Trips. ​India is an exotic country of contrasts

Literally from the first minutes of tourists’ stay in India, a waterfall of bright colors falls on them. national clothes, the pungent smells of spices and smoking incense, the luxury of ancient temples and the poverty of narrow streets, the diversity of Tantric temples and the silent silence of the Taj Mahal.

India's ambivalence is evident everywhere: here and unique beaches with the purest sand and warm sea, and crooked streets that are difficult to navigate due to the numerous garbage, and unimaginable colors traditional clothes, and the white silence of the most ancient palaces, and the destroyed temples of ancient kings, and the high-rise modern skyscrapers of the largest business centers, and a unique mixture modern technologies and artisanal manual labor.

India is all about contradictions. There is so much mixed in it that it knocks you down, turns your soul inside out, and then puts everything in its place.

Being one of the most populous countries after its neighbor China, India enjoys the status of a republic. Possessing large area, it amazes with its natural diversity. Here are the hard-to-reach and alluring “abodes of the snow” Himalayas and the endless Thar Desert with camels and nomads, as well as the unique beaches of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Many rivers originating in the mountains fill their beds during the melting of glaciers and the rainy season and often lead to extensive flooding in some states of the country.

The flora and fauna of India is amazing. Elephants, sacred cows, and numerous dogs calmly walk along the city streets. The crowns of sal and jat trees wave greetings to numerous tourists. Palm trees entwined with vines lean along the many beaches.

Nevertheless, India is glorified not only by its unique climatic conditions, but by its centuries-old culture. Customs, traditions that are frozen in eternity. Here it is impossible to distinguish between the future, present and past. This is a completely different world. A world that shows a person without the embellishment of civilization, without numerous stereotypes, without false masks.

A deeply religious country generously gives the world its culture and centuries-old heritage. Almost the entire population of India are deeply religious people, distinguished by their extraordinary tolerance towards other religions. It is tolerance towards other religions and faiths that makes it possible to see not only centuries-old temples, but also new ones architectural structures. The ancient temples and palaces of India are amazing in their diversity. Here you can find luxurious, huge, and ascetic, strict architectural forms. You can immerse yourself in the brightly colored motley of traditional temples and rest your tired eyes by looking at the dull colors of the numerous cave complexes.

A special place in unique culture The country is occupied by cuisine, which is part of the ancient Indian culture. The kitchen is as fancy as this one itself mysterious country. Here bright and spicy dishes with delicate and soft, giving amazing taste sensations. Just look at semolina fried with vegetables, or spicy rice with the addition of sweet mango pieces. Like true artists, skilled Indian chefs blend a variety of herbs and spices into their culinary palettes. Here you can find in any dish mustard seeds, cinnamon, ginger, caraway seeds, and many other seeds, plants and herbs that are rarely found in European cuisine. The range of vegetarian cuisine is very widely represented: starting with lentils with spicy gravy and ending with hot dishes made from special curd cheese - paneer.

It is impossible not to mention the original and colorful Indian holidays. All of them can be symbolically divided into state, celebrated throughout India, regional and religious. Spreading through numerous city streets, Indian holiday erases the boundaries that exist between people in this country: religious and national. Whirlpool of performances, classic Indian dances, a riot of colors in national clothes, abundant illumination - this is what the holiday means in India. Their diversity not only fascinates, allows you to rest and relax, but also attracts many tourists with its hospitality.

India is a country you want to visit. She resonates in every heart oriental fairy tale. Arriving in India, you find yourself captivated by the shrill screams of barkers, the sultry aroma of spices and incense, the mooing of cows and the echoing sounds of mantras, chanted speech and bright faces and colors. It is impossible to escape from this captivity. India, with its contradictions, gently breaks all your existing ideas about the world around you and man’s place in it. Breaks down to show life in all its diversity. India is mysterious, diverse, enchanting, bright and melodious. A country that is just waiting to tell its centuries-old tales to everyone who wants to hear it.

India is the second most populous country in the world, with rich cultural traditions and the most beautiful women.

A land of contrasts. Beautiful parks and hotels for visiting tourists coexist with the poverty of the local population. Emancipated women strive to make a career by trampling patriarchal way of life families. But despite the fact that modern urban families prefer to live separately from the older generation, there is still Indian society traditional ones are highly respected family values and traditional family life.

