We travel to lose ourselves and we travel to find ourselves; and more so for the sheer freedom of it all. One country that lives up to the excitement of travel is India. An ancient land with a variety of destinations; India gives traveler a colourful experience, an unforgettable journey. Prakriti Inbound celebrates travel, understands India and your urge to explore. Travel with us and you will only gain more India per mile

What strikes a visitor to India most is its mind-boggling heterogeneity, an awesome plurality that confounds and exasperates and yet evokes a binding interest in the land and its people. Doubtless, the ancient traders and historic marauders who came here from far away lands in search of riches fell in love with the soil and found their destination and place of settlement in the sub-continent rather than a staging post. A staggering variety within its confines in terms of its people, their languages, religions, cults and cultures as also its geographical features and weather which, perhaps, no other country, least of all a democratic nation, can boast of. And yet despite these stunning differences there exists a subtle binding force flowing through one end of the country to the other that underlines its enduringly mysterious unity. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime minister thus characterized the staggering phenomenon as unity in diversity, a mosaic of cultures and people. That gives India a distinct identity unmatched in the world. Indians never miss an opportunity to assert their pride in their land's assimilative variety.
India is a vast country ranking fourth in the world in size, a sixth of Mankind on a fortieth of the earth's land. In population, a little over 1 billion, it stands second only to neighbouring China. Newcomers are always amazed by the variety of colour, physical stature, anthropological features and sociological characteristics they find among the people of the sub-continent. From Nordic-Aryans and Indo-Europeans to Mediterranean Dravidians one finds almost all the hues of human species on the planet. In between there are people betraying Mongoloid origins, proto-Australoids, Negrito and Western Brachycephals. As you go from North to South, the paleness of people's colour seems to gradually yield to a dark hue. But that is only a general pattern. In a single family, whether in the South or the West, one may find members displaying different colours of skin, hair and eyes. To add to the grandeur of variety, India perhaps has the largest cattle population in the world, about 200 million at the last count.
Equally staggering is the variety of languages. India speaks in about 2000 tongues of which over fifty have their own scripts and literature. Nineteen fully developed languages each having a vast body of literature are officially recognised languages of the state. Name a religion in the world and it has adherents in the sub-continent. While Hindus form an overwhelming majority of 85 per cent, there are Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Zoroastrians living in close harmony all over India. There is a plethora of beautiful temples, magnificent churches, grand mosques, Buddhist Viharas old Synagogues and Parsi Fire Temples spread throughout the sub-continent. Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the Western commercial megalopolis, perhaps, represents exquisitely the grand religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic variety of India in a miniature form. There is in the city an old Armenian Church, a Shinto Temple and a Bahai place of worship, just to mention a few.
In Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, particularly the latter, one may witness several centuries, nay civilizations living cheek by jowl. On the Diamond Harbour Road of Kolkata, emerging out of an air-conditioned cyber cafe, one may stumble on to an aboriginal family living on the footpath, cooking food with firewood, bathing and washing. Across the street, you may have to give way to a hand-cart puller or a bullock cart carrying a mountain of computer packages or vegetables. You might hire a three-wheeler or a two wheeler pulled by a man to rich destination in the neighbourhood. Or jump into a rambling tramcar while city buses careen around and sleek cars whiz past. Far above in the sky, a modern airliner may be zooming away to distant lands and underground the fast metro rumbles away.
Like its people, India's geology, geography and climes present a veritable panorama of the planet's history. Himalaya, world's highest and the youngest mountain system forms a formidable barrier to the north stretching uninterrupted from East to West for about 2,500 km covering an area of 500,000 sq. km. Its snowy glaciers - Siachen, the world's highest - feed India's major perennial rivers creating fertile valleys in the North and the West. Ganga, the sacred river of India, Yamuna, Sindhu and Brahmaputra have spawned civilizations along their fertile banks from the hoary past. Down below in the North-West, there is the oldest mountain systems in the world, the Aravalis, which over millions of years, has lost its glory and substance.
Vindhya and Satpura ranges running east to west in parallel formations traverse almost the entire peninsular India. Parallel across the Western coast are the Sahyadri Mountains. The Eastern coast is also lined with a hill system, irregular though, called Eastern Ghats. Each mountain system is dotted with hundreds of exotic beauty spots made easily accessible and equipped with modern amenities. There are skiing resorts in the Himalayas. Well planned mountaineering treks and river fording sports are also available in Himalayas and elsewhere. Each mountain range has its own peculiar majesty, grandeur and specific geological character. The forests, mostly sub-tropical and some of them perennial, harbour a variety of wild life. There are scores of wild life and bird sanctuaries which provide an exciting glimpse of the jungle world.
Proximity of Sahyadri has created numerous beautiful gorges, fiords, creeks and lagoons shaded by perennial green cover along the Arabian Sea coast particularly in Kerala, Goa and Konkan region of Maharashtra. These provide blissful coves of retreat known for their serene beauty. And the long pristine beaches along the Arabian Sea and also the Bay of Bengal - India has a 7,516 km.-long coastline - provide haven for sun-bathers and lovers of all kinds of water sports. At several places along the backwaters of Kerala traditional rowing tournaments, complete with colourful festivities, fetch rowing buffs and spectators in large numbers.
