“India is the cradle of mankind, the birthplace of human language, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great-grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are kept only in India”.

These are words by the American writer Mark Twain, who with two brushstrokes paints a very precise picture of what India represents in the context of world civilisations. Honestly, it is very hard to disagree with him, albeit with some reservations given that India contends the title of ‘cradle of mankind’ with Mesopotamia.

To tell you the truth, I thought I was being original when I borrowed these words, but then I realized that others before me had already quoted them which, if on the one hand it makes me feel rather trivial, on the other, evidently, there must be a foundation of truth. In fact, some texts speak of an evolved and highly refined civilisation, existing along the Indus valley already eight thousand years ago, which has permeated all subsequent cultures of the East and West.

If it’s true that writing a text, whether a blog or something else, in the end and simplifying a lot is nothing more than putting a series of qualifying adjectives in sequence, writing about India, this country of large numbers , means that you have to use practically all of the adjectives, and often you even need to use superlatives. The Indian subcontinent, in fact, is so much of everything. From an estimate by the United Nations dating back to 2005, for example, in 2022 India should get ready to become the most populous country in the world. Yes, perhaps this is thanks to the Chinese one-child policy, and perhaps it is too early to have definitive data, but I am pretty sure it is about to happen.

To stay on the subject of large numbers, India is not only the cradle of civilisations but also of religion: 33 million Hindu deities are adored, venerated in 20 main languages and in over 2000 dialects. And speaking of languages and dialects, the former Shah of Persia Mohammad Reza Pahlavi said that “India […] is an incredible amalgam of races, cultures, religions and languages. There is not even a common national language. In Parliament, to understand each other, the deputies are forced to speak in English”.

On the occasion of the last Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, one of the oldest and most important festivals which is celebrated to symbolise the inner light which protects against spiritual darkness, 600,000 oil lamps were lit in the city of Ayodhya alone, and they shone for 45 minutes, while in July 2016, 50 million trees were planted on the same day in the single state of Uttar Pradesh to try to put a stop to the smog emergency.

Seen in this way, India almost seems to be just a succession of cold and impersonal numbers, a sort of ‘geographical Fibonacci frequency’. Though these numbers merely give us a quantitative image of this country, which should definitely not be overlooked, it is extremely restrictive to identify India only through numbers.

Statue of Ganesh

India is much more. It is the variety of landscapes ranging from the mountain peaks that caress the Himalayas in the north, to the beaches of Goa, passing through the deserts of Rajasthan; it is the chaos of its metropolis, it is peace in meditation, it is the Taj Mahal that shines with the colours of the first light of dawn and the last light of sunset; it is the isolation, protected by the Indian government, of the tribe who live on North Sentinal Island, in the Andaman archipelago, and who refuse any form of contact with strangers; it is the smoke of the funeral pyre that rises in Benares, the faithful who bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges and the kitsch joy of Bollywood; it is the Punjab of the Sikhs, people who often paid for their pride with bloodbaths both under the British oppressors and, at the end of colonisation, under the government of Indira Gandhi, who in turn paid for their repressions with her life.

The author and his wife at Taj Mahal

Siddhārtha Gautama ‘the Buddha’, the poet Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi were born in India, soul and heart, the latter, of that mass civil disobedience that led the country to independence. Unfortunately, India is also the division into castes, the poor who have no roof or who live in slums, the horsemen of Calcutta, the thousands of sacred cows that roam undisturbed in the streets, alleys and shops. India is that “feeling of annoyance and rejection that fades as the days go by” (Ruggero Da Ros).

Once India proclaimed its independence in 1947, it began to recover its own identity by discarding that superfluous baggage left by the ancient colonisers. Goodbye then to the jacket, tie and bowler hat, so extraneous to tradition and so unsuitable for the tropical climate, to return to more practical and traditional clothing; away with the street names with their anglicising references, away with everything the British had brought along to make their stay more comfortable. Well, away with ‘almost’ everything British: the Indians have kept cricket and, for those who understand it, they seem to play it pretty well too.

Above all, away the old names that had, at least for us Westerners, that exotic sound, that acrid smell of the Orient, which has always transported the imagination into an atmosphere made of dreams and distant destinations. Goodbye to Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Benares, which just by naming them you thought you could smell the burning kettles. Welcome, somewhat reluctantly, to Mumbai, Chennay, Kolkata and Varanasi.

Then there is my India, the country of my memories, the India of old friend of mine Bruno who, about fifty years ago, traveled to India for extensive periods of the year; of the many stories he told, the one that struck me most was when he said that he always went around with a mongoose on a leash to defend himself from cobras. The India of my grandmother who, after saying her rosary and before falling asleep, she read India‘s poems, highlighting the purity and sweetness of his verses; she fantasised, at the tender age of ninety, of going to India, in southern India, to meet the holy man Sai Baba and listen to his teac

Cows are sacred in India

hings.

Maybe it’s true: for every trip one prepares to make, a seed was planted beforehand. It sprouts as the departure approaches and it grows day after day as if it wanted to add a further meaning to the motivations that already drive you to go to visit this or that country. And the seed of India is about to become a flower. Nothing happens by coincidence.

I believe that an in-depth discovery of India requires a mature and easily adaptable traveler who knows how to deal, with a certain amount of adaptation, with situations that can also turn out to be rather uncomfortable. A traveler who can nevertheless draw lessons from every situation he will encounter, because India can be a demanding life teacher. Returning without having treasured what this experience can teach you would only reduce the journey to a scrolling of anonymous slides.

Text and Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto) 

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Dawn on a Saturday morning; the sun rises lazily from the east and timidly scatter flashes of light over the world, while the moon, which has not yet set entirely, stands out pale, almost invisible, against the background of a light blue sky.

The basin with the fountains bordered by sidewalks outside of the Taj Mahal

We walk along an avenue, surrounded by monkeys that jump here and there; indolent yet sacred cows lazily graze undisturbed and unaware of their surroundings, feeding on grass or rubbish without distinction. Above all, we are surrounded by people, whose number will grow as the hours go by. People who, like us, make their way as if on a pilgrimage to the best-known temple of love which has ever been created by man on earth. One of the seven wonders of the modern world, the jewel of Muslim art in India, recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site: the Taj Mahal.

We venture through queues and formalities, and pay an all too modest fee if compared to the show that awaits us. At first, the plastic shoe covers we must wear to access the inside of the mausoleum which, let’s not forget, is a Muslim building; then, a queue of people waiting, which we avoid thanks to the special ticket we purchased; and, finally, the usual crowd of those who define themselves as low-cost guides. They all promise unique explanations about the history and curiosities of this monument, and try to convince us by explaining the advantages we would get by making use of their services; and they would not let go as long as they think they have a thread of hope of capturing us. Boring, you may say; sure, but they’re doing a job, their job, and ultimately they are trying to make a living. India is also this.

The morning pale appearance of the Taj Mahal

We decline their offers as we are too keen on staying on our own like a rebellious drop in that sea of people. We follow the flow, channeling ourselves between a wall and a building made of red bricks, until we finally reach the west door from where, framed by the door itself, a white building can be glimpsed in the background, white and faded like the moon which has by now almost disappeared from the sky.

At a first glance, the Taj Mahal appears to me like an overexposed photo in which the lines, contours and details do not appear well defined. In fact, they say there is a deliberate optical illusion behind it, but I will not accept this explanation as it excludes the poetry factor. And the Taj Mahal is pure poetry. 

It appears pale.

Pale like the face of that woman who slowly faded away in the pains of childbirth, and who wanted help from he who cannot give it to her, despite being an emperor. Because by then her fate was sealed.

The author and his wife in front of the Taj Mahal

Pale like the pain on the face of a husband in love and powerless, despite being an emperor, about the fate of this woman whose future would fade away with the first cry of her last child.

Pale like the marble color of death that would take possession of that creature’s lifeless body, to which only the devotion of a man, her man, would remain intact. He will immortalise its pallor in the white marbles of the Taj Mahal which at every dawn, like an overexposed photo, reminds the world of the pallor of a love that was extinguished forever.

He who visits Taj Mahal knows it. He knows of pain and devotion, and he lets himself go for a few seconds of recollection, abandoning himself, between a photo and a selfie, to a thought, to a memory and, why not, to a pinch of jealousy towards she who was able to enjoy even in her deathbed, in pain and suffering, the story of a love with no equals. And he knows of he, who lived this love crashed between the discouragement of an incipient loss and the problems of government and conspiracy by which he was pressed.

The banks of the Yamuna river

I get closer, and the outlines of this masterpiece become clearer. The pallor fades, the Taj Mahal appears in all its splendour, and I realise that no photo does it justice enough, because the Taj Mahal goes beyond any image and any imagination.

The engravings and the writings in Arabic, quotations from the holy Koran, admirably decorate the façade, adding further personality to it; the shape, which from a distance seems squared, is rediscovered, up close, to be octagonal; and the basin with the fountains (which at the time of our visit were turned off) is bordered by sidewalks, paths and trees which, like the guidelines of a photographic composition, draw attention to the monument.

Mumtaz Mahal, third and favorite wife of the Moghul, died in June 1631 and the construction work on the Taj Mahal began the following year and ended only in 1654. During these over twenty years, 20,000 workers and many craftsmen were employed, some of which coming from Europe and even one from Italy, a certain Geronimo Veroneo. Various materials from all over India and Asia were used, including 12,000 tons of white marble from Makrana, near Jodhpur, and 28 different types of precious and semi-precious stones set in the marble as a decorative motif of the entire structure, that was not even defined as a tomb since its name means ‘Crown of the Palace’.