Regardless of caste Indian family very numerous. It consists of parents, their married sons with their wives and children, unmarried sons and unmarried daughters - sometimes up to sixty people live in the house.

The main purpose in a woman's life in this country is to become a mother, and much attention is paid to raising children. Nevertheless, compared to Africa, where everyone carries their babies, India presents a sharp contrast in this regard. On the Internet you can still find a fairly common misconception that Indian women wore their children in saris, but ethnographic research and eyewitness accounts show that this opinion is wrong. In India, it was not customary to carry children in their arms, and saris were not used for this. Children were often placed in hammocks and rocked, thereby putting the children to sleep and calming them down.

However, in some places you can still meet Indian women carrying their babies wrapped in some kind of scarf. At the same time, in the outlying regions of India, babywearing is somewhat more common than in its main part.

Usually, if an Indian woman needs to go somewhere with a child, she carries him in her arms, but does not wrap him in a sari or other fabric like a sling. It is not uncommon to see a heavily pregnant woman having a nice conversation and laughing with her friend, with a 3-4 year old baby sitting on her hip. If a woman gets tired, she passes the child to another family member. So the number of family members in such cases plays a very practical role :). As they say in India: “We do not need any carriers, as long as there are enough relatives. Let the young mother take care of the baby, and the relatives take care of the rest.”

Many travelers, having visited India, say that they saw women carrying their children in slings only in mountainous areas and among the poorest segments of the population. This is true. In areas where caste divisions are still strong, mothers from lower castes They carry their children by tying them to themselves with various shawls, saris, or simply some piece of material. There is no concept of a special sling/scarf for carrying a child, and usually what comes to hand first is used. In the Himalayas, on the tea plantations of Darjeeling ( northern India, Himalayas) you can meet Nepalese and Indian women carrying children, not only in saris, shawls and scarves, but also in rather exotic carriers - wicker baskets.

Unfortunately, wearing a sling is not dictated by a desire to be closer to the child, but by a vital necessity. Many women are simply forced to work. Indian women from lower castes work equally with men and at the same time support household and look after the children. Growing up in a patriarchal society, most Indian men consider these to be exclusively feminine activities.

Dressed in bright silk saris, slender and graceful, with their heads held high, jingling colorful bracelets, women descend into mines, crush stones, plow the earth, fill ditches along the roads with shovels, carry basins of cement on their heads, sweep roads, work in the fields and tea plantations.

Women work a lot and very hard. India is truly a country of contrasts: on the streets you can meet men lying down: on the roofs of cars, under lonely trees, on the lawns near baskets. Complete and serene nirvana... And then see the fragile, graceful “girl with a jackhammer.” All these women are mostly married, and here they get married early, at 13-15 years old. The reasons for such a severe women's work two: either the family is very poor, and the woman is forced to work too, or it is a banal “bad luck”: the husband is lazy and irresponsible, and the children need to be fed. And society shifts this part of the problem onto women.

The Indian mentality is sometimes difficult to understand: being a waitress is considered shameful for a woman, but doing hard work physical labor- in the order of things. Manual labor is very popular in India. Everywhere where repair work is going on, you can see girls scurrying around wrapped in colorful saris with huge basins of cement mortar on their heads. Tourists often joke about this: “Why do they need bulldozers when they have such women?!”

However, even the poor segments of the population do not carry their children very often. Such living conditions contribute to the fact that the carrying of babies is often transferred to the shoulders of the older generation or the baby’s sisters and brothers.

Strollers as an alternative to arms and slings are also not common. Even the middle and rich classes of Indian women do not use them due to bad roads.

In large southern cities, women are quite independent: they occupy good positions and are well educated. For execution homework they hire servants and hire a nanny to look after the child. It is this special nanny (the "ayah") who usually carries the child in her arms in those families that can afford to support her. Carrying a child in any kind of sling is considered shameful: “A child is not luggage,” Indian women say, so Western types of slings and backpacks are also practically not used in India.

