Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    India: A Guide To The Experience
    India: A Guide To The Experience
    India: A Guide To The Experience
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    India: A Guide To The Experience

    By David Stuart Ryan

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Author David Stuart Ryan first spent a year in India in 1968-9 and has made regular visits back there ever since.

    This is why he is able to give you an informative guide, illustrated with dozens of original color pictures, to the places that most tourists miss.

    By exploring further, off the beaten track of the sites the formal tours take you, you will be able to get a real grasp, insight and feel for what India is all about.

    In the Hindu holy city of Varanasi you can discover what it is like to be by the sacred Ganges river as the sun comes up and the emerging holymen make their morning worship, perpetuating a tradition that goes back even further than when Alexander the Great visited this most ancient city, and consulted with the sadhus there.

    Varanasi may well be the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth.

    Your journey around the subcontinent will take you to Kathmandu and Nepal in the north, Rajgir Bihar in the east, Mumbai in the west, Kovalam beach in the south.

    A visit to the golden shores of Goa is highly recommended, you can join the many thousands of Westerners who now flock there to enjoy the beauties of a still largely natural setting,
    with a warm ocean lapping along miles of whitened, palm tree studded sand.

    The major cities of Mumbai and Delhi, the deserts of Rajasthan, the calm backwaters of Kerala are other stops on your amazing journey.

    If you are only visiting India for a fleeting visit, here is a guide that will unerringly take you to the most entrancing of places.

    While for those who have more time to wander about, there are nuggets of information on every page that reveal more on how you can sample the unique Indian experience - safely and smoothly.

    Combine these invaluable cultural insights and beautiful color shots of the people and places of India with some essential practical tips from a seasoned Indian traveler, and you have the ideal travel companion for your own journey of discovery.

    You will see in stunning original photography the majesty of the Taj Mahal, the eerie calm of dawn breaking over the Ganges and the magic of the full moon in the desert of Rajesthan.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Stuart Ryan
    Release dateNov 28, 2012
    ISBN9781301165445
    India: A Guide To The Experience
    Author

    David Stuart Ryan

    Writer, traveller and astrologer.Inventor of a new astrological interpretation program.The writing came first, you can see the titles athttp://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/kozmik.htmAround the eclipse of March 1968 I turned down a job writing ads for KLM airline and wenttravelling overland to India. (Didn’t everyone?) Felt a little smug about that until I meta girl on the beach in Goa who had turned down a job writing for PanAm to head off to Formenteraand then India. (beat that Ryan!).Did visit an astrologer within 5 days of arriving in an incredibly hot India ( the temperature was hitting over 120F(50C) and even the Indians were dying) who blew me away with his analysis. Even getting that I was anadvertising copywriter.So now many moons later I have a computer program that combines both East and West astrology to givesome unique, mind blowing readings.See for yourself at http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com

    Read more from David Stuart Ryan

    Related to India

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Abode Of The Goddess

      Apr 10, 2021

      Abode Of The Goddess
      5 min read

    • Article

      Gods And Monsters

      Apr 15, 2019

      Gods And Monsters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Voices Of Reason

      May 11, 2020

      Voices Of Reason
      25 min read

    • Article

      India

      Aug 9, 2021

      India
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Worshipped Child

      Apr 8, 2022

      The Worshipped Child
      5 min read

    • Article

      Harrods Stops Selling Ganesha Handbag After Backlash From Hindus

      Apr 14, 2021

      Harrods has stopped selling a luxury handbag after the accessory caused offence among the Hindu community. The bag, from the New York label Judith Leiber favoured by Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez, sculptures the Hindu god Ganesha into a leather clutch.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Tantric Sites In India, Chosen By Exhibition Curator Dr Imma Ramos

      Feb 27, 2020

      1 During India’s Medieval period, rulers commissioned temples that incorporated Tantric goddesses as guardians, such as the 10th-century Hirapur temple in Odisha. Sixty-four goddesses known as yoginis, seductive yet dangerous, encircle the interior w

      1 min read

    • Article

      Taking a Gamble

      Dec 18, 2021

      Taking a Gamble
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dharma Sabha Will Not Tolerate Hindu Bashing

      Dec 9, 2020

      THE South African Hindu Dharma Sabha and the South African Hindu Youth Movement welcome the guilty verdict imposed on horse trainer Frank Robinson. This was for using language that could be construed as racist, on Facebook during Diwali. He was also

