Monographs

Incredible Treasures

UNESCO & Mapin Publishing · 2021

A landmark visual survey of India’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, bringing together architecture, archaeology, cultural landscapes and natural heritage through authoritative texts and photography. Edited by Shikha Jain and Vinay Sheel Oberoi, with Rohit Chawla as Photo Editor. UNESCO and Mapin launched the co-publication in August 2021. Incredible Treasures: UNESCO World Heritage Sites of India brings together, within a single richly illustrated volume, the extraordinary cultural and natural heritage represented by India’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Moving from the prehistoric rock shelters of Bhimbetka and the rock-cut sanctuaries of Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta to Buddhist monuments, the temples of Hampi and Khajuraho, the Taj Mahal, Rani-ki-Vav, colonial architecture, mountain railways and India’s remarkable natural landscapes, the book creates a visual journey across centuries of history, architecture, belief and ecology. Edited by heritage specialist Shikha Jain and the late Vinay Sheel Oberoi, the publication combines accessible scholarship with extensive photography and contributions from specialists in architecture, conservation, ecology and heritage management. Rohit Chawla serves as Photo Editor, helping give the diverse visual material a coherent photographic and editorial identity. Published jointly by UNESCO and Mapin Publishing in 2021, the book functions both as a reference work and as a visual celebration of India’s layered history, cultural pluralism and biodiversity.

Rain Dogs

HarperCollins India · 2025

A deeply personal photographic monograph by Rohit Chawla, documenting the stray dogs of Goa’s near-empty beaches during the pandemic. Made beneath the monsoon skies, the photographs become a meditation on solitude, survival, vulnerability and companionship. Rain Dogs began during the pandemic, when Rohit Chawla found himself walking the unusually deserted beaches of Goa under the monsoon skies. With tourists gone and everyday life suspended, the stray dogs that remained became his companions and, gradually, the subjects of one of his most intimate bodies of work. Over time, Chawla photographed thousands of frames, finding in the dogs’ resilience and isolation a reflection of his own experience of that extraordinary period. The resulting photographs are quiet, atmospheric and deeply personal, placing the animals within vast beaches, rain, sea and occasionally the distant presence of people. Published by HarperCollins India, Rain Dogs brings these photographs together with contributions from around thirty writers, poets and cultural figures. The project developed simultaneously as a book and an exhibition, transforming an intensely personal photographic journey into a wider reflection on empathy, abandonment, companionship and the relationship between humans and animals. Proceeds from the book project support registered animal-welfare charities.

Portrait of An Artist

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi & Mapin Publishing · 2026

An intimate photographic journey by Rohit Chawla into the studios and private creative worlds of India’s leading modern and contemporary artists. With text by Kishore Singh, Portrait of An Artist brings together quiet, revealing portraits that explore the relationship between artists, their workspaces and the process of creation. Portrait of An Artist is Rohit Chawla’s decade-long photographic exploration of the private spaces in which artists think, experiment and create. Moving away from conventional, manufactured portraiture, Chawla enters the studios of some of India’s most significant modern and contemporary artists, photographing them amid canvases, sculptures, books, tools, unfinished works and the accumulated traces of creative life. The photographs are restrained, intimate and largely monochromatic, allowing personality, gesture, atmosphere and environment to become central to each portrait. Accompanying Chawla’s photographs are texts by curator, author and art historian Kishore Singh, who examines the individual relationship each artist has with their studio and practice. Together, image and text create a significant visual and cultural archive of Indian art—capturing not simply what these artists look like, but something of the private worlds from which their public works emerge. The volume includes 130 photographs and profiles a remarkable cross-section of Indian art, with a foreword by Kiran Nadar and additional contributions including Rohit Chawla and Raghu Rai.

The Indian Accent Restaurant Cookbook

India Viking / Penguin Random House India · 2016

A landmark cookbook documenting Chef Manish Mehrotra’s contemporary approach to Indian cuisine, photographed by Rohit Chawla. The book brings together Indian Accent’s signature recipes with refined culinary photography that transforms each dish into a distinctive visual composition.

The Bangala Table

A richly photographed celebration of Chettinad cuisine, bringing together 150 vegetarian and non-vegetarian recipes from The Bangala in Karaikudi. Written by Sumeet Nair, Meenakshi Meyyappan and Jill Donenfeld, with evocative food photography by Rohit Chawla. The Bangala Table: Flavors and Recipes from Chettinad is an extensive documentation of one of South India’s most distinctive culinary traditions. Drawing on recipes associated with The Bangala in Karaikudi, the book brings together 150 vegetarian and non-vegetarian preparations ranging from classic Chettinad dishes to the region’s nostalgic Anglo-Indian “butler” cuisine. Sumeet Nair and Meenakshi Meyyappan worked with Jill Donenfeld to record and adapt the recipes for contemporary home kitchens, while Rohit Chawla’s photography gives the publication its powerful visual character. His images move beyond straightforward recipe illustration, using deep tonalities, traditional vessels, tactile surfaces and controlled light to evoke the atmosphere and material culture of Chettinad. Across 296 pages, the volume combines recipes, culinary heritage and photography into both a working cookbook and a visual archive of a distinctive regional food culture.