India Travel Guide

India OVERVIEW

There's a big chance that on leaving the plane in Delhi, you'll seriously be in two minds about whether to get back on board or pinch yourself and try to wake up. Tens of ownerless hands are grabbing you and pulling in unknown directions, the piercing clutter of adamant airport touts is making you dizzy, and the bus that's supposed to take you downtown looks as if it was going to fall into pieces any minute. Leaving the area does not seem to bring a sigh of relief either. A ride through the busy streets, where traffic lights only serve as twinkling decoration and it's a violent honk that signals you're coming, is a true test of nerves. Having reached the Main Bazaar, you're more than sure it can't be a dream. The smell of piling trash and scrawny cattle grazing on restaurant leftovers (sic!) is too shrill to be unreal. And those hordes of people! Even more worryingly, on reaching the longed-for hotel refuge, you come to discover that a toothbrush is not the only thing you forgot to pack. What you are most in need now is a padlock to safeguard your room. At this point you can't help but be suspicious you have boarded a wrong flight.

To escape thoughts of imminent Apocalypse, you pluck up your courage and decide to set off to New Delhi, where you find out to your utmost delight that it in fact was only a bad dream. You happily stroll along wide, tree-lined boulevards, pass dignified national institutions, can't take your eyes off the Lotus temple, marvel at Barla Mandir (Vishnu place of worship), and inhale the glossy luster of Connaught Place. Intrigued, you proceed further into the country to unveil the most intricate, multidimensional jigsaw puzzle that only a disturbed mind could fully imagine without having seen it first. The Bollywood splendor of Mumbai and mind-bending architecture of Hyderabad coexist with solitary Himalayas and tiger safari spots. The spirituality of Hindu temples mixes with the odor of ramshackle villages and while another designer store is being opened in Bangalore, a group of wide-eyed, smiling children seated on the floor is learning the alphabet in an improvised school run by Missionaries of Charity. Finally, there's Taj Mahal, an epitome of marital devotion, heart-throbbing beauty and love floating in the air.

With a new perspective, a bunch of enlightening insights and your holiday drawing to an end, you realize the prospect of coming back to nightmarish Delhi does not strike you with terror. Back at the Main Bazaar, you take a last leisurely walk pushing your way through the yelling crowd with your elbows, you give in to an arrogant man persuading you to have an elephant ride, and you even have guts to down an over-sized portion of curry. Having seen the whitest of whiteness and the blackest of blackness, you are finally able to perceive its amazing assortment of color.