Down from the snow-topped Himalayas and across the fertile plains of Punjab stretch the undulating sandy deserts of Rajasthan, stark and hot, bereft of greenery and yet known for a riotous celebration of colours. As if to compensate for the nature's chicanery, the people of Rajasthan have created their own world of beautiful colours - the rich textiles, the turbans of men and the flowing ghagaras of women, ornamental embroidery, exquisite jewellery, the huts, the houses and the princely mansions. It is said that every village housewife, every child of Rajasthan is a born artiste endowed with a talent for brush and colour. Miniature paintings of Rajasthan School have admirers across the world. The exotic cities of Rajasthan, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bikaner known for their harmonious architecture and a superb blend of colours offer a feast to the discerning eye.
But the vibrancy of folk art, colour, folk dance and music is not confined to Rajasthan. It manifests in the harsh terrain of Ladakh, in the colourful life styles of the north-eastern tribes of Arunachal, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura and in the tribal belts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra. The traditional village fairs, whether in tribal habitats or agricultural villages of the plains, express the quintessential spirit of rural India. A fair is a veritable riot of sound and music, fun and games, feast of local delicacies, songs and dances and a market of astoundingly colourful local handicrafts. A heartening glimpse of a robust and vigorous India of indomitable hope. There are over 700,000 villages in India and thousands of fairs are held annually. Some of these have earned a reputation attracting visitors from all corners of the country and abroad.
South of the Vindhyas and Satpuras flow the mighty rivers like Narmada, Tapti, Godavari, Krishna, Mahanadi and Cauveri. These and Brahmaputra of the East too have witnessed the rise and fall of mighty kingdoms and their cultures from the ancient times whose archaeological remains and surviving monuments are spread all over the peninsula. The Tamil culture of the South pre-dates the Vedic civilizations of the North and proud Tamilians regard their language older than Sanskrit.
With its vast continental stretch - between 8.4 and 37.6 degrees latitude north of equator - climates and seasons violently differ. Just when Ladakh, the valley of Kashmir, the Himalayan foothills and Punjab nearly freeze with temperatures hovering around zero or below, the southern peninsula may swelter with mercury rising above 30 degrees Celsius. Most of the sub-continental agriculture sustains on the south-westerly monsoon which visits India between June and September. That makes agriculture difficult. Several irrigations schemes from North to South do provide some relief. But it is the innovative farmer of India who by sheer dint of hard work and diligence has overcome the vagaries of monsoon. India, which used to be frequently visited by harsh famines, now exports grains and fruits after feeding its entire population, three times of what it was at the time of Independence in 1947.
India's known history goes back to 2000 B.C. when the first wave of the Aryan immigrants settled in the north. Violent confrontations must have occurred between the immigrants and the local inhabitants. But apparently the great Indian spirit of assimilation and tolerance triumphed which endures till today. During the next millennium, the Aryans spread all over India and composed most of the early classic Sanskrit scriptures, such as Brahmans, Vedas, Upanishads and the two monumental epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Then came around 550 B.C. the era of Gautam Buddha whose teachings spread all over Asia. Alexander the Great invaded north India in the 4th century BC. The Indian golden age begins when Chandragupta Maurya assumed the throne of Pataliputra, today's Patna, the capital of Bihar, in 321 BC. There followed a succession of Kingdoms, both in the north and the south, the most notable of them being that of Emperor Ashoka who was instrumental in spreading the message of Buddha far and wide. Down south, Chola and Pandyan dynasties flourished from 200 BC onwards when the temple architecture of the south flourished and arts such as sculpture, poetry, music and dance reached great heights.
The first Muslim adventurers set foot in India when Muhammad-Bin Kasim captured the province of Sindh in 711 A.D. By 1206 Qutubuddin Aybak, in whose name Delhi's famous Qutub Minar was built, established the first slave dynasty in Delhi. The Sufi saints of Islam preaching mystical devotion and peace had preceded the armed invaders much earlier. Babar established the Mughal dynasty in 1526. Before that, Vasco-da-Gama, the Portuguese adventurer had landed at Calicut.
The Mughals built the most powerful empire of the contemporary world and ruled India for nearly 180 years till the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. Barring Shivaji, a daring Maratha warrior who emerged from the mountains of Sahyadri, no satrap, subhedar or King had dared to challenge mighty Aurangzeb's authority. Shivaji coronated himself and was extolled as the people's king. Shivaji's heirs, the Peshwas, were the last major rulers of India to fall before the might of the British East India Company.
Thus India is replete with numerous historic monuments. The ancient stupas some of which preserve part of Buddha's ashes, the Ashokan edicts on stone and copper tablets or carved on magnificent pillars spread all over the sub-continent, the exquisitely carved cave temples of Ajanta, Ellora, Elephanta and elsewhere in Maharashtra, the magnificent temples of the south, east, west and north preserving different architectural styles, the forts and mansions of Rajasthan, the grand Red Fort and several historic monuments of Delhi, the majestic Fatehpur Sikri, the grandeur and beauty of Taj Mahal.......the list is unending. Once a visitor is hooked to the magic of India, he/she can never see enough.
Modern India is a vibrant country, proud of its transparent democracy which is the largest in the world. Few countries of the developing world liberated after the Second World War have preserved and protected their democratic institutions so jealously. True, some pockets of poverty remain and slums proliferate in cities and towns. But by and large, India's scientific and industrial skills along with the living standards and styles of its middle classes put it firmly in the 21 century. Its young information technology engineers and entrepreneurs have acquired respect in the world. The growth rate of its GDP today is next only to that of China. It pulsates with the vigour and energy of its people who are ready to conquer the new world.

