Introduction of India

For thousands of year the countries of south Asia-pre-independent India and her neighbours-have occupied a special place in the European consciousness. This project highlights some of many area of interest that a visitor to modern India can enjoy. The rich cultural mass populated by a fifth of world's people is a vital and exciting country. To many, and this includes her own citizens; India is a mass of contradictions. The visual clash of natural and cultural riches contrasted with the sad plight of urban poverty cannot be explained away or hidden. The glamour of Bombay's film and industrial worlds contrasts with squalor of those who flock to India's commercial capital. The ninth city of Delhi, new Delhi, has grown from less than half a million when the British quit in 1947 to a stretched sprawl of over nine million in1994. But New Delhi is surely one of the greenest and most attractive capitals of the 20th century. Any observers are hard on India; V S Naipaul titled one of his books a wounded civilization. The civilization that spanned south Asia are now divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the west, Bangladesh and Burma to the east, sri lanka to the south and Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan to north. India is therefore only one of nine modern nations that are home to thousands of years of history. But India historical sites and places of natural beauty are linked and supported by a network of accommodation and an acceptable transport system.
You can travel in India by executive jet or at the more exciting and often extremely comfortable pace of Indian railways. However you travel within a group or independently, a certain amount of planning is needed. This book is a general introduction. Other titles in the series deal with the magnificence of the museums of India, the great monuments of India, the great cities of Delhi, Agra & jaipur, the hill stations of India and the contrast of a great city and wonderful beaches in Mumbai & Goa.