India Indeed So Sublime

This weekend I had the pleasure of viewing the Rhythms of India exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art. While it focused mostly on the artist Nandalal Bose it also featured beautiful pieces by the artist Rabindranath Tagore. For India these artists represented something akin to our arts and crafts artists, as they sought to get back to the roots of Indian art and bringing back traditional schools, or ashrams, for the study of art. This was at the time in India right before the country gained it's independence and much of their art reflects the struggle under British colonial rule. They were contemporaries of, as well as aquaintances with a most notable individual, Mahatma Gandhi.
This exhibit inspired me to really explore (via my home unfortunately) more of India. To go on this journey yourself you will need the following:

Books:
Since Courteny over at StyleCourt has introduced everyone to Mughal Decoration and Rajasthan, I will suggest two new titles.
India Sublime: Princely Palace Hotels of Rajasthan. Another beautiful thick glossy collection from the publisher Rizzoli. It has all the things you love, deeply saturated jewel tone colors, and intensely visually engaging patterns and motifs in their design.
The Sari by Lynda Lynton, from Thames & Hudson. A look at the shockingly colorful and ornate as well as simple textiles of this unique country. Makes me want to get one and wear it myself.
Films:
Satyajit Ray'sThe Apu Trilogy:
Considered by most critics to be the best movie to come out of India and is on TIME magazines 100 best of all time or whatever list. Film-maker Satyajit Ray makes films that are simply beautiful in every since of the word. Beautiful visually , and beautiful in an emotional way, perhaps poetic is the right word. The trilogy chronicles the life of Apu and is like most great movies, a coming of age story. If all the acclaim isn't enough to pull you in maybe an orginal score composed by Ravi Shankar will. See this film!
The Darjeeling Limited:
I don't know how you feel about Wes Anderson films, I personally would like to pack up my things and go live in one. Wes' ever whimsical take on the broken family is no less stunning in his most recent film effort. Rent this movie and watch the featurette first, in which they discuss the hundreds of artisans that hand-painted the interiors and exteriors of the train as well as china for the dining car, hand-blocked fabric, and carved custom screens for the interiors. Even if you watch the actual film on mute (which you shouldn't because the music and dialogue are worth listening too) you need to see it because of Anderson's ability to make such well-edited and visually stunning scenes and sets. Did I forget to say stunning? (Sidenote: this film was heavily inspired by the first mentioned film-maker)
Jean-Auguste Renoir's The River:
I cannot even begin to describe this to you except to say both of the first to film-makers were inspired by this film.(Sidenote: if you are in San Diego or surrounding areas there will be a screening of this during the Indian Film festival being held in conjunction with the SDMA's Rhythms of India exhibit on May 21 at the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theater in Balboa Park)

Other things to Inspire:
I know some of you out there are Anthony Bourdain fans, make sure to see episodes 5 and 6 (Rajasthan and Kolkata/Bombay) from season 2 of his wildly addictive show No Reservations. During just one of the episodes Tony is cooked for by a Maharana, gives us a slice of Bollywood, has a martini at The Lake Palace hotel just like Roger Moore in Octopussy, gets to stay at the luxe Devi Gahr , shops for vividly coloured spices and veg at a streetside vending stand, visits a modern and high tech guru, drinks hallucinogenic drinks, watches a camel race and a beauty contest judged by how much hair one has on their face (don't worry it was for men). Can you even handle both episodes???
Once you are done watching this, or while you are you may be tempted to indulge in some Indian cuisine, my suggestion is lamb vindaloo and if you are really getting into it some chai (not that stuff from that ubiquitous coffee chain though. yeah, you know who I mean), but iced just to help with the spice of the vindaloo.