India Ink was a literary label that burst on the India publishing scene with the Indian edition of the era-defining novel for Indian writing in English (IWE). The God of Small Things, 1998 by Arundhati Roy (featured below). Sometimes, the photographs (by Sanjeev Saith, publisher, India Ink) get the job done on their own, and sometimes, free-spirited illustrations step in. It was a collaboration that entertained a great degree of quirkiness. Some of these are unlikely to have passed muster with a mainstream publisher.  

A shared agenda was the avoidance of overtly ‘Indian’ references with a Eurocentric gaze, The India depicted is faithful to subject, time and place. This is in contrast to the US or UK editions of these novels where the urge to signal ‘Indian novel’ via spice boxes, saree borders, turbaned men, forts, and palm trees proved irresistible.

The logo in the cover is also by ICD—the crow takes its place aside the penguin, the mark of the other leading publisher of IWE at the time.