Remembering Hugh Gantzer, chronicler of India’s roads less taken
Their turning point came in 1974, when the Indian Tourism Development Corporation commissioned them to write a book on Kerala.
Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. (X@amitabhk87) Hugh Gantzer’s career as a travel writer unfolded across more than five decades and more than 30 books, most of them written with his wife, Colleen, and devoted to documenting India through its lesser-known regions, layered histories and everyday lives rather than its landmarks. The iconic writer and TV presenter passed away in Mussoorie on February 2.
Their books, essays and television work blended travel narrative with folklore, cultural observation and speculative history. Titles such as Looking Beyond and the Intriguing India series positioned travel as inquiry rather than consumption, while later works rooted themselves deeply in specific places, particularly Mussoorie, the hill town the couple made their home.
In 2025, Hugh and Colleen Gantzer were jointly awarded the Padma Shri for their contribution to travel journalism. Colleen had passed away the previous year. Together, their work forms a sustained literary project of documenting India through its stories.
Looking Beyond
Looking Beyond by Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. (Source: amazon.in)
Published alongside their English-language television series of the same name, Looking Beyond brings together travel essays drawn from journeys across India and abroad. The book blends anecdote, humour and cultural observation, often veering into history and folklore. Rather than offering itineraries, it presents travel as encounter—meeting people, navigating misunderstandings and lingering over small, telling details. The work reflects the Gantzers’ belief that meaning in travel lies not in destinations but in attention to the ordinary.
Intriguing India: The Alluring North
Intriguing India: The Alluring North by Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. (Source: amazon.in)
Part of the multi-volume Intriguing India project, The Alluring North explores India’s northern regions through travel narrative informed by history and legend. Moving from mountain landscapes to plains, the book combines description with inquiry, using geography as an entry point into questions of culture, belief and continuity. It resists linear storytelling, instead building a layered portrait of place shaped by memory, movement and inherited tradition.
Intriguing India: The Colourful East
Intriguing India: The Colourful East by Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. (Source: amazon.in)
The fourth volume in the Intriguing India series, The Colourful East turns to eastern India, including Assam, Odisha and the Northeast. The book blends travel writing with attention to ritual, mythology and regional history, often posing questions rather than answers. Rivers, islands and borderlands become sites of cultural intersection, as the Gantzers examine how geography, belief and historical migration have shaped local identities.
Mussoorie’s Mythistory
Mussoorie’s Mythistory by Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. (Source: amazon.in)
In Mussoorie’s Mythistory, the Gantzers focus on the hill station they inhabited for decades. The book is structured as a series of interlinked tales that blur folklore, history and imaginative reconstruction. Colonial memory, local legend and surreal anecdote coexist, creating a portrait of Mussoorie as a place defined as much by story as by record. It stands as their most intimate and place-bound work.
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