The Arts

India's magnificent artistic heritage is a reflection of the country’s richly diverse ethnic groups and traditions. You'll encounter artful treasures around every corner: from the exquisite body art of mehndi (henna) to the soulful chants emanating from ancient temples to the vividly decorated trucks rumbling along dusty roads. The wealth of creative expression is a highlight of travelling here, with many of today’s artists fusing ancient and contemporary techniques to produce works that are as evocative as they are edgy.

Dance

The ancient Indian art of dance is traditionally linked to mythology and classical literature. Dance can be divided into two main forms: classical and folk.

Classical dance is based on well-defined traditional disciplines. Some classical dance styles:

Bharatanatyam (also spelt Bharata Natyam) Originated in Tamil Nadu, and has been embraced throughout India.

Kathak Has Hindu and Islamic influences and was particularly popular with the Mughals. Kathak suffered a period of notoriety when it moved from the courts into houses where nautch (dancing) girls tantalised audiences with renditions of the Krishna-and-Radha love story. It was restored as a serious art form in the early 20th century.

Kathakali Has its roots in Kerala; sometimes referred to as ‘dance’ but essentially is a kind of drama based on mythological subjects.

Kuchipudi A 17th-century dance-drama that originated in the Andhra Pradesh village from which it takes its name. The story centres on the envious wife of Krishna.

Odissi From Odisha (Orissa); thought to be India’s oldest classical dance form. It was originally a temple art, and was later also performed at royal courts.

Manipuri Has a delicate, lyrical flavour; hails from Manipur. It attracted a wider audience in the 1920s when acclaimed Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore invited one of its most revered exponents to teach at Shantiniketan (West Bengal).

India’s second major dance form, folk, is widespread and varied. It ranges from the high-spirited bhangra dance of Punjab to the theatrical dummy-horse dances of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and the graceful fishers’ dance of Odisha. In Gujarat, the colourful group dance known as garba is performed during Navratri (Hindu festival held in September or October).

Pioneers of modern dance forms in India include Uday Shankar (older brother of the late sitar master Ravi), who once partnered with Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Rabindranath Tagore was another innovator; in 1901 he set up a school at Shantiniketan in West Bengal that promoted the arts, including dance.

The dance you'll probably most commonly see, though, is in films. Dance has featured in Indian movies since the dawn of 'talkies' and often combines traditional, folk and contemporary choreography.

Music

Indian classical music traces its roots back to Vedic times, when religious poems chanted by priests were first collated in an anthology called the Rig-Veda. Over the millennia classical music has been shaped by many influences, and the legacy today is Carnatic (characteristic of South India) and Hindustani (the classical style of North India) music. With common origins, they share a number of features. Both use the raga (the melodic shape of the music) and tala (the rhythmic meter characterised by the number of beats); tintal, for example, has a tala of 16 beats. The audience follows the tala by clapping at the appropriate beat, which in tintal is at beats one, five and 13. There’s no clap at the beat of nine; that’s the khali (empty section), which is indicated by a wave of the hand. Both the raga and the tala are used as a basis for composition and improvisation.

Both Carnatic and Hindustani music are performed by small ensembles, generally comprising three to six musicians, and both have many instruments in common. There’s no fixed pitch, but there are differences between the two styles. Hindustani has been more heavily influenced by Persian musical conventions (a result of Mughal rule); Carnatic music, as it developed in South India, cleaves more closely to theory. The most striking difference, at least for those unfamiliar with India’s classical forms, is Carnatic’s greater use of voice.

One of the best-known Indian instruments is the sitar (large stringed instrument), with which the soloist plays the raga. Other stringed instruments include the sarod (which is plucked) and the sarangi (which is played with a bow). Also popular is the tabla (twin drums), which provides the tala. The drone, which runs on two basic notes, is provided by the oboe-like shehnai or the stringed tampura (also spelt tamboura). The hand-pumped keyboard harmonium is used as a secondary melody instrument for vocal music.

Indian regional folk music is widespread and varied. Wandering musicians, magicians, snake charmers and storytellers often use song to entertain their audiences; the storyteller usually sings the tales from the great epics.

