Western India is Big. It's Bollywood and Big Business, and Gujarat and its Big Achievements, Goa and its Big Beaches, Madhya Pradesh and its Big Heart. But is that all it is: Big Billboards and Big Hype?
Hugh and Colleen Gantzer took a Big Breath and stepped behind the glare and the glitter and the razzmatazz. They discovered an intriguing world: a crater lake dug by a Thing from Outer Space; a cool, green, hill-station where no cars are allowed; deep wells that are beautifully sculpted water pavilions; the only wilderness in the world where the rare Asian Lion still roams free; a walled town in the desert with curiously painted houses; a sacred city where Time is worshipped.
This is not a collection of fantasy stories, but it could be. It is not a travel guide, though the Gantzers are known for their travelogues. This is an informal conversation with two people who like discovering new places, having new experiences in old places, asking questions, and giving their own, often provocative, answers. And they tell you why they believe that behind even the most far-fetched legend there is an intriguing truth.
Since they've been there, done that, all the places they've described and the experiences they've had, can be yours in The Vibrant West.
Wave after wave of traders, adventurers and would-be conquerors, left the squalor of their crowded homes and trimmed their sails for legendary India. They had heard of the wealth and wisdom of its people, and of its great resources and had wanted their share of this intriguing land. We saw their footprints on the sands of the Arabian Sea, traced the strands of their principles and prejudices woven into the mores of our people, admired their architectural conceits imprinted across our landscape.
Eventually, India conquered them all. Though a few misguided souls tried to uproot evidence of their historic presence, these were the brief burps of indigestion created by short-lived, self-serving, demagogues. The traditional tolerance of Indian society prevailed. We are not a nation of Traders, but of Learners and Adapters. Drawing on our ever-increasing reservoir of cultural genes we do not attempt to reinvent the wheel. Instead, like a swiftly-evolving organism, our society constantly exchanges cultural DNA from its ethnic matrix to meet new challenges.
In our travels across our western states we have experienced:
The great ruins of a cryptic civilisation which flourished in the saline plains of Gujarat in 2,600 BC, created miracles of conservation and furnace-based technology; and as mysteriously, vanished.
A Stone-age gallery of rock art that could have predated the emergence of man from the Rift Valley of Africa.
The incredible resilience of a small community of Zoroastrians who fled persecution in Iran, centuries ago, and have continued to preserve their faith while adding immeasurably to India's stature.
The radiant saga of a Muslim mystic whose Hindu devotees have erected a great, and growing, town dedicated to the welfare of all who need help.
A grass-roots organisation of lunch transporters whose time-bound delivery system ranks with that of the best corporate houses in the world,
A predominantly Hindu state with a town of ancient Portuguese churches revering the uncorrupted body of a Christian saint and exploding with the uninhibited festivities of a pre-Lenten Carnival.
All this has been achieved in a land in which four world-spanning faiths have been born and every other global religion thrives, along with innumerable sects, cults and eclectic variations of beliefs. We are not a spiritual nation. We are a nation that seeks new frontiers of spiritual development with the same dedication that we seek the good life.
Out of this seeming conflict of aspirations has been born the endlessly Intriguing India that we have seen, touched, heard, felt and tasted during our voyages across our incredibly varied land.
This is the excitement which drove this book.
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1086)
Archaeology (753)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist