India: The Planning Phase
By Red Sox Steve
In February 2010, for the first time in my life, I'm going to take a trip to India. When I mention to people that I'm heading to India, one of the first things they want to know is, "why India?"
It's hard to pinpoint when contact or proximity to someone or something Indian first made an impression on me. Sure, there were a few Indian students in my class throughout my junior high and high school years in Rhode Island; by the time I went to college in Boston (where I earned my nickname rooting for the Boston Red Sox), it was evident that I had much to learn. One of my closest friends in college was Indian and introduced me to Indian food for the first time - it was an acquired taste I didn't have the first time I sat down ("how am I supposed to put this all together with my hands?").
In the early 2000s, I paid little attention to world affairs... I studied science after all, and never even thought of studying abroad. Yep, that WAS me... boy how things change! In 2002, I joined the Peace Corps and soon after my arrival in Guyana, consistently started to encounter a culture that was distinctly Indian for the first time. Chicken curry, Diwali, Ramadan (13% of India is Muslim, the world's largest Muslim minority population) and some of the history behind the British colonization of India came on to my radar as I adjusted to life in a foreign country. The world was a lot bigger than I ever imagined.
After returning to the US, life in New York exposed me to a multicultural world. My goals here were primarily economic and my first job was in finance. Although I wasn't exposing myself to India during my working day, there were plenty of learning opportunities available as I made decisions about my future. During the latter half of the 2000s, the idea of India as an emerging economic powerhouse became more widespread. As I started to learn more about India, the facts began to astound me: a nation of 1 billion people, a rapidly growing economy, a former British colony, layers of history and culture, massive cities, and the list goes on and on.
Which brings me to the present day. The amount of reading I've done on India and the numerous movies, documentaries and presentations I've watched only begin to scratch the surface of what I am about to learn. The immensity of this nation and the background of its people mean I could study India for the rest of my life and still only know a fraction of what is out there.
But now, I've got to wade away from a theoretical and academic perspective and into a more tangible one. My feet will be on the ground there very soon, and I've got to figure out where I'm going and what I'm doing.
First, I had to take care of vaccinations. I went to the travel clinic at Miriam Hospital in RI, and learned that the following were needed for India (for official information on vaccines for India or any other country visit the CDC website at www.cdc.gov):
1) H1N1
2) Hep A
3) Hep B
4) Japenese encephalitis
5) Rabies
6) Seasonal flu
7) Typhoid
8) Measles (aka "MMR")
9) Polio
10) TDaP
11) Malaria
Traveling on a US Passport means you can't go to India without a visa, so I got a 10 year tourist visa in my passport. With my vaccines, visa and passport, a money belt, neck pillow, Lonely Planet (1200 pages!) and a few other items, I'm good to go!
I'm planning on spending 4 weeks in India, and here is the itinerary I'm working with, remembering to include flexibility at all points along the trip:
1) Days 1-4: Delhi - After a 25 hour flight which includes a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam, I land in Delhi. Delhi is a massive and very crowded city with a growing population and an urban renewal effort taking place ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Over the last 2500 years, at least eight cities have been founded in the area of Delhi, with New Delhi being the most recent, completed by the British in 1931. I'll be staying in Connaught Place, which is situated right between New Delhi and Old Delhi. Connaught Place was constructed during British rule, and was named after the title given to Queen Victoria's third son, Prince Arthur - Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. In Delhi, I'd like to visit a few different sites, some of which are a 15-20 minute walk from where I will be staying, and are listed here in no particular order:
- Gandhi Smirthi: the place where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948. A memorial has been placed at the location, and there are numerous photos and other works of art there. Gandhi had been staying there for 144 consecutive days before he was shot by a Hindu extremist.
- National Gandhi Museum: After Gandhi's assassination, a number of his personal items were collected from around India and assembled in Mumbai. Eventually, Gandhi's effects were moved to their current location in Delhi. I also hope to see the Raj Ghat, a short walk away from the museum, where Gandhi was cremated.
- National Museum: The museum, the largest in India, has a collection that covers 5,000 years of Indian history. The wide range of items in the museum include Buddhist art, European coins, Mughal weaponry and Persian manuscripts. Wow!
- Nehru Memorial Museum: Jawaharlal Nehru, who died in 1964, was the first prime minister of India. The museum is located in the "Teen Murti Bhavan" ("House of Three Statues") on Teen Murti Road. Nehru occupied the house as the first prime minister of India, taking it over from the Commander-in-Chief of British forces in India. After Nehru's death, the house was converted into a national memorial. It also contains one of the four Nehru planetariums in the country.
2) Days 4-6: Agra, Uttar Pradesh. Agra is a 2 hour train ride from New Delhi, conveniently located just to the north of Connaught Place. According to my guide, a train leaves each day at 6:15 AM. The state of Uttar Pradesh is just east of Delhi, and I'll be visiting a few cities here, including Lucknow and Varanasi. Uttar Pradesh was the centerpiece of the Buddhist empire of Ashoka the Great, 2000 years ago. Agra was the first capital of Ashoka's empire, which stretched across the subcontinent from Afghanistan to Bangladesh. Agra sits right along a bend in the Yamuna River and is home to one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world, the Taj Mahal.