In North India you may come across qawwali (Sufi devotional singing), performed in mosques or at musical concerts. Qawwali concerts usually take the form of a mehfil (gathering) with a lead singer, a second singer, harmonium and tabla players, and a thunderous chorus of junior singers and clappers, all sitting cross-legged on the floor. The singers whip up the audience with lines of poetry, dramatic hand gestures and religious phrases as the two voices weave in and out, bouncing off each other to create an improvised, surging sound. On command the chorus dives in with a hypnotic and rhythmic refrain. Members of the audience often sway and shout out in ecstatic appreciation.

A completely different genre altogether, filmi (music from Bollywood films) includes modern, slower-paced love serenades, along with ebullient dance songs.

Painting

Around 1500 years ago artists covered the walls and ceilings of the Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, western India, with scenes from the Buddha’s past lives. The figures are endowed with an unusual freedom and grace, and contrast with the next major style that emerged from this part of India in the 11th century.

India’s Jain community created some particularly lavish temple art. However, after the conquest of Gujarat by the Delhi Sultanate in 1299, the Jains turned their attention to illustrated manuscripts, which could be hidden away. These manuscripts are the only known form of Indian painting that survived the Islamic conquest of North India.

The Indo-Persian style – characterised by geometric design coupled with flowing form – developed from Islamic royal courts, although the depiction of the elongated eye is one convention that seems to have been retained from indigenous sources. The Persian influence blossomed when artisans fled to India following the 1507 Uzbek attack on Herat (in present-day Afghanistan), and with trade and gift-swapping between the Persian city of Shiraz, an established centre for miniature production, and Indian provincial sultans.

The 1526 victory by Babur at the Battle of Panipat ushered in the era of the Mughals in India. Although Babur and his son Humayun were both patrons of the arts, it’s Humayun’s son Akbar who is generally credited with developing the characteristic Mughal style. This painting style, often in colourful miniature form, largely depicts court life, architecture, nature, battle and hunting scenes, as well as detailed portraits. Akbar recruited artists from far and wide, and artistic endeavour first centred on the production of illustrated manuscripts (topics varied from history to mythology), but later broadened into portraiture and the glorification of everyday events. European painting styles influenced some artists, and this influence occasionally reveals itself in experiments with motifs and perspective.

Akbar’s son Jehangir also patronised painting, but he preferred portraiture, and his fascination with natural science resulted in a vibrant legacy of paintings of flowers and animals. Under Jehangir’s son Shah Jahan, the Mughal style became less fluid and, although the bright colouring was eye-catching, the paintings lacked the vigour of before.

Miniature painting flowered first at the Mughal court in the 16th century, as well as the Deccan sultanates (Golconda, Bijapur, Bidar etc). As Mughal power and wealth declined, many artists moved to Rajasthan where the Rajasthani school developed from the late 17th century. Later, artists from Rajasthan moved into the Himalayan foothills of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where the Pahari (Hill Country) school flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The subject matter ranged from royal processions to shikhar (hunting expeditions), with many artists influenced by Mughal styles. The intense colours, still evident today in miniatures and frescoes in some Indian palaces, were often derived from crushed semiprecious stones, while the gold and silver colouring is finely pounded pure gold and silver leaf.

By the 19th century, painting in North India was notably influenced by Western styles (especially English watercolours), giving rise to what has been dubbed the Company School, which had its centre in Delhi. Meanwhile, in the south, painter Ravi Varma painted schmaltzy mythological scenes and portraits of women, which were hugely popular and gave Indian subjects a very Western treatment. Look out for the distinctive stylised works of Jamini Roy, depicting village life and culture.

The Madras Movement pioneered modern art in South India in the 1960s, and in the 21st century, paintings by modern and contemporary Indian artists have been selling at record numbers (and prices) around the world. One very successful online art auction house is Saffronart (www.saffronart.com). The larger cities, especially Delhi and Mumbai, are India's contemporary-art centres, with a range of galleries in which to view and/or buy art.

MEHNDI

Mehndi is the traditional art of painting a woman’s hands (and sometimes feet) with intricate henna designs for auspicious ceremonies, such as marriage. If quality henna is used, the design, which is orange-brown, can last up to one month.

In touristy areas, mehndi-wallahs are adept at applying henna tattoo ‘bands’ on the arms, legs and lower back. If you get mehndi applied, allow at least a few hours for the design process and required drying time (during drying you can’t use your hennaed hands).

