Our Indian Adventure

"The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it" was penned by Rudyard Kipling and was surely inspired by India. The smells (not all pleasant) are one of the keys to the level of acclimatisation that must be achieved before the wonders of this culturally diverse country can be appreciated. India is a country that is nuclear enabled; has just purchased warplanes and is about to enter an alliance to "position India and China as the centre of the technology world" (in the words of the newsmen). Also a country that has no sanitised water or sufficient plumbing to supply much needed supplies to areas of rural India where millions have died in droughts or through disease from contaminated water supplies. A country that provides no social welfare system and so ignores the plight of (the many) physically handicapped beggars who rely solely on donations from the public to stay alive. You have to wonder about the priorities of such a Government.

Women travellers in particular find themselves under scrutiny and it is little wonder that centuries ago Indian women observed Purdah - an act of hiding themselves away to avoid the lustful looks of men. An Indian told us that whilst women may rule the home, on the streets the men rule and little has changed by way of the lustful looks; it is just that women rarely are seen on the streets by day.

Yet despite the challenges visitors to the country must confront and a modern India faces, the country is tremendously beautiful; from the hostile and strangely unworldly desert scapes to the architectural wonders of the Taj Mahal and imposing hill forts and the beautifully coloured cities. The culture too is an adventure from the food, which is prepared with a fierce pride that has proved an inspiration for many other countries that fuse Indian curries with their own cuisine, to the influence of the many religions on a nation that is surprisingly materialistic in their aspirations for social stature.

People who have visited India often say that you either love it or hate it. That is like saying that there are no shades in the spectrum of colours. It is possible to experience an entire repertoire of emotions in the space of 15 minutes often of such an extreme nature that you learn depths of your character that may otherwise lie dormant. It is not simply a question of summarising and filing India away - such a country is too unique and besides we could not insult the memory of a country that has allowed us such life-changing experiences.