- Taj Mahal: Designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 and over 300 years old, this is the top tourist destination in India. It is opened from dawn to dusk everyday except Friday to tourists, and on Fridays if you are attending prayer at the mosque.
- Agra Fort: The Taj is not the only World Heritage Site in Agra. Construction on this fort began in 1565 by Emperor Akbar, completed by his grandson who also built the Taj, Shah Jahan. The fort and the Taj are a little over a mile apart.
3) Days 7-9: Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. To get from Agra City (AGA) train station to Lucknow Junction train station (LJN) takes about 4-6 hours. Lucknow is the capital of Uttar Pradesh, and was the site of the First War of Independence, in 1857. The Residency, a compound built by the British in 1800, was seized by Indian freedom fighters in 1857 and held for over 100 days. 2000 people died in an effort to defend the Residency. There are also Shia mosques and tombs in Lucknow, namely the Bara Imambara and the Hussainabad Imambara, which I will also try to see.
4) Days 9-11: Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The train ride from Lucknow to Varanasi is about 6 hours. Varanasi is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities and has been a cultural and religious center in North India for a few thousand years. It lies right along the Ganges river and is thus a prime location for deceased Hindus to be cremated along the city's ghats. By being cremated along a sacred river like the Ganges, the dead can achieve "moksha", a release from the cycle of birth and death.
- The Durga Mandir (Temple) is situated in Ramnagar of Banaras (or Varanasi). It was built 500 years ago and is under the control of the royal family of Banaras State currently. This temple is devoted to Hindu deity Durga. The temple has a large stone built pond with it. The Durga Mandir boasts of its fine stone works, which is a fabulous example of north Indian stone work arts.
- Kashi Vishwanath Temple, also called Golden Temple, was built in 1780 by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore, located on the outskirts of the Ganga. This temple makes Varanasi a place of great religious importance to Hindus because Vishweshwara or Vishwanatha, the aforementioned Jyotirlinga of the Lord Shiva is enshrined here. A single view of Vishwanatha Jyotirlinga is considered to merit more than that of other jyotirlingas.
5) Days 12-16: Calcutta ("Kolkata"), West Bengal. The train from Varanasi to Calcutta is 14 hours. In Hindu lore, the God Shiva found his wife Sati's charred remains and vowed to do a "dance of destruction", which was only stopped by Vishnu, the supreme God of Hinduism. In Vishnu's effort, Sati's body was dismembered into 51 pieces, and one of her toes fell near Calcutta, in Kalighat, where a temple now stands. In 1686, British explorers arrived at the mouth of the Ganges and the area was signed over to the British East India Company.
- Victoria Memorial: The memorial is designed in what is known as an Indo-Saracenic style, and is referred to in the travel guide as a combination of the Taj Mahal and the White House. Inside it is both a memorial to the late Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee and a museum.
- Indian Musuem: Here, there are 1000 year old Hindu sculptures, minerals and even a whale skeleton.
- Mother Theresa's Mission: Here is where Mother Theresa lived from 1953 to 1997, and where she lay entombed, along with some of her personal effects.
- Sunderbans Tiger Reserve: I'll have to first visit the West Bengal Tourism office in the section of Kolkata called BBD Bagh to see if this is possible. It seems like any excursion is at least a full day, maybe two, to see one of the largest concentrations of tigers in the world.
6) city, days 16-18, cross country train trip to Mumbai
7) Days 18-22, Mumbai, Maharashtra: First occupied by Koli fishermen, then Hindus, then Muslims, then Portuguese, then annexed to the British via royal marriage, THEN leased to the British East India Company in 1668, Mumbai is the most populous city in India.
- Fort Area: The High Court's design is based on a German castle and a visitor can go inside and take pictures for free.
- Fort Area: Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (aka "Victoria Terminus", "VT" or "CST") - this is the busiest train station in Asia and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Worli: Nehru Center. The Nehru Center contains a planetarium, as well as a history exhibition called "Discovery of India".
- There is a walking tour that starts in Fort, which takes about 3 hours to complete. It starts in Colaba at the Gateway of India and ends in Churchgate.
8) Days 23-26, Jaipur, Rajasthan: Jaipur is an 18 hour train ride from Mumbai, and is the capital of Rajasthan. The Rajputs are warrior clans who claim to have occupied Rajasthan for 1000 years prior to British arrival. After the British colonized India, Rajput maharajas regained much of their states' independence, which had been lost under the Mughal empire. Consequently, the maharajas were well compensated by the British in return for cooperation with their colonial rulers.
- Iswari Minar Sarga Sal: From this minaret, a viewer can see what is known as the "old city" of Jaipur.
- Amber Fort is located in Amber, 11 km from Jaipur. It was the ancient citadel of the ruling Kachhawa clan of Amber, before the capital was shifted to Jaipur. Amber Fort is known for blending both Hindu and Muslim (Mughal) architectural elements, and its ornate and breathtaking artistic mastery. The fort borders the Maota Lake.
9) Extra time: Udaipur, Rajasthan (between Mumbai and Jaipur): The train ride from Mumbai to Udaipur is 16 hours. Udaipur is in southern Rajasthan, and has been referred to as India's most romantic city. It was founded in 1559 and on the eastern side of Lake Pichola. The City Palace and City Palace Museum are on the eastern side of the lake, and, aside from the lake itself, seem like they are the most prominent attraction in Udaipur.