It’s always wise to request the artist to do a ‘test’ spot on your arm before proceeding: nowadays some dyes contain chemicals that can cause allergies. (Avoid 'black henna', which is mixed with some chemicals that may be harmful.) If good-quality henna is used, you should not feel any pain during or after the application.

Literature

India has a long tradition of Sanskrit literature, although works in the vernacular have contributed to a particularly rich legacy. In fact, it’s claimed there are as many literary traditions as there are written languages.

Bengalis are traditionally credited with producing some of India’s most celebrated literature, a movement often referred to as the Indian or Bengal Renaissance, which flourished from the 19th century with works by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. But the man who to this day is mostly credited with first propelling India’s cultural richness onto the world stage is the Bengali Rabindranath Tagore, with works such as Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World).

One of the earliest Indian authors writing in English to receive an international audience, in the 1930s, was RK Narayan, whose deceptively simple writing about small-town life is subtly hilarious. Keralan Kamala Das (aka Kamala Suraiyya) wrote poetry, such as Summer in Calcutta, in English, and her memoir, My Story, in Malayalam, which she later translated to English; her frank approach to love and sexuality, especially in the 1960s and '70s, broke ground for women writers.

India has an ever-growing list of internationally acclaimed contemporary authors. Particularly prominent writers include Vikram Seth, best known for his epic novel A Suitable Boy, and Amitav Ghosh, who has won a number of accolades; his Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. A number of India-born authors have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize, the most recent being Aravind Adiga, who won in 2008 for his debut novel, The White Tiger. The prize went to Kiran Desai in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss; Kiran Desai is the daughter of the award-winning Indian novelist Anita Desai, who has thrice been a Booker Prize nominee. In 1997 Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things, while Salman Rushdie took this coveted award in 1981 for Midnight’s Children.

Cinema

India’s film industry was born in the late 19th century – the first major Indian-made motion picture, Panorama of Calcutta, was screened in 1899. India’s first real feature film, Raja Harishchandra, was made during the silent era in 1913, and it’s ultimately from this film that Indian cinema traces its lineage.

Today, India’s film industry is the biggest in the world – twice as big as Hollywood. Mumbai, the Hindi-language film capital, aka Bollywood, is the biggest, but India’s other major film-producing cities – Chennai (Kollywood), Hyderabad (Tollywood) and Bengaluru (Sandalwood) – also have a considerable output. A number of other centres produce films, in their own regional vernaculars, too. Big-budget films are often partly or entirely shot abroad, with some countries vigorously wooing Indian production companies because of the potential spin-off tourism revenue these films generate.

Hundreds of feature films are produced annually throughout India. Apart from millions of local Bolly-, Tolly- and Kollywood buffs, there are also millions of Non-Resident Indian (NRI) fans, who have played a significant role in catapulting Indian cinema onto the international stage.

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of Indian films. Most prominent is the mainstream 'masala' movie – named for its 'spice mix' of elements. Designed to have something for every member of the family, these films encompass a blend of romance, action, slapstick humour and moral themes. Three hours and still running, these blockbusters are often tear-jerkers and are packed with dramatic twists interspersed with numerous song-and-dance performances. In Indian films made for the local market there is no explicit sex, and not even much kissing (although smooching has made its way into some Bollywood movies); however, lack of nudity is often compensated for by heroines dressed in skimpy or body-hugging attire, and the lack of overt eroticism is more than made up for with intense flirting and loaded innuendos.

The second Indian film genre is art house, which adopts Indian ‘reality’ as its base. Generally speaking, these films are socially and politically relevant. Usually made on infinitely smaller budgets than their commercial cousins, they are the ones that tend to win kudos at global film festivals and awards ceremonies. In 2013, Dabba (Lunchbox), a non-Bollywood romantic comedy written and directed by Ritesh Batra, won the Grand Rail d'Or at Cannes International Critics’ Week.

Indian films that have made it to the final nomination list of the Academy Awards (Best Foreign Language Film category) are Mother India (directed by Mehboob Khan, 1957), Salaam Bombay! (directed by Mira Nair, 1988) and Lagaan (directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001).