.

Name: The Deep - The Extraordinary Creatures Of The Abyss
Price : Rs2,100.00
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Author : Claire Nouvian
Pages : 256
Format : Hardcover