“So this is the most number of ambassadors at any given time in the history of independent India,” Ananth Padmanabhan joked on Tuesday evening, looking out at a crowd at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, that included a current ambassador and several former ones. Behind him, on every wall, were the iconic yellow cars he meant.

Padmanabhan, the CEO of HarperCollins India, is also a novelist and photographer. His first solo show, on Calcutta, in 201, was also held at the India Habitat Centre.

No Refusal is the result of nearly three decades of what he calls “an irrational love,” which stemmed from the moment he spotted the distinctive cabs when he got off the Rajdhani Express at Howrah in January 1998.…