Taj Mahal hit by the morning sun

When the Taj Mahal was completed, the life and reign of the then elderly Shah Jahan drew to a close, and in September 1657, when he fell ill, a succession struggle broke out between his four sons. The winner amongst them, Aurangzeb, declared himself emperor in 1658 and locked up his father in the Agra fort, from which he would continue to admire his masterpiece of love until his death in 1666.

During its 370 years of existence, the Taj Mahal has had to face risks of all kinds; nevertheless, it still presents itself to the world in a dazzling form thanks to the care of the Indian government and to the support of UNESCO. However, a sneaky new enemy has begun to undermine its integrity: pollution. Because of this, the white marble with which it is covered is turning yellow. Alongside the normal and periodic cleaning operations, the government has programmed a special treatment on the marble which however requires a great deal of economic resources. The authorities have approved preventive measures in order to curb costs, such as a law that prohibits the construction of polluting industries within a vast area around the Taj Mahal.

Entrance building and ticket office

Nobody knows if the Taj Mahal will ever be able to overcome this challenge, showing that love can also win against pollution… because, as we know, good usually overcomes evil.

The Taj Mahal is located on the right bank of the Yamuna river, from which you can also enjoy a suggestive view of the mausoleum at sunset. It is in the Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, about 220 kilometers from New Delhi. Agra can be reached with a 4-5 hours car journey, and it is also connected to the capital by a railway line.

Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto)

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When men are in love, they do anything to surprise a woman. Flowers in the most unexpected moments, gifts that would surely leave her speechless, marriage proposals in the most unlikely places or situations, jewels – better if diamonds because, as you know, a diamond is forever. She is moved and weeps with joy, the memory goes on for a while, then it’s all back to normal. Everything flows.

The Taj Mahal – one of the 7 wonders of the modern world

You often have those men who tend to overdo it, mainly because they can afford it. One of these men was Shah Jahan, Moghul emperor of India between 1628 and 1658. He was so madly in love with her second wife, the Persian princess Mumtaz Mahal, who died in the act of giving birth to her fourteenth child, that he decided to exaggerate and consign her to eternity by building for her such a grandiose tomb to the point that time would even lead it to be one of the 7 wonders of the modern world: the Taj Mahal.

Local colourful outfit

Shah Jahan didn’t know it, but his love would one day known the testimony of those millions and millions of people, us included, who wake up before dawn to go and admire what the great philosopher and poet Tagore defined as “a tear of marble on the cheek of time”. But unless she gained life after death, poor Mumtaz would never know what her man was capable of to honour her memory. Nor could she brag about it with her friends during tea in her living room.

Easy to achieve this when you are an emperor, you may say. And you are certainly right, up to a point. But there are at least a couple of considerations to be made: the first is that not all the various emperors and monarchs who ever existed have built such a marvel out of love. In fact, to tell you the truth I can’t think of any. Yet I do recall queens with severed heads, consort princesses imprisoned, and other similar mocks where love was not always the protagonist.

The author and his wife at Faizul mausoleum

The second consideration relates to India’s excesses and contradictions. Faizul Hasan Qadri was a modest 83-year-old retiree from Kaser Kalan, an unknown town about 150 km from New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. He too was in love with his only wife, Tajamulli Begum, who died of cancer in 2011, so he started building a replica of Agra’s grand monument after her death, without pretensions to equal the Taj Mahal in beauty, nor to create a new wonder of our times.

He was not a Moghul and he had to make ends meet, so this project takes on even more exceptional forms. Faizul even refused help from an important political exponent of his province, arguing that the work had to be his personal commitment as evidence of his love for his wife and that, therefore, he had to finance it alone. In the end, he only requested the government to invest in the construction of a state school for girls, a wish that he was granted.

Faizul Hasan Qadri died in 2018 due to injuries sustained following a road accident. Prior to his departure, he had made a request: to be buried next to his wife, in that little great monument where, as a provident man, he had left space for himself to rest forever beside her. It was his nephew who fulfilled his wish.

Old lady selling starfruits

During our stay in India, while on the way to Agra and the Taj Mahal, we decided to make a short detour to pay homage to the grave of the old pensioner and his wife. After reading the story behind the monument, if felt the right thing to do. There, we had the opportunity to meet his nephew, the one who took on the responsibility of carrying on the works until the small mausoleum was completed. When we asked to make an offer and contribute to the project, he politely refused, as his uncle would have, explaining that all works had to be completed by money and labour coming from the family’s economy alone.

A family image

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is India. A country made up of wonderful gestures that coexist with the contradictions and miseries of a society where women have not yet achieved full emancipation, but still too often suffer domestic violence, rape, lack of education and lack of economic independence.