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tamil Royal Palace

      Nov 30, 2021

      Tamil Royal Palace
      1 min read

    • Article

      God Save This Queen

      Feb 27, 2021

      God Save This Queen
      1 min read

    • Article

      Editor-in-chief

      Aug 21, 2021

      On August 15, 2022, India celebrates 75 eventful years of being the world’s largest democracy. There is much to be grateful for. At Independence, we were an impoverished, underdeveloped nation, where just over 18 per cent of the people could read or

      3 min read

    • Article

      INCREDIBLE India

      Aug 18, 2023

      INCREDIBLE India
      8 min read

    • Article

      Under The Eternal Blue Sky

      Sep 1, 2019

      Under The Eternal Blue Sky
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rock of AGES

      Feb 7, 2024

      Rock of AGES
      15 min read

    • Article

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors

      Mar 2, 2023

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors
      11 min read

    • Article

      Loving Laos Life

      Nov 17, 2020

      Loving Laos Life
      6 min read

    • Article

      Best Of Culture 20 Years

      Aug 7, 2019

      Best Of Culture 20 Years
      3 min read

    • Article

      South Asia

      Feb 8, 2021

      South Asia
      13 min read

    • Article

      Magical Mumbai

      Dec 1, 2019

      Magical Mumbai
      3 min read

    • Article

      Jungle Fever

      Apr 2, 2020

      Jungle Fever
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Spaces In-between

      Jul 15, 2020

      We were just off South Cape when a voice came out of the long-wave radio and announced that Tasmania had closed its borders. Everyone stopped moving. Eyes like plates, jaws dropped to the floor. Coffee mugs suspended mid-flight. The whole catastrophe

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ten Sights (I Wish I’d Seen)

      Sep 3, 2019

      Ten Sights (I Wish I’d Seen)
      4 min read

    • Article

      Live On (and Off) A Set

      Jan 3, 2020

      Live On (and Off) A Set
      2 min read

    • Article

      Running Deep

      Oct 23, 2019

      Running Deep
      8 min read

    • Article

      WHITE GOLD: The Sahara Salt Trade

      Mar 1, 2020

      WHITE GOLD: The Sahara Salt Trade
      1 min read

    • Article

      NOW & FOREVER

      Nov 28, 2022

      NOW & FOREVER
      13 min read

    • Article

      These Unearthly Plains

      Oct 23, 2019

      These Unearthly Plains
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for India

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      India - David Stuart Ryan

      INDIA

      - a guide to the experience

      by

      David Stuart Ryan.

      Pictures by Elisabeth Debray and David Stuart Ryan

      India – a guide to the experience

      David Stuart Ryan

      Copyright © 2013 David Stuart Ryan

      Smashwords Edition

      Kozmik Press London and Washington DC

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN 13-978 1456466565

      Your author and guide, David Stuart Ryan, first visited India on a year long visit in 1968, having read Ancient History and Philosophy at King’s College, London University.

      Since then he has made six further visits to the subcontinent. This guide contains both information for those who are planning a quick visit to the golden beaches of India, and for those who want to explore the history and ambience of the subcontinent as it undergoes the extraordinary changes that will propel it to global leadership in the 21st century.

      Also by the author

      Travel:

      America – a guide to the experience

      Biography:

      John Lennon’s Secret

      The Blue Angel – the life and films of Marlene Dietrich

      Novels:

      The Affair is All

      Looking for Kathmandu

      Taboo

      The Lost Journal of Robyn Hood – Outlaw

      Poetry:

      The Sphere of the Moon Goddess - Book One of The Seven Worlds

      The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon - Book Two of The Seven Worlds

      Postcards from around the Globe - Book Three of The Seven Worlds

      New new world – the land of Australia and the islands of Fiji Book Four of The Seven Worlds

      1.

      Arrival - after the long

      dark night of India

      The wind was blowing gale force at Heathrow airport when time came for departure. To see the grass rippling in the gusts like waves upon an ocean was reminder enough that we do indeed live at the bottom of a sea of air. It is an environment we have adjusted to so well that we hardly notice its existence. But 36 hours later, journey's end, sitting at dusk by the side of the Indian Ocean, drinking the local feni - a coconut brandy - the world seems an entirely benign place. The waves beat out a familiar tune, the air is rich and heady as it drives in from the seas, it is a joy to drink in the warmth and the gentle breeze. It is always good to return, and Colva Beach has changed little in 15 years. We as a race have changed little from the days when our earliest ancestors came out of the sea onto the strange land. At night, caressed by the sea air, that decision, that prompting, is confirmed once again as having been exactly right.

