Sahar Zaman, New Delhi: We often travel past streets without realising the art we are exposed to, art that we see on posters, hoardings and billboards.

They form an essential part of our street art, our popular culture, now compiled in a book by Marg Publications. The book titled India's Popular culture - Iconic Spaces and Fluid Images gives street art the recognition it deserves.

Images that we have grown up with - images of Hindu Gods, leaders, freedom fighters - something we paid attention to in our social science class and then forgot. But they actually seep into our senses and play a major role on our sense of colour themes.

Edited by eminent art scholar Jyortindra Jain, the book also pays tribute to street plays, better known as nautankis and even the grand celebrations of the Republic Day parade - an academic analysis of all the elements that are part of our popular visual culture.

Colourful and eye-catching, it's an engaging study of religious symbolism, national identity, film posters and images of urban living. While this will surely be used as a reference for understanding cultural motifs; for the casual reader, it opens your eyes to an art that you have often been blind to.