A Day in the Life of India Michael Tobias and Raghu Rai

During the first week of February, 1995 many of the subcontinent's finest photojournalists and film makers fanned out across the country to record for posterity an adventure of enormous fascination and complexity - a visual time capsule of the world's most diverse nation.
Under the editorial guidance of internationally acclaimed writer, ecologist, and film maker Michael Tobias and renowned Indian photographer Raghu Rai, photographic teams visited nearly every state and union territory to discover the elusive passions of a country that defies easy definition. The result: more than 30,000 images and 200 hours of film footage that together form a sumptuous portrait of a nation.

A Day in the Life of India is a visual time capsule capturing one of the world's most fascinating places. Some of the subcontinent's finest photographers and filmmakers devoted hundreds of hours of work to the project, fanning out across the country in search of the elements that define India. What they turn up is a veritable feast for the eyes: a woman adrift in a sea of crimson chilies; fishermen emptying their nets on a sun-drenched beach on India's eastern coast; a flower-strewn wedding in northern India. Each photograph is accompanied by an informative caption and tagged with a colored dot that corresponds with a small map showing where the picture was taken.

A Day in the Life of India is a big, beautiful book that promises many hours of daydreaming about the subcontinent. If you like this armchair trip to India, consider the other titles in this series that chronicle a day in the life of Italy, America, Ireland, Thailand, and Israel.