A journey through every state and union territory
28 Shades
of India
One Nation. Infinite Journeys.
By Maharshi · 365 pages · Free delivery across India in 7 days
36
Journeys
28
States
8
Union Territories
70
Photographs
365
Pages
About the book
“You do not travel to escape your life. You travel so your life can catch up with you.”
There is a particular sound a long-distance train makes crossing the Vamsadhara just after dawn — a hollow drumming, metal over water, that lasts eleven seconds if you count. Then the river is behind you, and so is everything you knew.
28 Shades of India is an attempt to travel across the country through its places, people, stories, food and culture, and to show how many different shades of India exist within one nation.
Coffee terraces above Araku. A burning ghat in Varanasi that files death under municipal services and mercy at once. Root bridges grown rather than built. A langar in Amritsar that feeds fifty thousand people and asks nobody their name.
Inside every chapter
A story first. A guide when you need one.
Arrival stories
Every chapter opens on a platform, a ghat road or a ferry deck — the moment a state first comes into view.
History & culture
Temples, forts, festivals and the people who keep them — told as stories, not lists.
What to eat
From Araku coffee to an Amritsar langar, the meals that carry the character of a place.
Routes & seasons
How to get there, how long to stay and when to go, for every state and UT.
Real budgets
What things actually cost, written by someone who travelled without money to waste.
Your travel journal
Blank pages at the back, waiting for your own India.
The route
Five parts. Thirty-six journeys.
Part One
The Southern Arc
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry (UT), Lakshadweep (UT), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (UT)
8 journeys
Part Two
The Western Roads
Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (UT), Rajasthan
5 journeys
Part Three
The Heartland
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi (UT)
6 journeys
Part Four
The Himalayan Crown
Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh (UT), Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir (UT), Ladakh (UT)
7 journeys
Part Five
The Eastern Light
West Bengal, Odisha, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura
10 journeys
Epilogue & Journal
Coming Home
What thirty-six journeys taught me — and pages for your own India.
Read the opening
Introduction — Why I Left Home
I grew up in Srikakulam district, in the far northeastern corner of Andhra Pradesh, where the state narrows between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal like a hand reaching for Odisha. It is not a famous place. Buses pass through it on their way to somewhere else. And perhaps that is why the idea took root in me early: if my home was a place people passed through, I wanted to become a person who stopped. Everywhere. Deliberately. I wanted to know what the bus drivers knew.
People ask why I chose to travel India rather than the world, as if the two were different sizes. They are not. … I did not need a passport. I needed courage, patience, and a tolerance for buses that leave at 4.30 a.m.
“Eat first. Talk later. This is same everywhere.”
— A woman in Kerala, ladling sambar
About the author
Maharshi
Pydi Rushendra · Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh
MAHARSHI is the pen name of Pydi Rushendra, born and raised in Srikakulam district on the north coast of Andhra Pradesh — a place, as he puts it, that buses mostly pass through. He started travelling young, has not convincingly stopped, and finished this book at twenty.
“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.”
Now in print
Launched on World Tourism Day
First published on 27 September 2026. The paperback is printed in full colour on A5 pages, with seventy photographs, real routes and budgets for every state and Union Territory, and blank journal pages at the back for the journeys that are still yours to make.
Free delivery anywhere in India — your copy arrives in about 7 days.
Choose your edition
Take India home.
Paperback
The Printed Edition
₹499
- A5 · full colour · 365 pages
- All 70 photographs in print
- Blank journal pages for your own journeys
- Free delivery across India · about 7 days
eBook
The PDF Edition
₹299
Coming soon
- The complete book, every chapter
- Clickable table of contents
- Read on phone, tablet or laptop
- Launching soon
“The train is at the platform. Find a window seat. We have thirty-six journeys ahead of us.”