A Village in South India

by Adam Clapham

A wonderful portrait of life led in a small rural village in India.

An easy read travel book for tourists and first-time visitors to the country.

A documentary maker’s eye for detail and an insider’s knowledge of this vibrant and colourful world.

Illustrated with drawings by acclaimed local artist and environmentalist, Dinesh Holla.

The cacophony of noise, the smells and the colours decribed in A Village in South India are brought vividly to life by TV producer, and long time Indian village resident, Adam Clapham. There are over six hundred thousand villages in India and a quarter of a million of them are home to fewer than five hundred people. Mostly it is an existence of back-breaking drudgery for pitiful financial reward. And yet it is a world full of vitality and joy, filled with the excitement of festivals such as Navaratri and Dasara, weddings, fireworks and fun.

The everyday life in the village is far from easy, where the prices of life’s essentials rise far more quickly than the wages of most of the people who live there. Yet these villagers are out-going and cheerful, stoic about the few bad times and bursting with joy and laughter when all is well with the world.

This is also a world which survives on the money sent back from those of the community who have left it for the big cities or to jet across the seas to seek their fortunes in the Gulf. They will return to their villages for marriage and for the birth of their children, to mourn the deaths of their relatives and eventually, maybe, to die there themselves. Without these salaried young exiles sending money home the village communities would be in a far worse position. And it is this village community that is explored and detailed to bring alive the joys and sorrows of this extraordinary life.

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About the Author

Adam Clapham

For twenty years Adam Clapham was a director and producer for BBC Television, responsible for Man Alive, Braden's Week, Aristocrats and Americans. Later he set up Griffin Productions, producing TV movies for the U.S. market and documentaries for Channel Four and National Geographic. He also produced an adaptation of Anita Desai's Indian novel, 'The Village by the Sea' for BBC Children's.

Adam is the author of 'Beware Falling Coconuts' which reflects his love of India, 'As Nature Intended' and a memoir, 'Blood on the Carpet.' He was recently commissioned by The Hindu to write a major profile celebrating Sir Mark Tully's 80th birthday.

Adam lives half the year in London and spends his winters at a house he has built on the banks of a river in south India.

A Village is South India is published by Matador in January 2019.