This is a daily collection of all sorts of interesting stuff for you to read about during the trip. The guides can’t cover everything; so this is a way for me to fill in some of those empty spaces about many of the different aspects of this fascinating culture. THE Once Upon a TIMES OF INDIA PUBLISHED FOR EDDIE’S KOSHER TRAVEL GUESTS, WITH TONGUE IN CHEEK OCTOBER 2014 בן בג בג אומר: ”הפוך בה והפוך בה, דכולא בה“ )אבות ה‘( INDIA! - An Explorer’s Note Thanks to Eddie’s Kosher still dark. Thousands of peo- concept completely. Do not WELCOME Travel and you, I am coming ple were all over the place look upon India with western back to India now for the waiting for trains, I imagine, eyes, and do not judge it. If TO INDIA! 25th time; and every time I’m and sleeping on the station you do, you will diminish not quite sure what type of platforms. Here too, many both it and your experience. India I will find. Over the beggars are already at "work" Learn it. Feel it. Imbibe it. years that I have travelled coming up to me with hands Accept it. Wrap your head here regularly, I have grown outstretched. While I under- around it. Understand it for to love India, specially its stand the Indian worldview of what it is. For it is India. people, who seemed to have caste and karma, and why by an attitude of "there is always and large no one helps the When I was here for the first room for one more." I find poverty stricken, I find it time in 1999, India’s popula- the people in India to be pa- very, very disturbing. Some- tion passed the 1 billion tient and tolerant. I wonder times, it makes me angry. I mark. Now they’re at 1.2 what I will find this time? know of Sikh temples in nu- billion. That’s a growth of merous places in India that 20% in 15 years! That’s why I India is one of the most di- Holy cows still walk the often say that there are many verse nations in the world. In streets (of course), even in Indias, and one place can be area, it is the seventh largest the big cities. Road rules are the complete opposite to country, and in population it definitely recommendations another. In fact, one place is second only to China (and only! The rickshaw driver can be the complete opposite that is anticipated to change who picked me up once be- to the place across the somewhere between 2019 fore drove on the wrong side street. Thus it is in India – a and 2025). Within its geo- of the street, or in the oppo- land of many contrasts, many graphical confines, stretching site direction to the traffic, nuances. Multifaceted would from the Great Himalayas in the north to the tropical but that didn't stop him from be an incomplete way to southern peninsula, there is a hurtling full speed into the describe India. Albeit it is dizzying variety of cultures, oncoming traffic, honking like that; but it’s much, much languages, ethnic groups, a lunatic, until a gap enabled more. beliefs and lifestyles that few him to whiz across the street countries or even continents onto the correct side. What provide daily free meals for India remains one of my most possess. The past is ever pre- a riot! tens of thousands of people; favourite of destinations. My sent and centuries-old forts but the usual replies I have primary aim on this journey and temples happily coexist Another feature of Indian received from the haves re- is to turn it into one of yours with the modern. It’s a society that comes back to garding the have-nots is that too. Enjoy the very experi- crowded society and per- me is the huddled masses this is the way Indian society ence of opening your mind to sonal space is an unknown that populate the streets and operates, and that's the way something else. That too, concept. But it is an inher- intersections everywhere. I it is. Caste and Karma. To after all, is India. ently tolerant, friendly soci- once arrived to Delhi Central begin to understand India ety, welcoming and hospita- Railway Station while it was means to first absorb this ble. Menahem A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA כי אלף שנים בעיניך כיום אתמול כי יעבור ואשמורה בלילה - תהילים צ:ד The history of India is one of tion. Historically part of an- Vamsa), Kuru, Panchala, Colonial Era: From the 16th the grand epics of world his- cient India, it is one of the Matsya, Surasena, Assaka, century, European powers tory and can be best described world's earliest, urban civili- Avanti,Gandhara, and Kam- such as Portugal, Netherlands, in the words of India's first zations, along with Mesopota- boja. France and the United King- Prime Minister Jawaharlal mia and Ancient Egypt. In- dom established trading posts Nehru as "a bundle