Thank you all!

I got Fresh India — largely because I already own Vegetarian India and this way the recipient will have a chance to try out both books.

40 years ago (when I was their age), Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking was where I started! Impressive that she’s still a go-to source!

This is good for simple, vegan. I used it a lot back when I was vegetarian. https://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Indian-Cooking-Healthy-Recipes/dp/1572841303

I love Madhur Jaffrey’s books. She has a great Indian vegetarian book. I think it’s called “Vegetarian India”.
Meera Sodha’s book “Fresh India” is good too.
For slightly less authentic, but good recipes adapted to American ingredients, Priya Krishna’s Indian-ish. It’s mostly vegetarian.

Madhur Jaffrey for breadth.

Meera Sodha's cookbooks for someone who needs pictures to get inspired and is not a purist for regional styles (a lot of them are diaspora family recipes or ones she's adapted). Made in India is one of my favorite cookbooks, although it does have a meat chapter, and there's also a vegetarian one I can't remember the title of. I use these more than Madhur Jaffrey myself, they're just very appealing books.

Madhur Jaffrey, or if she watches GBBO, Chetna has some.

For studio apartment-dwelling 20something with a minimally-equipped kitchen who lives in a major US city with decent access to ingredients.