HT Picks; New Reads

This week’s pick of interesting reads includes a cookbook that celebrates the versatility of Indian street food, a volume that combines enthralling nature writing and journalism with immersive art and photography, and a granular account of the harshness of prison life

Classic street food recipes

On the reading list this week is a book of street food recipes, a volume of environmental writing, and a compassionate account of prison life. (HT Team)

191pp, ₹1,995; Roli Books (A stunning cookbook that celebrates the versatility and abundance of Indian street food)

Texture, colour, flavour – the essence of India itself, intertwine and explode in this stunning cookbook. Celebrating the patent versatility and abundance of Indian cuisine, India Local focuses on India’s street foods and chaats. It tells the story of a nation through its street offerings. From the bustling lanes of old Delhi and the alleyways of Lucknow to the swarming bylanes of Mumbai and Ahmedabad, the author takes you on a cross-country culinary adventure. The reader travels through the vibrant gullies of Surat and the hilly thoroughfares of Darjeeling, and explores kitchens-on-wheels from Jaipur to Gangtok all the way down to the hectic curbsides of Chennai.

Ved’s glamorous-yet-approachable recipes meet Karam Puri’s street-style photography, and together they guide you through the best chaats and street food in the country. Pick from usual favourites like pani puri and vada pav to special snacks by India’s most innovative minds: hello, tawa paneer chaat and jinni dosa.

The book also has recipes generously shared by Ved’s chef friends that promise to be as creative as they are satisfying. Besides, there are Ved’s own specialities like the inviting papdi “lasagne”, the barley-couscous tikki with raw mango cream, the eight-layer dhokla chaat and more.*

Indian Landscapes on the brink

240pp, ₹699; Pan Macmillan (Combining enthralling nature writing and journalism with immersive art and photography)

In the boundless Thar, deemed a “wasteland” by the authorities, miners bulldoze sand dunes guarding life-sustaining water. The Gangetic dolphin, once a thriving apex predator, struggles for survival as its riverine habitat is fragmented by dams and roiled by incessant shipping. Deep in the mangrove forests of the Sunderban, tigers prey on desperate crab-catchers. Encroachments on the Mumbai coastline unleash cataclysmic floods. Along the eroding beaches of Kerala, fishermen live in fear of the sea swallowing them whole. As the spectre of climate change compounds these natural and human-induced disasters, India’s most endangered landscapes are pushed to the precipice of destruction.

Arati Kumar-Rao journeys to these marginlands, listening intently to their inhabitants, paying close attention to each fissure, fold and ripple, as she documents the misguided decisions, wilfully ignored warnings and disregarded evidence that have brought us almost to a point of no return. But the land is still rich in ancient wisdom, and its cracks hold lessons that may yet aid us in undoing centuries of slow violence – so long as one is willing to attune their senses.

Combining enthralling nature writing and journalism with immersive art and photography, Marginlands is an urgent, vital work by a passionate chronicler of our environment.*

A year with the women of Yerawada

264pp, ₹799; Juggernaut (A granular account of the harshness of prison life that’s written with warmth, compassion and humour)

Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put down their heads and work themselves weary. Sudha Bharadwaj watched through the bars of her cell, and she wrote. This is her remarkably granular account of the world of women prisoners in Yerawada Jail in Pune. Bharadwaj was incarcerated here, in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard, from November 2018 to February 2020. She takes us through jail life, her own and the other women’s, from one season to the next, weaving in lively portraits of her fellow prisoners, their children and even their pets, and reflecting on everything from absurd rules, caste hierarchies, food, fistfights and friendships to the dismal absence of legal aid for the most defenceless of women.

While Bharadwaj is an unflinching observer of the harshness of prison life, this is not a bleak book. It is written with warmth, compassion and impish humour. It is Bharadwaj’s tribute to the women around her who showed her “every single day”, she says, “how to survive injustice, how to remain hopeful... how to continue to live, love, fight and laugh, even behind bars.”*

*All copy from book flap.