During your holidays you travelled by train from Kolkata to Mumbai write a letter to your friend describing the journey describe the different landforms you saw the languages you're people speak the kinds of clothes you saw and the food you eat
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In India, the past is not a foreign country. I had no sooner arrived at Mumbai's railway station than I was immediately made aware of this profound Indian truth.
I was back at the station I had come to at the age of five for my first train journey to Kolkata. My parents came from that part of the world, and this was an annual pilgrimage
The superficial changes since my childhood were evident. The station is no longer named after Queen Victoria and the city is not called Bombay, the name I had grown up with. But, as I stood thinking of all the occasions I had come here clutching my father's hand, I could see much that had not changed.
The bookstall, where I had bought comics still bore the name Wheeler, the Victorian gentleman who had set it up. And all round me Indian life was on display as it has been ever since the station was built.
On a bench a man slept as peacefully as if he was at home. Round the corner another leaned over a track using it as a wash basin as he cleaned his teeth. And in the very centre of the station, a group of women sorted their clothes out.
To give my English wife, Caroline, more of a feel for this journey crossing a country which is more like a continent, I had decided to take a diversion from my childhood route to Aurangabad in the south east before linking up with main train to Kolkata.
The trains of my childhood have long gone. Before, each carriage was separate. To get from one to the other you had to wait for a station and walk along the platform, as my father did when he dined in the restaurant car. Modern Indians have also done away with buffet cars.
So the corridors of the Shatabdi Express taking us to Aurangabad were like a bazaar with vendors shouting their offering of various Indian snacks. We had come to Aurangabad to see what the Indians call the poor man's Taj.
It may be more than a thousand miles from the more famous Taj Mahal at Agra in the north, but it is an almost exact copy. Unlike the original Taj, which is a memorial of love by Shah Jahan to his wife, the Aurangabad Taj is a tribute by Shah Jahan's grandson to his mother Begum Rabia Durani.
A half-hour drive away are the Ellora caves with their remarkable story of India's religious past. The earliest date from the 5th Century and show images of Buddha, the Hindu prince who renounced his privileges and, after years of meditation, achieved nirvana.
By the time these images were carved in stone, Buddhism had replaced Hinduism as the religion of the country. However, Hinduism made a comeback and other caves at Ellora illustrate that, in particular the temple of Kailasa, dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Carved from a single rock, it is the world's largest monolithic structure and took almost 200 years to complete.
By the time it was finished in the 9th Century, Hinduism was once again the main religion in India.
I was back at the station I had come to at the age of five for my first train journey to Kolkata. My parents came from that part of the world, and this was an annual pilgrimage
The superficial changes since my childhood were evident. The station is no longer named after Queen Victoria and the city is not called Bombay, the name I had grown up with. But, as I stood thinking of all the occasions I had come here clutching my father's hand, I could see much that had not changed.
The bookstall, where I had bought comics still bore the name Wheeler, the Victorian gentleman who had set it up. And all round me Indian life was on display as it has been ever since the station was built.
On a bench a man slept as peacefully as if he was at home. Round the corner another leaned over a track using it as a wash basin as he cleaned his teeth. And in the very centre of the station, a group of women sorted their clothes out.
To give my English wife, Caroline, more of a feel for this journey crossing a country which is more like a continent, I had decided to take a diversion from my childhood route to Aurangabad in the south east before linking up with main train to Kolkata.
The trains of my childhood have long gone. Before, each carriage was separate. To get from one to the other you had to wait for a station and walk along the platform, as my father did when he dined in the restaurant car. Modern Indians have also done away with buffet cars.
So the corridors of the Shatabdi Express taking us to Aurangabad were like a bazaar with vendors shouting their offering of various Indian snacks. We had come to Aurangabad to see what the Indians call the poor man's Taj.
It may be more than a thousand miles from the more famous Taj Mahal at Agra in the north, but it is an almost exact copy. Unlike the original Taj, which is a memorial of love by Shah Jahan to his wife, the Aurangabad Taj is a tribute by Shah Jahan's grandson to his mother Begum Rabia Durani.
A half-hour drive away are the Ellora caves with their remarkable story of India's religious past. The earliest date from the 5th Century and show images of Buddha, the Hindu prince who renounced his privileges and, after years of meditation, achieved nirvana.
By the time these images were carved in stone, Buddhism had replaced Hinduism as the religion of the country. However, Hinduism made a comeback and other caves at Ellora illustrate that, in particular the temple of Kailasa, dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Carved from a single rock, it is the world's largest monolithic structure and took almost 200 years to complete.
By the time it was finished in the 9th Century, Hinduism was once again the main religion in India.
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