Sumac, there are many ways to "go" to India. You can go in your mind and in your reading, as I had until last year. I was lucky enough to go after many years of reading about the country and wishing and hoping.
It is not everyone's place to visit. The country is so utterly different from America that one could be on another planet, and most of that is cultural. I know people who were turned off by the differences and could not overcome them to appreciate the splendor and vast history of India. They have known and forgotten things in that country that we will never know.
Kara, The only connection to India I had in my earlier life was my term paper in college on Mahatma Gandhi, and the subsequent movie. Ben Kingsly really did a phenomenal job playing the part. When I visited India, we had the opportunity to visit the Gandhi Memorial in Delhi, and while on the road someplace in northern India, I saw a statue of Gandhi, and asked the bus driver to stop to take a picture. Everybody on the bus got off the bus and did the same. But as you know, India is so much more that fills all of our senses with the culture, sites, and history, a collogue(sp) so complex, it would take a lifetime to understand.
I have observed, unfortunately, that the Western Historians continually undermined the vast Indian history and its facts....
Nobody in west knows about famous Indians (who are absolutely adored and respected here ... more than Greek Kings or British rulers) from the Indian history like Chanakya (Indian Strategist), Ashoka (The Emperor), Chadragupta Maurya, Akbar, Shivaji, Tipu Sultan (First King known who used Missiles in Wars) or Prithviraj Chauhan for that matter.
I am coming to realize how little we know about previous cultures and civilizations. From coming across an early Mayan ruin in Guatemala which turns pre-Columbian study on its head, to the filtering and outright bias from the "current powers that be".
sumac, Have you been to Yaxha? We had the opportunity to visit both Yaxha and Tikal on our tour last February. I understand what you are saying; about the Mayan history. We were fortunate to have one of the foremost historian on Mayan culture and history as our tour director in Guatemala. Antonio speaks six languages, and lectures in both the US and Europe.
No, c.i. Have been to a couple of sites on the Yucatan peninsula, and it must make a wonderful difference traveling with an expert on the subject matter. I was with an anthropologist, and wondered at how he could so readily "spot" pottery chards as we were walking along a trail.
