Destination: India
LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK INFORMATION
Top Tens
Great Reads
With a tremendous mix of novels offering brilliant insights into India, there's no dearth of riveting bedtime-reading fodder - the below titles are some great places to start.
- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
- The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
- City of Djinns by William Dalrymple
- The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha
- Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai
Must-See Movies
What better way to get all fired up about your trip than by holding your very own Indian movie marathon! The following acclaimed films are either in English or available with English (and sometimes other vernacular) subtitles. Mainstream video stores may not stock many (if any) Bollywood titles, but you shouldn't have any problem finding them at your local Indian video shop. If there isn't a dedicated video store, Indian grocery shops usually have at least one shelf bulging with rental DVDs.
- Mr & Mrs Iyer, directed by Aparna Sen
- Earth, directed by Deepa Mehta; see also her controversial film, Fire
- Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair; see also her acclaimed earlier films Kama Sutra and Salaam Bombay!
- Lagaan, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker
- Black, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali
- Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough
- Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities, directed by MF Hussain
- Raincoat, directed by Rituparno Ghosh
- Joggers' Park, directed by Anant Balani
- Kisna, directed by Subhash Ghai
Festivals & Events
India has a phenomenal variety of major and minor festivals.
- Festival of Dance - February/March; Madhya Pradesh
- Rath Yatra - June/July; Orissa and Kolkata (Calcutta)
- Nehru Trophy Snake Boat Race - August; Kerala
- Ganesh Chaturthi - August/September; Nationwide but especially in Mumbai and Pune
- Ladakh Festival - September; Ladakh
- Dussehra (Durga Puja) - September/October; Nationwide but especially in Mysore, Kullu and Kolkata
- Diwali - October/November; Nationwide
- Pushkar Camel Fair - October/November; Rajasthan
- Sonepur Mela - November/December; Bihar
- Festival of Carnatic Music & Dance - December/January; Tamil Nadu
Lonely Planet recommends World Nomads Travel insurance
