From brilliant rail network to smart street vendors and the best food, here’s what makes India a favourite with foreign travellers
This is for those 17 million tourists visiting India each year, wondering why so many things are the way they are. Bizarre and interesting. Just for them, here’s a list of ways India outshines the rest of the world.
Old world train travel
This year marks 160th birth anniversary of the Indian Railways, which carries more than 20 million passengers a day along 65,000 kilometers of track. Thundering through cities, inching past villages, snaking along coastlines and climbing mountains, the network of toy trains, luxury trains, Shatabdi speed trains and commuter trains is lovingly known as “the lifeline of a nation.”
Tip: Travellers should choose the new Duronto trains — there’s no better way to see the country.
Barbers
In India, a simple hair cut is anything but. Barbers will take their scissors to wayward eyebrows, tufts of ear hair and nostrils. That’s just the beginning. Once the customer is shorn, wet-wiped and towelled off, barbers begin a firm head, neck and shoulder massage, which can descend into facial slapping and skull-pounding known as champi, which is where the word “shampoo” comes from.
Enterprising street vendors
India’s street vendors sell the usual wares, from fake DVDs to earrings to bags of masala popcorn and roasted peanuts. But there’s also ear-cleaning, street dentistry and pavement astrology. Vendors possess the presence of mind to seize any opportunity — last year when Starbucks opened in Mumbai, the queues were so long, a tea-vendor set up shop outside and sold his wares to waiting customers.
Star status
Hollywood stars have nothing like Bollywood stars when it comes to entourages, paparazzi and fanatic followings. They might endorse skin-lightening creams, produce terrible films and become embroiled in one scandal after another, but almost nothing can’t dim their stardom.
Accessorising
From Hyderabad pearls to Jaipuri gems, intricate Indian jewellery is coveted the world over, and local women are usually dripping in it. In the markets in Rajasthan, maids sweep temples and Rabari tribeswomen in Gujarat effortlessly carry buckets, mop floors and balance heavy loads — all while wearing five-inch diameter nose rings, toe-rings, glass bangles to the elbow and gold necklaces swinging by their bellies.
Comfort food
From Mumbai’s Mohammed Ali Road for kebabs to Amritsar’s lawrence Road for makhan fish, India’s addictive food leaves no room for worries over waistlines. Steaming chicken kathi rolls, crunchy sweet and sour bhel puri or creamy lassi from even the starkest of roadside shacks are bewilderingly tasty and satisfying.
Gesticulating
India has more than 800 dialects, but it’s the head-shaking and wrist-flicking gestures that are the most dramatic means of communication and an inherent part of an Indian’s genetic makeup. In South India, pointing a thumb toward the mouth can mean anything from “what do you wantIJ” to “have you eatenIJ” To make matters more confusing, Indians will often shake their heads from right to left to signify that they are, in fact, following what you’re saying and agreeing, rather than disagreeing.
Cricket obsession
When the British left India, they left two real legacies: the Railways and cricket. Not just the preserve of the upper classes wearing club ties, drinking Pimms and eating cucumber sandwiches, cricket in India is a way of life, enjoyed by every class, age and sex, while cricketers are revered as gods.
Festivals
With so many religions and cultures existing side by side in India, it’s rare for a week to go by without some sort of celebration. Indians will normally extend invitations to anyone and everyone from next-door neighbors to stray travellers who they may have met that morning on a train.
courtesy CNN and Monisha Rajesh