Touring India

With this beautifully lensed and chockfull of insights journey through India, former Video Librarian reviewer and world-renowned travel filmmaker Rick Ray adds another jewel to his already gleaming crown (see reviews of Bali: Life in the Balance, Letters Home From Iceland and South China Seas in VL-11/92, as well as Raise the Bamboo Curtain [VL-1/95] and The Gates of Jerusalem [VL-9/96]). Although India only comprises two percent of the earth's landmass, her population--one billion plus--is only second to China; her people speak a staggering 24 languages; and her culture is infused with the polytheistic Hindu pantheon (Mark Twain once quipped, "India has two million gods, and worships them all"). Touring India, like all of Ray's productions, mixes stunning photography of sites both popular (the Taj Mahal--the glorious 17th century tomb built for a woman) and off the beaten track (a visit to Rajasthan for a camel beauty contest, in which "eyelash length" is a key factor in judging). Much more than just, as the boys from Deliverance might say, "purty pitchers," Touring India is brimming with the filmmaker's witticisms (the river Ganges' mystical waters "not only wash the sins out of human souls, they wash the stains out of men's socks"). Deftly interweaving interesting historical, cultural, religious and social tidbits (I learned that while arranged marriages are still the rule rather than the exception, the divorce rate is actually less than ten percent), with great not-in-the-guidebook segments, this top-notch travel entry takes viewers on a visually sumptuous, entertaining itinerary across the Indian subcontinent to Bombay, Khajuraho, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jaisalmar, New Delhi, Varanasi, Kerala, Calcutta and South India. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)