Travel in India

India (Hindi: भारत) is the largest country in the Indian Subcontinent and shares borders with Pakistan to the west, China and Nepal to the north, Bhutan to the north-east, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia lie to the south-east in the Indian Ocean. It is the seventh largest country in the world by area and, with over a billion people, is second only to China in population. It's an extremely diverse country, with vast differences in geography, climate, culture, language and ethnicity across its expanse, and prides itself on being the largest democracy on Earth. India has a rich and diverse mix of culture and tradition, dominated by religious and spiritual themes. It's probably the only country where people of so many different origins, religious beliefs, languages and ethnic background coexist. There are 3 main sub-cultures: North, East and South. Most of the ancient Indian culture is preserved in the South which is famous for its classical arts, such as Carnatic music and classical Indian dance

Touts are ubiquitous, as in many developing countries, and you should assume that anyone 'proactively' trying to help you has a hidden agenda to part you from your money. During your travels in India, you will be deluged with touts trying to get you to buy something or patronize particular establishments. There are a myriad of common scams, which range from telling you your hotel has gone out of business (of course, they'll know of one that's open with vacancies), to giving wrong directions to a government rail ticket booking office (the directions will be to their friend's tour office), to trying to get you to take diamonds back to your home country (the diamonds are worthless crystal). There will also be more obvious touts who "know a very good place for dinner" or want to sell you a chess set on the street.

Places for travel....

Culture of India

India's culture is marked by a high degree of syncretism and cultural pluralism. It has managed to preserve established traditions while absorbing new customs, traditions, and ideas from invaders and immigrants. Multicultural concerns have long informed India’s history and traditions, constitution and political arrangements.
Notable monuments, such as the Taj Mahal and other examples of Mughal architecture and South Indian architecture are the result of traditions that combined elements from several parts of the country and abroad. The vernacular architecture displays notable regional variation.
Indian music covers a wide range of traditions and regional styles. Classical music is mainly split between the North Indian Hindustani and South Indian Carnatic traditions. Highly regionalised forms of popular music include filmi and folk music like bhangra. Many classical dance forms exist, including bharatanatyam, kathakali, kathak, kuchipudi, manipuri, odissi and yakshagana. They often have a narrative form and are usually infused with devotional and mythological elements.
The earliest works of Indian literature were transmitted orally and only later written down. These included works of Sanskrit literature, such as the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, and the drama The Recognition of Śakuntalā, and those of the Sangam literature in Tamil. Among Indian writers of the modern era active in Indian languages or English, Rabindranath Tagore is best known. Gitanjali, his anthology of devotional songs, earned him the Nobel Prize in 1913.
The Indian film industry, having debuted in 1913 with director Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra, is today the world's largest, with the Mumbai-based Bollywood's commercial Hindi film its most recognisable face. Established traditions also exist in the regional-language cinema, including Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. Pather Panchali (1955), auteur Satyajit Ray's debut film of childhood and death in rural Bengal, is a landmark of world cinema.
Indian cuisine is characterized by a wide variety of regional styles and sophisticated use of herbs and spices. The staple foods in the region are rice (especially in the south and the east) and wheat (predominantly in the north).
Traditional Indian dress greatly varies across the regions in its colours and styles and depends on various factors, including climate. Popular styles of dress include the sari or shalwar kameez for women and the lungi, kurta pyjama, or dhoti for men.
India's national sport is field hockey, even though cricket is the most popular sport. In some states, particularly those in the northeast and the states of West Bengal, Goa, and Kerala, football is also a popular sport. In recent times, tennis has also gained popularity. Chess, commonly held to have originated in India, is also gaining popularity with the rise of the number of recognized Indian grandmasters. Traditional sports include kabaddi, kho-kho, and gilli-danda, which are played nationwide. India is home to the age-old discipline of yoga and to the ancient martial arts, Kalarippayattu and Varma Kalai.
Many of the Indian festivals are religious in origin, although several are celebrated irrespective of caste and creed. The most popular holidays are Diwali, Holi, Onam, Dussehra, Bihu, Durga puja, the two Eids, Christmas, Ugadi, Buddha Jayanti and Vaisakhi. India has three national holidays. Other sets of holidays, varying between nine and twelve, are officially observed in the individual states. Religious practices are an integral part of everyday life and are a very public affair. Traditional Indian family values are highly respected, although urban families now prefer a nuclear family system due to the socio-economic constraints imposed by the traditional joint family system. Thanks for wikipedia

