Text Review of Cultures and Customs textbook by Carol Henderson

Culture and Customs of India. Carol E. Henderson. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. 210 pp.
JESSIE DAVIS
Wofford College
Henderson’s Culture and Customs of India, since it is a textbook, provides a good general overview of the way the typical Indian lives. A strong point of this text is that it is current, but a modern treatment would not be possible without a solid background in Indian history, religion, and basic customs, which provides relatively early on. Henderson also does not focus specifically on one part of India, but instead attempts to balance her treatment of the subject, so that although a certain area may be discussed in a particular section, it is always related back to the broader topic. For example, in the architecture chapter, Henderson discusses the cohesiveness of cities by saying how the city of Jaipur was made primarily of the local pink sandstone, and the ruler, in order to make the city more cohesive, ordered the remaining building to be painted to match. After making this point in a specific instance, Henderson relates it back to the idea of city cohesiveness. This literary skill is one that is carried throughout the text. When reading the textbook, I was impacted to realize the India as a backward, radically religiously centered, “Oriental” place, (1-4) was a misinterpretation by the West that I think I had traces of in my interpretation.. However, I felt saddened later in the book when Henderson talked about the plight of women because from the beginning of the book, as mentioned above, I started to believe that India was not really the country it was stereotypically made out to be, which in my mind included how women were treated. I began to feel that India may have moved on from that dark spot on its history. However, the women chapter disappointed this hope by saying that women were still very seriously mistreated. (124) This made me wonder, though, if the average woman felt disadvantaged because that was such a part of her culture, that she may not have a point of reference from which to understand it differently. So, I wondered if Henderson made too much of current women’s mistreatment. The only question that I came away with was regarding the “evil eye”. (52) It was mentioned several times (in regards to how babies and cities were named ugly names in order to avoid the notice of the evil eye) but Henderson never told the reader what the evil eye was, to which I was frustrated. However, overall, I felt that the contents were highly informational and broad enough to give a good overview of India that was not overwhelmingly dense, but that also did not leave out major themes of Indian culture. Because of this, I would highly recommend this textbook to the student who needs a general overview of India’s culture that is informative, yet as painless as possible.