of contra- habitants of this era devel- Persian and Greek Con- in India. Later, they took ad- dictions held together by oped new techniques in met- quests: Much of the North- vantage of internal conflicts strong but invisible threads". allurgy and handicraft and west subcontinent (currently and established colonies in Indian history can be charac- produced copper, bronze, lead Afghanistan and Pakistan) the country. terized as a work in progress, and tin. came under the rule of the a continuous process of rein- Persian Achaemenid Empire The British Rule: The British vention that can eventually Early Historic Period in C. 520 BCE under the rule Rule in India began with the prove elusive for those seek- of Darius the Great and re- coming of the British East ing to grasp its essential char- The Vedic Period is distin- mained so for two centuries. India Company in 1600 and acter. guished by the Indo-Aryan In 326 BCE, Alexander the continued till Indian inde- culture which was associated Great conquered Asia Minor pendence from British rule in The history of this astonishing with the texts of Vedas, sa- and the Achaemenid Empire, 1947. sub continent dates back to cred to Hindus, and that were when he reached the North- almost 75000 years ago with orally composed in Vedic west frontier of the Indian The Indian Independence the evidence of human activ- Sanskrit. The Vedas are some subcontinent he defeated King Movement: ity of Homo sapiens. The of the oldest extant texts, next Porus and conquered most of In the 20th century Mahatma Indus Valley Civilization to those in Egypt and Meso- Punjab. Gandhi led millions of people which thrived in the north- potamia. The Vedic era in the in a national campaign of non western part of the Indian subcontinent lasted from The Maurya Empire, ruled -violent civil disobedience to subcontinent from 3300- 1300 about 1500-500 BCE, laying by the Mauryan Dynasty from contain independence from BCE was the first major civi- down the foundation of Hin- 322-185 BCE was a geo- the British. lization in India. duism and other cultural di- graphically extensive and mensions of early Indian soci- mighty political and military Independence and Partition: Following is the history of ety. The Aryans laid down empire in ancient India, estab- Religious tension between the India through the Ages: Vedic civilization all over lished in the subcontinent by Hindus and Muslims had been North India, particularly in Chandragupta Maurya in Ma- brewing over the years, espe- The Pre Historic Era the Gangetic Plain. gadha (present day Bihar) and cially in provinces like Punjab was it further thrived under and West Bengal. The Mus- The Stone Age began The Mahajanapadas period Ashoka the Great. lims were a minority and they 500,000 to 200,000 years ago saw the second major rise in did not feel secure in the pros- and recent finds in Tamil urbanization in India after the The Mughals: pect of an exclusively Hindu Nadu (at C. 75000 years ago, Indus valley Civilization. The In 1526, Babur, a descendant government and hence made before and after the explosion word "maha" means great and of Timur and Gengis Kahn them wary of independence. of the Toba Volcano) indicate the word "janapada" means from Fergana Valler (present All through this Mahatama the presence of the first ana- foothold of a tribe. In the later day Uzbekistan) swept across Gandhi called for unity tomically humans in the area. Vedic Age a number of small the Khyber Pass and estab- among the two religious Tools crafted by proto- kingdoms or city states had lished the Mughal Empire groups. The British, whose humans that have been dated mushroomed across the sub- which covered modern day economy had been weakened back to two million years continent and also find men- Afghanistan, Pakistan, India after World War 2, decided to have been discovered in the tion in early Buddhist and and Bangladesh. The Mughal leave India and participated in North-western part of the Jain literature as far back as dynasty ruled most of the the formation of an interim country. 1000 BCE. By 500 BCE, six- Indian subcontinent till 1600; government. The British In- teen "republics" or Mahajana- after which it went into de- dian territories gained inde- The Bronze Age in the Indian padas has been established, cline after 1707 and was fi- pendence in 1947, after being subcontinent dates back to namely; Kasi, Kosala, Anga, nally defeated during India's partitioned into the Union of around 3300 BCE with the Magadha, Vajji (or first war of Independence in India and the Dominion of early Indus Valley Civiliza- Vriji),Malla, Chedi, Vatsa (or 1857.