History of India

The History....

Stone Age rock shelters with paintings at the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh are the earliest known traces of human life in India. The first known permanent settlements appeared over 9,000 years ago and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilization,[18] dating back to 3300 BCE in western India. It was followed by the Vedic Civilization, which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society. From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the country.
Paintings at the Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. 2nd century BCE The empire built by the Maurya dynasty under Emperor Ashoka united most of South Asia in the third century BCE. From 180 BCE, a series of invasions from Central Asia followed, including those led by the Indo-Greeks, Indo-Scythians, Indo-Parthians and Kushans in the north-western Indian Subcontinent. From the third century CE, the Gupta dynasty oversaw the period referred to as ancient "India's Golden Age." While the north had larger, fewer kingdoms, south India had several dynasties such as the Rashtrakutas, Chalukyas, Pallavas and Cholas, which overlapped in time and territory.[citation needed] Science, engineering, art, literature, astronomy, and philosophy flourished under the patronage of these kings.
Following invasions from Central Asia between the tenth and twelfth centuries, much of north India came under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate, and later the Mughal dynasty. Mughal emperors gradually expanded their kingdoms to cover large parts of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, several indigenous kingdoms, such as the Vijayanagara Empire, flourished, especially in the south. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the Mughal supremacy declined and the Maratha Empire became the dominant power. From the sixteenth century, several European countries, including Portugal, Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom, started arriving as traders and later took advantage of the fractious nature of relations between the kingdoms to establish colonies in the country. By 1856, most of India was under the control of the British East India Company. A year later, a nationwide insurrection of rebelling military units and kingdoms, variously referred to as the First War of Indian Independence or Sepoy Mutiny, seriously challenged British rule but eventually failed. As a consequence, India came under the direct control of the British Crown as a colony of the British Empire.
Mahatma Gandhi (right) with Jawaharlal Nehru, 1937. Nehru would go on to become India's first prime minister in 1947.During the first half of the twentieth century, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress and other political organisations. Led by Mahatma Gandhi, and displaying commitment to ahimsa, or non-violence, millions of protesters engaged in mass campaigns of civil disobedience. Finally, on 15 August 1947, India gained independence from British rule, but was partitioned, in accordance to wishes of the Muslim League, along the lines of religion to create the Islamic nation-state of Pakistan. Three years later, on 26 January 1950, India became a republic and a new constitution came into effect.
Since independence, India has experienced sectarian violence and insurgencies in various parts of the country, but has maintained its unity and democracy. It has unresolved territorial disputes with China, which in 1962 escalated into the brief Sino-Indian War; and with Pakistan, which resulted in wars in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. India is a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations (as part of British India). In 1974, India conducted an underground nuclear test. This was followed by five more tests in 1998, making India a nuclear state. Beginning in 1991, significant economic reforms have transformed India into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, adding to its global and regional clout.

Thanks for wikipedia

About India

India , officially the Republic of India is a sovereign country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east, India has a coastline of over 7500 kilometres. It borders Pakistan to the west;[12] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Indonesia.
Home to the Indus Valley civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.[13] Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's variegated culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation-state in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread use of nonviolent resistance as a means of social protest.
Although India is the world's fourth largest economy in purchasing power and the twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates, it has high levels of poverty and illiteracy, persistent malnutrition, and environmental degradation. A pluralistic, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic society, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected