A Journey Through India [antikvár]

ULTIMATELY, YOU will have to drive every banal image from your mind. Every cliche from newspapers and books, television and the cinema will prove to be a fractional truth. For India cannot be fitted into a readymade slot. The India of the Raj, submerged in a mire of vicarious nostalgia; the India of the curmudgeon travel writer-decadent, corrupt, and quite, quite hopeless; the Hippié Haven-the hard sell of the sixties; it will not do. You will have to erase all these stereotypes, and then you may discover your own India; for there is not just one India but many that coexist and sometimes overlap and merge into one another in a bewildering montage. The tourist brochure proclaims, India is a land of startiing contrasts. And the government handbook trots out the catchphrase, 'Unity in Diversity'. All of which is trite but true. Centuries of invasions and migrations and the consequent mingling of peoples have resulted in a great variety of physical types. The palette of Indián skin tones ranges from pale to swarthy, while facial features display tremendous diversity. The people of India speak one or more of fifteen different languages and over 200 dialects; they may be Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Zoroastrians or Jews. What, then, in this Bábel of tongues and ways of worship, ultimately binds the Indián people together? The idea of India has roots that go deeper in the popular mind than régiónál or sectarian loyalties. At the more quotidian level, the rhythm of the seasons with its impact on life and work, local cults and beliefs has bound rural life in a common thread. In the cities the compulsions of industry and úrban life have led to a new logic, a new impetus that holds diverse groups together in a sense of community. Both the contrasts and the continuity are a product of India's varied topography and long history. Academic fashion prefers the term South Asia now, but with its geographical, ethnic and linguistic multiplicity India is best described as a subcontinent. The northern ramparts of the Himalayas and the moat made up of three seas washing peninsular India's long coastline have in a sense kept India distinct from adjacent geographical or cultural regions. The Himalayas served as a barrier against the icy winds of Central Asia, but were not always affective against political intruders. From the north-western passes came the Aryan horsemen who settled down and gave Indián society and culture much of its character. Later came the Greeks, the Scythians, the Parthians, the Turks and Afghans and others-including, of course, the Mughals. Navigators, too, succeeded in crossing the oceans to reach