1987 a trip to Northern and central INDIA revisIted by heart 36 years later

In 1986 my partner and I decided to visit India where she had been before but me never. We arrived in New Delhi and visited the chaotic capital with crazy traffic, with cows roaming the streets, bee-taxi,rickshaws and the old Fiat car 1100 still around here. We visited the Red Fort, an ancient mosque, the Qutar Minar a beautiful high and decorated tower, the Memorial to Gandhi and then we left for Agra, the city that houses the most beautiful palace in the world, the Taj Mahal which is a tomb that the sultan of place had built for his beloved wife who died in childbirth. He also wanted to build an equally sumptuous tomb for himself opposite but given the exorbitant expense, his son had him imprisoned and forced him to spend the rest of his days closed in meditation. The Taj Mahal is in white marble, probably Italian from Carrara and was originally covered with precious stones that were taken away, however it remains of astonishing beauty and harmony with its minarets and with the facing oblong basin. It was then the turn of Kajuraho where we visited the famous temples of love in the midst of green meadows and bougainvillea. There are so many decorations of gods that make love in all the positions of Kamasatra, but don't think that today's Indians are equally uninhibited, on the contrary they are very modest, females and males live separately until the marriage arranged by their parents following the strict caste rules. We also visited the ghost town of Fatephur Sikri which was abandoned due to lack of water, however very beautiful and well preserved and then Amber Fort an impressive fortress located on a hill which is often climbed by lazy tourists aboard poor elephants they have to work hard all day. We then went to Benares or Varanasi, the sacred city on the Ganges where the dying come to die and where the corpses are cremated along the banks, on the so-called gaths, you can smell burning flesh and see touching scenes even if in theory the Indians who consider life a suffering should be happy for the passing of their beloved ones. We also visited the metropolis financial, industrial and film mecca Bombay, now Mumbai. There is little to see, a beach where some enjoy spurring their horses, the India Gate and a famous hotel that burned down a few years ago. Then Goa, the former Portuguese colony with Catholic churches that also celebrates a famous carnival, with many beaches where once the hippies from Kathmandu arrived when the season was more propitious and there are still the communities we visited of now elderly peers, but not at the time of my visit. There are palm trees, you eat fish drinking Port wine produced on site. There is a naturist beach where Indian tourists come not to strip naked but to browse the dirty naked western tourists and think that India was the homeland of the Kamasutra and of love! However, the highlight of the trip was the visit of the state of Rajasthan homeland of the Rajiputs of Afghan origin who created a great civilization and which still today host perhaps the most picturesque and interesting part of the country. There are very beautiful cities with stupendous palaces such as Jaipur with its palace of the winds, Udaipur with its lake and its palaces that seem artfully sewn with colorful colors and arabesque designs, Jodhpur the blue city because most of its houses have this color and whose panorama can be enjoyed from the hill above which houses a large building, former residence of the local sultan and now transformed into a luxury hotel. Finally Jaisalmer, the pearl of the desert, with its walls and palaces embroidered with sand mixed and pressed for the construction of which the rich merchants of the time competed for who would build the richest and most spectacular. We went on a camel excursion in the Tar desert with two camel drivers who prepared food and tea for us and we found ourselves in the midst of the arrayed armies of neighboring Pakistan and India who were about to slaughter each other in the umpteenth war which fortunately did not start for our luck. What about India, a poor country where many still sleep on the sidewalks being homeless but which today is the country with the highest rate of development and which is preparing to surpass the US GDP and remain second only to China, shows many traces of its long and ancient civilization with many facets, so much exoticism, the country perhaps more spiritual but in my opinion more superstitious than anything else, with millions of gods and also several scammers who sail around tourists as happened to us for two episodes that happened one in Jaipur and the other more serious in Kajuraho for whose history I refer you to another post that you will find in the archive of this blog.

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