I'm giving this book five stars not because the individual travel stories comprising this are five star stories (though many of them are), but because the breadth of subject matter and perspectives this book offers are remarkable. From the frosty passes of the Himalayas to the bustling streets of Calcutta, from the Ganges to shores of Goa, from the rarely-visited tribal interior to the even more desolate Rann of Kutch, this book portrays a country with a topography perhaps as diverse as Europe's. From the barriers of caste to the oppression of women, this book portrays a social evolution still in progress but with roots in ancient times.
Highlights for me included Rory Nugent's eccentric search for the supposedly extinct pink-headed duck, and David Yeadon's brilliant portrayal of character interactions (including an Indian interrupting his narrative digression in real time "Sir, are you hearing me, sir?"). For every traveler that timidly scratched the surface of India without real discovery (such as a particularly uptight and sheltered Oxford Fellow's first trip) there was one so recklessly bold that you're glad you could relive the experience from the safety of your own home (including one author's visit to a tribal island where past visitors had been killed). Somewhere in the middle there's bound to be powerful inspiration for a trip of one's own.
Reading this book was not only satisfying, but served as a launching point for future reading of the complete works from which these tales were excerpted (David Yeadon's Back of the Beyond and Jonah Blank's Arrow of the Blue Skinned God seemed particularly interesting to me).