India

Did You Know?

India
has a documented history of over 5000 years?
is the largest democracy in the world, with a population of almost one billion?
is thirteen times the size of Europe?
40 New Zealands can fit into India?

Did you know that
India
Is Among the world's top producers of tea, milk, tobacco, wheat, coal, nitrogenous fertilizers, cement, cotton, potatoes and iron-ore?
has the largest output of full-length feature feature films - over 700 annually - since 1979?
has the second largest railway system and domestic airline
had four great universities: Nalanda, Taxila, Vijayanagar and Nagarjuna - to which people went to study Maths and Science?
gave to the world the concept of the zero and decimal system, yoga and ayurvedic medicine?

Although 48% of India is illiterate, the remaining 52 % is highly educated and from this group we get the second largest number of scientists and technologists in the world?

India is the home of many religions. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Zorashtrianism, the list is endless....

Did you know that
the Himalayan (pronounced Himaa-lion) range has 95 peaks above 7,500 metres high?
Himalaya means home of snow?
The Thar Desert covers 260,000 sq metres, almost twice the size of Bangla Desh?
India has the wettest place on earth: Mawsynram, with 11,873 mm, in annual rainfall, ten times more than New York and twenty times more than London.

Did you know

that Christianity came to India via St. Thomas one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, and that he established 7 churches in Kerala?

that Queen Elizabeth wears the Kohinoor Diamond from Golconda near Hyderabad on her crown?

Did you know that
India has always attracted people because of her wealth - silk, jewellery, tea and spice. People from different parts of the world came at different times to India to trade, to study to invade and colonize or to seek refuge? These included Alexander the Great in 326 BC, the Aryans, the Chinese travellers Fa-Hien and Huien Tsang, the Muslims, the Portugese, the Dutch, the French and the British. India is home to official as well as unofficial refugees from Tibet, Nepal and Bangla Desh.

Did you know that
India was under the British for 200 years? This left an impression so indelible that English is still the official language of India, although Hindi is the national language.

The people of India have their own unique brand of Indian English. English is the medium of instruction in most of the schools in the cities. Indians learn nursery rhymes, songs and fairy tales in English as well as their own language. There are newspapers and magazines in English and several Indian novelists and short story writers who write in English. Many Indians speak English as well as their native language at home. Many Indian Christians attend church services in English as well as their own language.

India has to be seen and experienced to be believed. Nothing that you hear through the written or spoken word can quite prepare you for the diversity and contrast you would find in India. This diversity is evident in every aspect of the country: the physical features and the climate, the physical appearance of the people: both colour and build,the style of living, the clothes, the food! It is this astounding variety that makes India what it is. Wodehouse once said that half the world doesn't know how the other half lives. There is so much diversity in India that to say half of India does not know anything about the other half would not be a false claim! The 25 different states and 7 union territories are almost like so many separate countries! With a population of a billion, at that!

India is as large as Europe, only far more diverse, with 16 different languages and ever so many dialects; every conceivable mode of transport; and festivals to celabrate everything under the sun, from the harvest to the sacred relationship between sisters and brothers. No other country in the world has quite so many different costumes, resplendent in their very variety; or so rich a medley of music, literature and dance.

The regal snow capped Himalaya mountains, the world's highest mountain chain, are the nation's pride and joy - its crowning glory: they give the region its cold temperatures and harsh winters. Foothill valleys, breathtakingly beautiful, cover the northern states. There are cascading rivers, blue lagoons and sandy beaches fringed with majestic coconut palms under the blazing sweltering sun in the south. Some parts of India have rich green fields, others have tropical rain forests and plateaus, while yet other have long dreary stretches of desert. India has spelbinding natural beauty and exquisite historical monuments, alonside the urban ugliness that is wrought by extreme poverty." There are palatial mansions with glamour-rooms for bathrooms, one to each bedroom, and separate ones for visitors, besides; rambling bungalows, luxurious five star hotels and towering skyscrapers alongside the most squalid slums with tumbledown huts where people do not even have basic sanitation facilities; while paradoxically many of them in the larger cities possess luxury items like televisions and fridges.

Nowhere else in the world would you find such cultural diversity: such a plethora of beliefs, religions, places of worship, customs and traditions, crafts and performing arts. The towering temples of the South

are characterized by their ornately sculptured surface and are associated with the crafts and performing arts of the region. The people of the desert of Kutch in Gujerat lead Spartan lives because of their constant battle against the awesome forces of nature; they express themselves through their astounding profusion of jewellery and ornamental mirror-work embroidery which adorns both garments and household linen. Local culture in the high altitude desert of Ladakh is visibly shaped by their religion- Buddhism as well as by the harsh terrain. The pomp and pageantry of India's weddings, festivals and fairs has to be seen to be believed. A typical shopping spree for a tourist would be a journey through centuries of old traditional crafts and skills.

The tribes in the north eastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur have their own unique folk culture. Tribal life in the states of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh finds expression through their artistically executed handicrafts.

BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

India's history goes back to 3200BC when Hinduism began. Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism,
Sikhism and Zorashtrianism all coexist in the country. Because of India's enomous size, its history has seldom been the same for adjoining two territories. Its great natural wealth has lured a succession of traders and foreign influences to it, each having left their imprint in the country, however faint or localized. Thus Chinese fishing nets in Kerala are a throwback to ancient maritime trade, while terracotta figurines in the north bear distinct Greek traces. Its ancient monuments are a backdrop for the world's largest democracy, where atomic energy is generated and industrial development has brought the country within the world's top ten nations. Today, fishermen along the country's coastline fashion simple fishing boats in an ancient tradition, while a few miles away, motor vehicles glide off conveyor belts in state-of-the-art factories.

We learn quite a bit about India from the writings of foreign visitors like Megasthenes, Plini, Ibn Batuta, Marco Polo, Fa-Hien and Huin Tsang. Tradition has it that the spices and perfumes used for ceremonies for the dedication of King Solomon's temple the Queen of Sheba brought for Solomon were from Kerala.Students came from all over the world to the four great univerities of Nalanda, Nagarjuna, Taxila and Vijayanagar.

India's distinctive culture has evolved through absorbing numerous waves of migrating peoples who had been sweeping into the country for several thousand years.

The highly civilised Harappa culture was well established around 2500 BC in the Indus Valley, in the north west of India. Five of the six major ethnic groups which make up the population of India today were already entrenched when the Aryans arrived around 1500 BC from Central Asia, bringing with them the four Vedas which are ancient Sansrit hymns and devotionals. These have been preserved by the Hindu tradition.

The ancient Indians made notable intellectual contributions and laid the foundations for Geometry, Arithmetic and Algebra. The zero and the decimal system reached India reached Europe via the Arabs, hence the Arabic numerals.

Alexander the Great was so impressed with the high quality of the indigenous Ayurvedic medicine that he took physicians and practitioners back with him. This returned to India with the Muslims as Unani or Greeco- Arabic medicine and still flourishes in India with Ayurveda, Allopathy and Homoeopathy.

Jewish contact with India dates back to 973 BC. Historians say that the first Jewish settlement in Kerala was soon after the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BC and was under the leadership of Joseph Rabban. The jewish synagogues inKodungallor, Mattancherry near Cochin, Kollam, among others are living proofs of this.

Around the fifth century the huns, Turks and Mongols began coming in via Afghanistan and that is when disruption began.

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA

Do you know that India is mentioned in the Bible? (Esther 1 :1). The gospel of Christianity was spread by St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus in 52 AD, without any Western influence. This is the same Thomas who doubted Jesus and put his fingers through the holes made by the nails on the body of Jesus. He established seven churches in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.The first Christians in India were 8 Nambudhiri Brahmin families in Kerala. They gave up their wealth and were ostracized because they became Christians. Today they are called the Orthodox Christians or the Syrian Christians and have two major denominations - Marthomites and Jacobites. It is a sad but true fact that the majority of Christians in India, leave alone the rest of the world, think that the Good News of Jesus was brought into the country by the Europeans! In fact Vasco Da Gama was astonished to find Christianity being practised in South India. To find out more about the Orthodox church of India, click here

Of course the European missionaries including the Portugese, French, Dutch and the British also converted people to Christianity. To learn about one of the most beautiful church buildings in Secunderabad, All Saints Church, click HERE

We worshipped at St. John's Church, Marredpally, Secunderabad. To read about our church organ, click HERE

More about colonization.....

In 1018, the Muslim rulers broke the power of the Hindu states, making it easier for the Europeans to come in. The Portugese came to Goa in1497 and stayed till 1961. The five centuries of their influence has made Goa very different from the other states. The "incorrupt body" of St. Francis Xavier is kept in a glass coffin in Goa, and is brought out every 10 years, drawing Catholics from all over the world.

The French and the Dutch set up their colonies. But it was the British who had come to stay. Queen Elizabeth I gave a charter to the East India Company in 1600. The foundation of Calcutta was laid by the British in 1690. However, even at the height of their power, the British occupied only three fifths of India. More than half a million square miles were fairly autonomous states under the rule of the Maharajas - great kings, and Nawabs - Muslim ruling princes.

To come back to the Europeans, anyone with a slight knowledge of Indian History should not be astounded at the variety of European surnames in India: Alva, Alvares, Castelino, Correa, D'souza, D'mello, Pereira, Fernandes, Romeo, Machias, Paes, Arthur, Gardiner, Cooper, Shaw, Sheppard, Taylor or even Wilson!

How many non-Indians know that English is a kind of unifying language in India? That the best schools in India have English as the medium of instruction? That most educated Indians speak in English at home? That if two Indians met in a foreign country, they would most likely speak in English? Of course Indian English is unique!!! There are several Indian magazines in English. And even more writers. And so, though the British Raj came to an end in 1947, they left not only their language, but also a lasting influence on every aspect of the country. But that of course, is a long story!

Some interesting links:

SONGS

Purane filmon ka sangeet