India
1.
India is about 1/3
the size of the United States, yet it is the second most populous country in
the world, with a population of 1,166,079,217. India is the seventh largest
country in the world, at 1.27 million square miles.
2.
India is the largest
democracy in the world.
3.
The Kumbh Mela (or
Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place
in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the
record for the world’s biggest gathering. The mass of people was photographed
from space by a satellite.
4.
Many Indians find
toilet paper repellent and consider it cleaner to splash water with the left
hand in the appropriate direction. Consequently, the left hand is considered
unclean and is never used for eating.
5.
To avoid polluting
the elements (fire, earth, water, air), followers of Zoroastrianism in India
don’t bury their dead, but instead leave bodies in buildings called “Towers
of Silence” for the vultures to pick clean. After the bones dry, they are
swept into a central well.
6.
It is illegal to
take Indian currency (rupees) out of India.
7.
India leads the
world with the most murders (32,719), with Russia taking second at 28,904
murders per year.
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8.
India has one of the
world’s highest rates of abortion.
9.
More than a million
Indians are millionaires, yet most Indians live on less than two dollars a
day. An estimated 35% of India’s population lives below the poverty line.
10.
Cows can be found
freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred
and will often wear a tilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune.
Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because they offer milk
as does one’s natural mother.
11.
Dancing is one of
India’s most highly developed arts and was an integral part of worship in the
inner shrines of every temple. It is notable for its expressive hand
movements.
12.
Rabies is endemic in
India. Additionally, “Delhi Belly” or diarrhea is commonplace due to
contaminated drinking water.
13.
Many Indian wives
will never say their husband’s name aloud, as it is a sign of disrespect.
When addressing him, the wife will use several indirect references, such as
“ji” or “look here” or “hello,” or even refer to him as the father of her
child.
14.
A widow is
considered bad luck—otherwise, her husband wouldn’t have died. Elderly women
in the village might call a widow “the one who ate her husband.” In some
orthodox families, widows are not allowed near newlyweds or welcomed at
social gatherings.
15.
India is the
birthplace of chess.The original word for “chess” is the
Sanskritchaturanga, meaning “four members of an army”—which were
mostly likely elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers.
16.
The Indian flag has
three horizontal bands of color: saffron for courage and sacrifice, white for
truth and peace, and green for faith, fertility, and chivalry. An emblem of a
wheel spinning used to be in the center of the white band, but when India
gained independence, a Buddhist dharma chakra, or wheel of life,
replaced the spinning wheel.
17.
The temples of
Khajuraho are famous for their erotic sculptures and are one of the most
popular tourist attractions in India.
Scholars still debate the purpose of such explicit portrayals of sexual
intercourse, which sometimes involve animals.
18.
The earliest cotton
in the world was spun and woven in India. Roman emperors would wear delicate
cotton from India that they would call “woven winds.” Mogul emperors called
the fabrics “morning dew” and “cloth of running water.”
19.
In ancient and
medieval India, suttees, in which a recently widowed woman would
immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, were common.
20.
The Himalayas—from
the Sanskrit hima, meaning “snow,” and alaya, meaning
“abode”—are found in the north of India. They extend 1,500 miles and are
slowly growing taller, by almost an inch (2.5 cm) a year. Several ancient
Indian monasteries are found nestled in the grandeur of these mountains.
21.
India is the world’s
largest producer of dried beans, such as kidney beans and chickpeas. It also
leads the world in banana exports; Brazil is second.
22.
In India, the fold
and color of clothing are viewed as important markers of social
classification. Additionally, a woman will be viewed as either a prostitute
or a holy person depending on the manner in which she parts her hair.
23.
With 150,000 post
offices, India has the largest postal network in the world. However, it is
not unusual for a letter to take two weeks to travel just 30 miles.
24.
In India, grasping
one’s ears signifies repentance or sincerity.
25.
The Bengal tiger is
India’s national animal. It was once ubiquitous throughout the country, but
now there are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left.
26.
Indians hold
prominent places both internationally and in the United States. For example,
the co-founder of Sun Microsystems (Vinod Khosla), the creator of the Pentium
chip (Vinod Dahm), the founder/creator of Hotmail (Sabeer Bhatia), and the GM
of Hewlett-Packard (Rajiv Gupta) are all Indian.
27.
Alexander the Great
of Macedon (356-323 B.C.) was one of the first important figures to bring
India into contact with the West. After his death, a link between Europe and
the East would not be restored until Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama
(1460-1524) landed in Calicut, India, in 1498.
28.
The British Raj, or
British rule, lasted from 1858 to 1947 (although they had a strong presence
in India since the 1700s). British influence is still seen in Indian
architecture, education system, transportation, and politics. Many of India’s
worst famines are associated with British rule in India.
29.
Every major world
religion is represented in India. Additionally, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,
and Sikhism all originated in India.
30.
About 80% of Indians
are Hindu. Muslims are the largest minority in India and form approximately
13% of the country’s population. In fact, India has the third largest
population of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia and Pakistan.
31.
India has the
world’s largest movie industry, based in the city of Mumbai (known as the
“City of Dreams”). The B in “Bollywood” comes from Bombay, the former name
for Mumbai. Almost all Bollywood movies are musicals.
32.
Mumbai (Bombay) is
India’s largest city, with a population of 15 million. In 1661, British
engineers built a causeway uniting all seven original islands of Bombay into
a single landmass.
