India
“There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won’t go. For me, India is such a place.”
– Keith Bellows, National Geographic Society
The place of startling contrasts and contradictions – India, with its painted elephants and fuming trucks, its powder-pink palaces and mother-of-pearl monuments rising over cardboard shanty towns, and subtle aromas of the tandoor, all color and chaos.
The Himalayas, standing tall in breathtaking splendor are radiant in myth and mystery. These are the youngest and tallest mountain ranges that feed the Ganges with never-ending streams of snow. The snow-capped peaks are a part of every Indian’s life. Even today, when urban India is racing against time, in the caves of the snow-clad peaks live the spiritual strivers – seeking the divine.
The Vindhya mountain ranges cut right across the country, from west to east and form the boundary between North and South India followed by one of the worlds most extensive and fertile lands.
Ancient India witnessed the birth of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism; but all these cultures and religions intermingled and acted and reacted upon one another in such a manner that though people speak different languages and observe different social customs, they follow certain common styles of life throughout the country. India therefore shows a deep underlying unity despite of its great diversity evident in its brilliant architecture, literature, art, movies, theatre and festivals…
Blessed with a wide variety of climates and soil, which permit the growing of many unique earthy roots, precious woods, aromatic spices, exotic flowers, balsamic resins and scented grasses. Practitioners of Ayurveda (the traditional Indian system of medicine) were well acquainted with the uses to which these plants could be put and prescribed them to treat the emotional, mental and physical ailments of the people.
India’s status as the largest developing democracy can be defined as a land where humanity has lived since ages; where different religions, societies, cultures, languages have interplayed with each other in harmony; a land which has seen the best and the striking contrasts; a place where nature has bestowed itself in all its colors to end it all a land which has something for everyone shall remain itself till eternity.