A country where the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, who believed with conviction that “You can understand the condition of a nation by observing the state of its women“, are answered by the popular voice through one of its saying, which underlines that “having a daughter is like watering the neighbour’s garden”.

So, maybe you didn’t know, but this is love too.

* ”Where the mind knows no fear” is a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. When he wrote it, he dreamed of a free India, not only from the British but also from any type of slavery. I reproduce it here, as it fits perfectly with the role that women deserve in Indian society:

Where the mind is without fear

and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out

from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms

towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason 

has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand

of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, 

let my country awake.

* If you wish to know more about India, we recommend:  https://passoinindia.wordpress.com/

* Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto) 

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Planning your solo trip means that you can venture to different destinations, and there is nothing to hold you back. However, things must be considered when deciding where you are going as it needs to be safe and comfortable for you to travel alone.

Not only will you be exploring parts of the world, but you will also be enriched with the culture, history and beautiful locations. It can be tough to pick a country in Asia that you want to visit as all of them are worth travelling to. But don’t worry; we have your back. Here are some destinations in Asia that we recommend and should consider going to for your solo travels.

1.  Jeju Island, South Korea

If you want to be in touch with nature and the natural wonders of the world, then Jeju Island is the place to be. The island is surrounded by mountains, cliffs and beaches where the activities that can be done are endless. As this place is dedicated to lovers of nature, there are also various beautiful gardens you can visit and smell the fresh flowers surrounding it. Although the island is tiny, you don’t have to aorry about only doing limited things.

Activities available on Jeju Island range from water-based activities to hiking or even feeling luxurious on a boat tour around the island. Moreover, if you are a foodie, the seafood there is phenomenal as it is fresh and right out of the sea. Therefore, creating an itinerary during your trip is advisable as you want to hit the famous spots and see the picturesque view.

2. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur is a destination for those who love the city atmosphere and adore architecture. It is the capital city of Malaysia and a great place for tourists to visit to explore and learn things from history and culture. They offer so many attractions in which the food is amazing and also a variety of museums for you to visit. As Malaysia is a multiracial country, you will find many buildings, delicacies, and architecture representing each race which is quite fascinating.

One of the most famous buildings in the world that are in Kuala Lumpur is the Petronas Twin Tower. The architecture gives off a modern look and looks incredible, especially at night. Tourists would explore the nightlife in Kuala Lumpur and take pictures near the Twin Tower as it looks grand and very tall. Since every location you visit has a story to tell, so bring your camera along to capture some amazing memories.

 3. Agra, India

Agra has magnificent architecture full of history and culture, and it is a destination worth visiting at least once in your life. One you shouldn’t miss while visiting Agra is the famous Taj Mahal, one of the world’s seven wonders. The meaning of the building and the story behind it will make you appreciate such beautiful architecture. However, there are more things to explore than just the Taj Mahal as you can experience more such as going to markets and purchasing local novelties or watching the light and sound show at Agra Fort.

Additionally, the food here is heavenly as India is famous for its food and spices, which can open up your taste palette. The beauty of India is astounding as the monuments surrounding them look regal and have a legacy within them. Visiting a place with such importance in its background and history will definitely open up new perspectives for you.

4. Sapporo, Japan

If you decide to visit a place during winter, then Sapporo will welcome you with many winter attractions. It is known to be one of the most exciting places in Japan as there are many fun spots to visit. Moreover, it also has beautiful flower parks where you can just stroll along and take pictures of the beautiful scenery. Besides nature, museums are also one of Sapporo’s famous tourist attractions where you can learn how chocolates are made or acquire more knowledge about the history of Japan. 

Snow-related activities such as skiing and snowboarding can also be done near the resorts, and you will have the time of your life. In addition, winter festivals are a big thing in Sapporo, where you can witness fascinating ice sculptures and just be awed by the display they put on. So be sure to put on your comfiest clothes and start exploring!

5. Bali, Indonesia

Bali is a tropical getaway where everyone can enjoy the beautiful blue beaches and white sands. It is one of the greatest and most popular locations in summer as the sun and seas will welcome you to enter a tropical haven. The numerous activities in Bali will put you on a ride as there are so many to choose from, such as snorkelling, surfing, hiking, and so much a place could have. Aside from the beaches, you can also visit Tegallagang Rice Terrace, which is full of lush greeneries where you can hike and, of course, take pictures.

However, keep in mind that the weather is going to be hot and sunny, so always wear your sunblock before going out because we want our skin to be protected from the sun. There is everything for everyone to enjoy and experience their own little paradise when you visit Bali. From soaking up the sun to having your own time to yourself is a bliss that people need to feel.

Exploring the world is a wonderful adventure, and if there is a chance, you should definitely take it as you want to create some memories. Even though solo travelling can be intimidating, it will be your best decision once you have the groove on. You will find yourself more open to trying out so many things and enjoying what the world offers. So, what are you waiting for?

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