      But to reach this dawn of arrival must come first the dark night of the first day upon the great subcontinent. The most leisurely way to reach Goa's idyllic beaches from Mumbai is to go by ship from the Mumbai docks and arrive calmed 24 hours later. Most international flights arrive at dawn, well in time for the 10am ship departure. Or there is the train, wending its slow way through increasingly green and tropic countryside. Or there is the luxury bus (an ordinary coach by European standards). Or there is the plane. (Be sure to book it in advance). Finally there is the ordinary state bus.

      A few rupees will take you 300 miles south and give you an introduction to the 'real' India, if there is such.The state bus's suspension appears to have long ago given up the ghost. A wise traveller would travel in the middle of the jolting frame. At the back of the vehicle every jolt is magnified as though you are sitting on a see-saw. As indeed you are. For the rear wheels finish two thirds of the way down the vehicle's body, leaving the tail to cavort (wildly) and throw its occupants unceremoniously up into the air, before crashing down with a bump on the hard wooden seats. Only to be thrown up into the air again at the next of the numerous pits in the road. Sixteen hours of this and the human frame has been catapulted into an altogether different, more hardened state, as is necessary for the rigours of the subcontinent where everything is on a grand scale. From the heights of experience to the depths.

      In this bucking bronco of a night, thatched huts loom suddenly into view from their shrouding roadside trees, trees marked with white slashes of paint for the drivers of the quiet night roads. The trees are massive and profuse, entirely appropriate for a landmass which detached itself from Africa and then floated up to collide with Asia, creating the world's largest mountains in the resulting spectacular collision. Many of the hills are curved cones, testifying to ancient volcanic activity, the rivers have a great sweep to them, speaking of the vastnesses of the interior and the sheer scale of the land. India is wholly unique, its ancient origins having marked it out as a land in its own right that only very recently in geological history has become joined to a greater landmass. Recent indeed, the Himalayas are a mere two million years old, and are still being pushed inexorably upwards as the force of the impact with the Asian continent is absorbed.

      This dark dream of a night is a film show that delights and calls the deeper levels of a human being; the mind grapples to assimilate all these messages from the past as it heads for the

      soothing beat of a warm sea and reminders of from where we came.

      The state bus set out from its Mumbai terminal at 4 30pm. By 3am we are sitting in a chai shop deep in the interior. The occupants stir themselves to serve up sweet rich tea, while the eye is distracted by photographs of a naked man upon the walls. Closer examination reveals that the man is an adherent of an ascetic discipline that stems from far into the Hindu past when India was ruled by fear of avenging gods. By making tapas - penitence - he accrues merit for himself. The man in the photo has a perfectly proportioned upper body, which is marked with white daubs of horizontal paint showing his devotion to Shiva. But his.contorted legs have withered away from lack of use, they are stick-like. His photograph has been adorned with a halo, people come to gaze upon his entirely naked form in awe while he looks back quietly and patiently, aware of the many thousands who have trodden this path of penitence before him. It is a tradition that owes nothing to the West.

      However, there are modern forms of penitence that we have despatched out into the world. It is the initiation the developed world gives to the shanty town dwellers who cluster on the fringes of the great modern cities. In three decades Mumbai has swollen from some 4 million to nearly 20 million inhabitants, three quarters of whom live five to a room. The constantly arriving tribal people of the interior, and the agriculturally dispossessed, press in on this already chronic overcrowding, seeking some part of the city's wealth.

      From a distance, Mumbai is climbing white tower blocks, much like any other modern city. Closer to, the sprawling shanty towns, crammed onto any available space, become apparent. Dwellings are created from corrugated iron, palm fronds and mud walls, children play in the narrow lanes between the cramped huts, their mothers sweep out the family room with diligence, blissfully unaware that the open sewers and polluted water supply will take their inevitable toll in a few short years. But if the children live - life for most of the world is extremely hazardous in the first five years - then, yes, perhaps they will be able to take what the city has to offer; above all it offers the possibility of change. Recognising instinctively, even gladly, that the old tribal ways must die, the children's parents have torn themselves away from the dark night of India. Perhaps they even recognise that they will, all too easily, become a sacrifice offered up to their children’s success

      In India, Africa, South America, this is the way of the world we inhabit. If the present day poverty of the inhabitants seems savage from this distance, be sure that closer to those sewers and smells and ever-attendant diseases it is savage indeed. The survivors will remember what, if anything, was done to make their escape possible. Although we think of India as being a country of the past, it has a population who largely cannot remember before 1965 -when Kennedy and idealism were already put into suspended animation. For over 550 million Indians it is ancient history, so that it is our present response which is measured.

      2.

      Colva beach - a touch of paradise

      The native fishermen may well have been here for thousands of years, they live by the phases of the moon, not the sun.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1