classicart ji...
As rdr wrote, there were the Indus and Harappa cultures on the subcontinent 7000 years ago and they still are.... I at least feel it vividly, whenever I visit the place.
Try to bargain for a coulpe of bananas and then mingle with plp on the market, go for a haircut or - even better - a shave with knife, in one of the small shop reached only tru a narrow passage. Or attending one of the wild hindi festival where whole towns explode in fireworks (sometime the whole shop goes: whoum!) and colored water and lights...awesome. And compared to europeans/western, the plp in general are much easier going with a mellower approach.....
And then - even the tigers are fewer nowadays - India still have a rather impressive wildlife considering. The mighty Himalayas, beaches, plains, jungles, diversity en masse.
classicart, think you need some weeks staying with a indian family, preferable in a remote mountain village.
cheers
Last edited by fhegner; 1st Nov 2009 at 20:48.