33.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
(1869-1948) is known around the world as Mahatma, which is an honorific title
meaning “Great Soul” in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. He devoted
his life to free India from British rule peacefully and based his campaign on
civil disobedience. His birthday, October 2, is a national holiday. He was
assassinated in 1948.
34.
The lotus is sacred
to both Hindus and Buddhists. The Bahá’íhouse of worship in Delhi, known as
the “Lotus Temple,” is shaped like a lotus flower with 27 gigantic “petals”
that are covered in marble.
35.
The banyan, or
Indian fig tree, is considered a symbol of immortality and is mentioned in
many Indian myths and legends. This self-renewing plant is India’s national
tree.
36.
Marigold flowers are
used as decoration for Hindu marriages and are a symbol of good fortune and
happiness.
37.
The official name of
India is the Republic of India. The name “India” derives from the River
Indus, which most likely is derived from the Sanskrit sindhu,
meaning “river.” The official Sanskrit name of India is Bharat, after
the legendary king in the epicMahabharata.
38.
Introduced by the
British, cricket is India’s most popular sport. Hockey is considered the
national sport, and the Indian field hockey team proudly won Olympic gold in
1928.
39.
Indians made
significant contributions to calculus, trigonometry, and algebra. The decimal
system was invented in India in 100 B.C. The concept of zero as a number is
also attributed to India.
40.
The national fruit
of India is the mango. The national bird is the peacock, which was initially
bred for food.
41.
Most historians
agree that the first recorded account of plastic surgery is found in
ancient Indian Sanskrit texts.
42.
Hindi and English
are the official languages of India. The government also recognizes 17 other
languages (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali, Manipuri, Konkani, Kannada,
Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil,
Telugu, and Urdu). Apart from these languages, about 1,652 dialects are
spoken in the country.
43.
India’s pastoral
communities are largely dependent on dairy and have made India the largest
milk-producing country in the world.
44.
India has the
world’s third largest road network at 1.9 million miles. It also has the
world’s second largest rail network, which is the world’s largest civilian
employer with 16 million workers.
45.
Rivers have played a
vital role in India’s popular culture and folklore—they have been worshipped
as goddesses because they bring water to an otherwise dry land. Bathing in
the Ganges in particular is thought to take away a person’s sins. It is not
unusual to spread a loved one’s ashes in the Ganges.
46.
Raziya Sultana
(1205-1240) was the first woman leader of India. She was considered a great
leader, though she ruled for only three years before being murdered.
47.
Most Indians rinse
their hands, legs, and face before eating a meal. It is considered polite to
eat with the right hand, and women eat after everyone is finished. Wasting
food is considered a sin.
48.
During the Vedic era
in India, horse sacrifice sanctioned the sovereignty of the king.
49.
It is traditional to
wear white, not black, to a funeral in India. Widows will often wear white in
contrast to the colorful clothes of married or single women.
50.
All of India is
under a single time zone.
51.
On India’s
Independence Day, August 15, 1947, the country was split into India and
Pakistan. The partition displaced 1.27 million people and resulted in the
death of several hundred thousand to a million people.
52.
In recent years,
Indian authors have made a mark on the world with such novels as Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), Vikram
Seth’s Suitable Boy (1993), and Arundhati Roy’s The
God of Small Things (1997).
53.
India experiences
six seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer monsoon, and winter
monsoon.
54.
India is the world’s
largest tea producer, and tea (chai) is its most popular beverage.
55.
The Taj Mahal
(“crown palace”) was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) for his
beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631). This architectural beauty has been
called “marbled embroidery” for its intricate workmanship. It took 22,000
workmen 22 years to complete it.
56.
The first and
greatest civilization in ancient India developed around the valley of the
Indus River (now Pakistan) around 3000 B.C. Called the Indus Valley
civilization, this early empire was larger than any other empire, including
Egypt and Mesopotamia.
57.
After the great
Indus Civilization collapsed in 2000 B.C., groups of Indo-Europeans called
Aryans (“noble ones”) traveled to northwest India and reigned during what is
called the Vedic age. The mingling of ideas from the Aryan and Indus Valley
religions formed the basis of Hinduism, and the gods Shiva, Kali, and Brahma
all have their roots in Aryan civilization. The Aryans also recorded the Vedas,
the first Hindu scriptures, and introduced a caste system based on ethnicity
and occupation.
58.
Alexander the Great
invaded India partly because he wanted to solve the mystery of the “ocean,”
which he had been told was a huge, continuous sea that flowed in a circle
around the land. When he reached the Indian Ocean, he sacrificed some bulls
to Poseidon for leading him to his goal.
59.
Greek sculpture
strongly influenced many portrayals of Indian gods and goddesses,
particularly after the conquest of Alexander the Great around 330 B.C. In
fact, early Indian gods had Greek features and only later did distinct Indian
styles emerge.
60.
Chandragupta Maurya
(340-290 B.C.), a leader in India who established the Mauryan Empire (321-185
B.C.), was guarded by a band of women on horseback.
61.
When the first
independent prime minister of India, pacifist Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964),
was featured in Vogue, his distinctive close fitting,
single-breasted jacket briefly became an important fashion statement for the
Mod movement in the West. Named the Nehru jacket, the prime minister’s coat
was popularized by the Beatles and worn by such famous people as Johnny
Carson (1925-2005) and Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990).
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