How to wrap a baby in a sari

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Indians are friendly, sincere, cheerful and happy people despite extremely harsh living conditions. Sometimes they can be quite intrusive, but do not forget about the big difference between European and Indian culture. There are completely different ideas about personal space, hygiene, etiquette and many other basic things. Robbery of tourists in India is a rare event, but thefts happen everywhere, you need to be vigilant. There are many nations, religions, castes and too many people here.

Unfortunately, travelers more often intersect with representatives of the lower strata of the population. Therefore, it is difficult to get an objective picture of Indian society. Most Indians speak good English, so there is always an opportunity to chat with people and learn something new.

Practical aspects of travel

India is not an easy country for independent travel. After all the local hardships, traveling to any country in Asia will seem like a cakewalk. This is the cheapest country on the continent; if you have the desire and skill, traveling around India can cost you $300 per month. True, $450 seems to be a more realistic figure.

Everything you have heard about unsanitary conditions in India is true. A European simply cannot imagine such a level of pollution environment. You can read materials about India, look at photographs, prepare mentally, and even feel prepared - nothing will help.

India immediately hits the brain, and the first week will take you to adapt and get used to. The Indian traveler's paths are not covered with rose petals and smell not only of sandalwood. Culture shock guaranteed, the main thing is to cope with it with dignity.

Transport

It is more convenient to travel around the country by train. Indians inherited a well-developed network from the British. railways. In one night for three dollars you can cover 600 km of travel and in the morning you can explore new forts and temples. There are seven classes of trains: from the proletarian general carriage to expensive express trains, equal in cost to airplanes. Travelers more often travel in the sleeper class (almost like a Ukrainian reserved seat, only 3 rows of shelves and linen are not provided, on average $3 per night) or AC3 (about the same, but much cleaner and more comfortable, with bed linen, and no free riders, $10 per night). Other classes are significantly more expensive.

Where there are no trains, buses run, and among them there are also buses with specially equipped sleeping places. However, the sleeping cabins are designed for two, so if you are traveling alone, be careful, you may unexpectedly find yourself in bed with a stranger.

Hotels

Rooms in cheap hotels cost from two to eight dollars for a double room. The conditions would make even the Spartans complain. With a big budget, you can stay in decent hotels, but you shouldn’t expect a spectacular difference in the quality of service. In general, in every difficult situation, it’s better to repeat to yourself once again - “This is India, baby.”

When to go

India is a huge country with varied climate zones, and the optimal travel time varies greatly depending on the region. The country has three main seasons: hot season (February - June), monsoon season (June - November) and dry season (November - February).

The ideal time to visit central and southern India is from November to mid-February. But we must take into account that in the north and center of the country it will not be so hot in winter; you should take warm clothes with you. Starting in April, it becomes terribly hot and humid in India, and not everyone can withstand this. But summer is the ideal time to visit the Indian Himalayas.

Contrasts of life

Don't think of traveling around India as moving from point A to point B with forced, boring transfers. The road, people, their life, culture, identity is the meaning of the trip. Palaces and forts are just a reason to go somewhere and not sit still. If you want to see National character, bright colors, a completely different society - India will not disappoint you. This country takes from Western world only technology. Authenticity, tradition and mentality remain intact.

India is a thick concentrate. Impressions, smells, colors and emotions overwhelm you immediately upon arrival until the end of the trip. Then at home it will be possible to systematize the impressions, sort them into shelves and remember, and during the trip everything merges into a continuous cycle of people, slums, palaces, forts, smells of spices, urine and street food.

In general, everything is not so scary, and India returns everything doubly. Despite the unsanitary conditions and street “merchants”, the country is quite safe, transport system operates smoothly and the tourism industry is surprisingly well developed.

