We often pick up a book expecting to find written text in the form of words and sentences that weave into a story. Words demand that we read them, feel them and interpret them. Photographs or illustrations, when included, usually serve as companions to the narrative. Sayali Goyal’s Everyday Indian Aesthetic defies this convention.

Here is a book of photographs with almost no text to guide us. At first, this absence feels perplexing. Yet, as the pages unfold, Goyal’s intent becomes clear. By withholding explanation, she compels us to find ourselves in the images, to locate within them fragments of our own history and memory.

Even coffee-table books, despite their visual focus, rarely abandon text altogether. They rely on commentary to contextualize the images. Goyal takes the opposite approach. Her photographs, painstakingly gathered from her travels across India, are not documentation but an invitation to look, to remember, to imagine. The result is a deeply personal journey for each reader, or rather, viewer.

The book is divided into four sections: Objects & Artefacts, Typography & Imagery, Adornment & Identity, and Architecture & Interiors. Each page presents a carefully curated selection that highlights the ordinary that is often overlooked. What is noteworthy about these images is their commonness. Nothing here is staged for the benefit of an outsider’s gaze. The photographs emerge organically, capturing objects sitting in sync with the mood of their environments. Nothing seems out of place.

The ordinariness of these scenes is the book’s strength. Across Southasia - and perhaps beyond - viewers will recognize in these images an intimate familiarity. They bring to mind a phase of life, a slice of childhood, a harking back to simpler times. They ask us to pause and notice, with wonder, the structures, ornaments, people and spaces that have always been present in the backdrop of our lives.

One particularly evocative image shows an earthen water pitcher, or ghara, resting on a wrought iron stand, with a steel tumbler placed upside down on top. This arrangement transported me to my grandmother’s old house, reminding me of the scent of damp walls and peeling plaster.

The ghara has been a fixture of South Asian homes for centuries, yet here a detail disrupts the tradition: a plastic tap. Traditional 'gharas' required tilting or lifting to pour water. With the addition of the tap, the tradition has been balanced with pragmatism. This interplay of continuity and adaptation recurs throughout the book.

Another photograph depicts a plastic tray placed on a carpet, laden with plates of biscuits, samosas and gulab jamuns. Every item bears a loud floral print, showing a certain kitsch aesthetic. The scene oozes with the warmth of middle-class hospitality – hastily arranged snacks served to an unannounced but welcome guest.

Another image in the Objects & Artefacts section shows a red Maruti 800, one of the earliest Suzuki models assembled in India, is parked casually by the roadside. Its Pakistani twin, the Suzuki FX, represented a revolution in affordable mobility and dominated the roads in navy and beige hues. Today, the car is often spotted in a ramshackle state, a relic of the hopes it once unleashed.

In Typography & Imagery, we see how text surrounds us -- on our walls, our bodies, and everyday objects. In India’s multilingual landscape, scripts intermingle: a café menu has the English header “Rate List” inscribed in Devanagari script. The names of dishes are written in Hindi on the left and Punjabi Gurmukhi on the right, while prices take centre stage in familiar English numerals.

The Architecture & Interiors section shows how vernacular forms blend with daily utility. Wall niches, art deco windows, and multifoil arches carry echoes of tradition, while electric fans, old-style switchboards, and barred windows reveal the textures of daily life.

True to its title, the book celebrates the aesthetics of the everyday. The photographs are not of glamorous or monumental objects, but of background details of ordinary lives. By foregrounding them, Goyal asks us to reconsider the beauty and meaning of what we habitually overlook.

In a way, Everyday Indian Aesthetic reframes the ordinary as extraordinary. By presenting humble objects and spaces with dignity, Goyal compels us to pause and see them anew. The images remind us of the resilience of traditions, the adaptability of local industries, and the quiet beauty embedded in daily life.

In capturing these fragments of the everyday, Sayali Goyal has created a vessel for cultural reflection. Without textual explanations, viewers are free to imagine their own narratives. The book proves that stories can be told through the silent eloquence of images.

Everyday Indian Aesthetic
By Sayali Goyal
Roli Books, 15 September 2024
432 pages; INR 2,495 (USD 28.12)

(The writer is a finance professional living in Dubai. He is the author of the travel memoir ‘Coming Back: The Odyssey of a Pakistani through India’. A world traveler from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan who has visited 111 countries By special arrangement with Sapan)