Beautiful Country

Gunjan Veda and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed

HarperCollins India

402 pages, R399

The outcome of the five years Veda and Hameed spent travelling around their country as part of their work with the Planning Commission, this book attempts to uncover an “invisible” India. The authors describe, among others, impoverished weavers in Varanasi; young doctors from the AIIMS who have left behind the comfort of city life to provide healthcare in the hinterlands of Chhattisgarh; and village women able to significantly reduce the number of infant deaths at the tribal peripheries of Maharashtra.