Not afraid of flowers, India itself is color. Women are dressed in saris of bright purple, orange, yellow, pink, blue or green shades, multi-colored dupattas (scarves) decorated with numerous sparkles. Wrists, hands, ankles, fingers - everything is decorated with a variety of bracelets and rings. Women never wear black, gray or dark blue. Here even men dress in bright shirts. Maybe in a country with a population of 1.6 billion people, this is a unique way to stand out, the colors are perfect for this.
There is no more pleasant sight than contemplating a group of walking women dressed in outfits that shimmer in all the colors of the rainbow. This brings life to the drab, monochromatic streets. The corner of the sari blows in the wind as a woman rides, sitting on the side seat of a motorcycle. It feels like you've actually landed on a rainbow. And everyone around is swarming around in search of a pot of gold ( old legend, the meaning of which is that whoever finds the place where the rainbow rests on the ground will find a pot of gold there - approx. lane). Contrast is visible in every element big picture: garbage piled in the middle of the sidewalk, very close to a small open restaurant, sometimes these garbage heaps are set on fire, and sometimes they just go out in the sun. Dogs and cows are constantly poking around in these heaps in search of food, and if only they would, the poor people would also not hesitate to tinker in the garbage heap. If you just walk along the streets of one of the cities in India, very soon you will find that you are covered with a thick layer of dust. Now imagine yourself as women dressed in colorful sarees, walking through dusty streets littered with garbage, how they manage to maintain this sweet little piece of joy is a real mystery.

Prosperity and poverty
This is probably the most striking contrast in India. India is the second most populous country with billionaires. However, almost 75% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Add to this the caste system and the philosophy of karma. If you are poor, then that is your lot in life, that is how it should be, this in no way means that someone is doing something wrong (at least in this life).
The Western world has become accustomed to viewing the poor as lazy people. Like people who are unable to get any kind of job or just hold on to it. Generally, we think that they should try harder, work harder, to become a functional part of society. This complicates the process of understanding poverty and misery as social phenomenon. IN major cities There are a lot of highways and interchanges; almost every such bridge has a whole colony of people living under it. In principle, what’s so surprising about this, probably in every country you can find tramps under a bridge, but still not in such numbers. After all, it's not a terrible place to live - at least there is shade and a green lawn.
Another one interesting detail: If you move around Delhi, you can see a number of government offices, right behind which the slums begin. In general, it’s difficult to find a “bad quarter” in the city; everything is mixed up here. One theory to explain this mix is ​​that people living in the slums are employed as servants in the mansions of wealthy Hindus, where everyone does their own thing: there are laundresses, garbage collectors, cooks, drivers, ironers and gardeners. These people cannot afford to live somewhere further away, they are not able to pay the cost of travel to their place of work, which is why they are forced to settle somewhere nearby. And since poverty is perceived calmly here, no one looks down on the poor, there is nothing terrible that two different communities mixed so closely.

Scents of the streets
India is a real test of your senses. As you pass by the market, you are immersed in the aroma of masala (spice mixture). Boys are scurrying around everywhere, carrying glasses of hot tea (the Indian drink “tea” is not what Europeans understand by this concept; Indians brew tea in boiling milk). The aroma of flowers sometimes permeates the hot air of the city if you pass near a temple decorated with colorful living garlands. Next to the temples there are people making these very garlands of orange flowers.
However, mixed with this whole mixture of aromas is another, rather unpleasant one - the smell of urine. What to do: there are too many people and too few toilets, as a result people relieve themselves wherever they have to. Men urinate everywhere. This is not considered indecent; everyone does this, from the poor to the fairly wealthy people. Add to this the fact that cows relieve themselves everywhere, great amount cars emit black exhaust fumes.

Attitude towards foreigners
In India, people like to openly stare at tourists. You may have the impression that there is something wrong with you, but they are simply overly interested in you. In the capital, people are more or less accustomed to seeing white tourists and you will attract less attention, but as soon as you get to the suburbs, you are automatically transported “under the spotlight.” There is no social barrier here, so don’t be surprised if people come up to you and want to touch you, touch your clothes, follow you around just to listen to your speech, watch the expression on your face.

India is one of the centers information technologies
Today, India is considered one of the world's electronics hubs; Indian companies have partnerships with many global companies. That is, in other words, the world of information technology has looked here too. Somewhere in India there are towering buildings filled with programmers working on computers. latest generation. It’s a pity that the average tourist will never see them, but he sees numerous Internet cafes with scary old and slow computers.
However, after you've spent a few weeks in India, nothing will surprise you. Elephants on the streets - no problem, power failures three times a day - you won’t even blink an eye. When traveling around India, just accept everything: both good and bad. You will definitely remember the local people, their cordiality and hospitality, their smiles, their curious faces and even their curious glances, ready to burn a hole in you.