One Nation. Infinite Journeys.
Thirty-six journeys through all twenty-eight states and eight Union Territories of India — told as stories, by a young traveller from Srikakulam.
Varkala beach, KeralaFrom above, on a clear morning. Photographed by the author.
India is not one story. It is many.
People ask why I chose to travel India rather than the world, as if the two were different sizes. They are not. India holds twenty-two scheduled languages and several hundred more that never made it into a schedule; it holds the wettest inhabited place on Earth and one of the driest deserts; it holds cities older than most religions and villages where electricity arrived within living memory.
I did not need a passport. I needed courage, patience, and a tolerance for buses that leave at 4.30 a.m.
From the introduction to 28 Shades of India
Five of the thirty-six journeys
Kerala
The Slow Green Hours
Kerala reached me as rumour long before it reached me as railway. In Andhra, we spoke of it the way people speak of a gifted cousin, with admiration lightly seasoned…
Ladakh
The Moon Within Reach
The road from Kashmir to Ladakh performs the most abrupt costume change in Indian geography, and it does it at Zoji La. On the Sonamarg side: pine, meadow, glacier-fed green,…
Rajasthan
The Colour of Distance
I come from a place where water is the main character. Rivers, tanks, the sea at the end of every east-facing road, the monsoon arriving each June like a relative…
Meghalaya
The House of Rain
The road from Guwahati to Shillong climbs out of the Brahmaputra's heat into weather with a completely different temperament, and the state's name announces the change honestly: Meghalaya, coined at…
Punjab
Mustard Fields and the Golden Dome
Punjab announces itself from the train window as an argument for the colour green, wheat to every horizon in winter, and in the mustard months, a yellow so total that…
Five parts. One long road home.
The book follows the shape of the travels rather than the shape of a map — beginning at home in Andhra Pradesh and moving outward the way water moves: along coasts, up rivers, over passes.
- The Southern ArcFrom Andhra Pradesh around the southern coasts to the islands8 journeys
- The Western RoadsGoa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, the Portuguese coast and Rajasthan5 journeys
- The HeartlandThe forests, rivers and old capitals of the middle of India6 journeys
- The Himalayan CrownPunjab to Ladakh — the roads that climb into weather7 journeys
- The Eastern LightBengal, Odisha and the eight states of the Northeast10 journeys
A story first. A guide when you need one.
Every chapter follows the same arc — anticipation, arrival, exploration, discovery, reflection, farewell — and between the stories sits everything I wish someone had told me before I went: what things cost, when to go, what to eat, and how to behave in a temple, a tribal village or a Himalayan monastery.
- 365 pagesA5 paperback, first edition
- 70 photographsOne journey per state and UT
- Free deliveryAnywhere in India, about 7 days
₹599₹499 Save 17%ISBN 978-93-5943-459-9
Rushendra Pydi
who writes as Maharshi · Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh
“This book began, as most journeys do, with a window. It looked out over a lane in Srikakulam district where nothing much happened except everything. For years I watched that lane and told myself that one day I would find out what lay at the end of it — not the end of the lane, exactly, but the end of every road it connected to. The answer, it turns out, is India. All of it.”
Recognised as the youngest to author a travelogue on all states and Union Territories of India, through 28 Shades of India: One Nation. Infinite Journeys.
Real places. Real light.
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Eight lessons on writing, designing and publishing your first book in India, from the making of 28 Shades of India.
From the road
Leh, Slowly
At three and a half thousand metres, the first lesson is humility. A note from the Ladakh chapter.
2 November 2026The Night the God Spoke Malayalam
A Theyyam in a grove outside Kannur, from midnight to dawn. A note from the Kerala chapter.
2 November 2026Three Hours at the Sink
At the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the kitchen was already the theology. A note from the Punjab chapter.
“The train is at the platform. Find a window seat. We have thirty-six journeys ahead of us.”