Into IndiaIndia challenges the visitor like no other country. Vast, ancient, and impossibly demanding, it is never just a holiday or an assignment. Advertisements call it an experience; it changes people in unexpected ways. To comprehend and enjoy this experience, there is no better introduction to the traditions and inhibitions of the world's most complex society than "Into India." The product of tireless travel rather than of academic scholarship, this book prepares the visitor for India and greatly enriches later recollection. Amidst chaos it finds logic and from frustration reaps reward. In identifying and illuminating the role of Rajputs, Brahmins, Sikhs, Marathas, Kashmiris, Tamils, and a dozen other communities, it makes penetrable and intelligible the past glories and the present problems as well as the passions and the politics of an otherwise bewildering society. Traveling from Kashmir to Kerala, from Gujarat to Assam, Keay cheerfully succumbed to the pull which draws the visitor deeper and deeper "into India"--from the cities to the villages, from the hotels to the ashrams, and from the sweeping first impressions to the ever-deepening insights. "Dust and distance become constant companions . . . punctuated by moments of such intense and arresting beauty that all else, poverty, heat and sickness, are forgotten." Written in the 1970s, "Into India" achieved classic status and remained in print for twenty years. John Keay has since written more specialized studies of India and elsewhere, including a major new history of the subcontinent. But this reissue of his first book, with a new introductory chapter setting it in the context of the present, will be enthusiastically greeted by all to whom India appeals. John Keay has been visiting India for thirty years. His other books on India-related subjects include two books on nineteenth-century exploration recently reissued as "The Explorers of the Western Himalayas, India Discovered" about scholarship under the British raj, and "The Honorable Company," an acclaimed history of the English East India Company. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
First Impressions Delhi and the Punjab | 7 |
Imperial Legacies The North 1 | 23 |
And an Ancient Partimony The North 2 | 41 |
A Madhouse of Religious The South | 59 |
Rupees and Revolt Western India | 87 |
Great Open Spaces Central India | 113 |
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amongst army Aryan ashrams Assam bazaars beautiful Benares Bihar Bombay Brahmin British Buddhist Calcutta caste system century Christian Cochin colour Congress Party Coorgi crowds Deccan Delhi dharma Dravidian East election empire Ganges ghats Gujerat Gwalior hair hills Himalayas Hindu Hinduism houses hundred independence Indian society invaders Jain Kashmir Kerala Kulu land language leader live look Lucknow Madhya Pradesh Madras Maharashtra Mahatma Gandhi Mahratta Malabar Moghul monsoon mosque Muslim Mysore never North orthodox Pakistan palaces Parsi political population poverty princes Punjab railways Rajasthan Rajput recognised religion religious rickshaw river road round rupees Saddhus Sahib saint Sardarji sari seems shrine Sikhs Singh Sivaji social South status subcontinent temple thousands Tibetans tion tourist town tradition tribal tribes turban Untouchables valley Vijayanagar village visitor West Bengal Western India whilst whole