A British think tank recently published a report on the future of oil producing countries, with rather depressing conclusions. Out of the 12 countries the report looked upon only three have sucessfully transformed towards a non-hydrocarbon-dependent economy. The others face serious barriers and constraints, with weak governments, poorly performing private sectors and inadequate political and social reforms. Even if they might be able tob sell oil for decades they will reach a plateau period soon, where increasing domestic demand will slow exports and shrink revenues.
Dubai, although not part in this study, also prepares it’s economy for the time after oil. Heavy investments in building and infrastructure, with nearly 50.000 new appartments each year, target for the top segment of the market. Whole new cities are produced out of thin air - health and sports facilities, media and entertainment, offices and trade. The largest container shipping port on the planet, the highest skyscraper, the largest airport - the list of superlatives is long. The economy booms, fuelled by the oil price peaks, at two-digit rates per year. Dubai seems to have made it, rapidly becoming the new business hub in middle east. The young elite, the Dubai Kids, are globally and western oriented, multi-lingual and tolerant. So nothing can go wrong on the path to a splendid future. Or can it?
Dubai’s vision, so it seems, is a paradise of luxury and consumation, with wealthy people enjoying endless boat rides, hours in exclusive shopping malls and dinners in expensive three star restaurants. In a world of diminishing resources Dubai fights for the top end, which is said to be a reliable segment, to be served by an army of servants from less wealthier countries. Right now the country still is in investment phase, the newspaper beeing full of job advertisements, mostly civil engineers, interior decorators and marketing specialists. This boom is propelled by real estate, but who will move into all the new flats and offices? Science, information and knowledge, motor of the 21st century, are not here yet. Already first signs of a speculation bubble appear at the horizon. The new skyscrapers and artificial islands, errected in record time, are said to be made from cheap materials, with a limited lifespan. So Dubai still has to proove whether it will be able to make it’s way once the stream of oil money, currently fuelling progress, runs out.

A common myth, cited in many Western guides, says that India has 300 million gods. In fact this absurd number is a misunderstanding - when once upon a time an Englishman asked a old Brahmin about the number of the Indian gods, the wise man answered that every Indian had it’s own god. Instead of gasping the full meaning of this statement the Englishman, educated in a monotheistic world, did a simpe calculation.
But in fact the Indian heaven is difficult to understand for Westeners, as there are many different religions with even more gods and their reincarnations. The basic idea of Hinduism, more a state of mind than a religion, is described in the Vishnu Purana like this: “when anyone dies, he goes down to the kingdom of Yama, the god of death, and there he is subjected to the most cruel punishments. But that is not the end. When a certain period has elapsed the soul is released, but only that it may return to one of the upper worlds, where it is bom again, it may be as god, it may be as man or it may be as one of the lower creatures. Even Brahma, the creator god, is not extempt. Long though his life may be, there is a limit to his existence. Only the Brahm, the spirit from whom the universe proceeds and into whom it all dissolves, of him can it be said that he is eternal”. This basic concept, with it’s popular terms of Samsara (re-birth), Karma (reward or redemption for former lifes) and Moksha (resolution in the Nirvana) has gained much popularity in the West, but only in a reduced way, because the Hindu who seeks to break out of this never-ending circle of lifes has to work hard, never to fail his duties (Dharma) assigned to his caste: “he looks to friend and foe with equal difference, finds no pleasure in either love and hatred, never injures any one, never beats or slays any creature that has life”. That makes breaking the wheel of re-birth really hard for the true believers - the Mahabharata tells us: “Attachment to earthly objects produces evil. The silkworm constructs a cocoon round itself and is at least destroyed by its own deed. Renounce both virtue and vice, both truth and falsehood”.
But not everybody is able to live this contemplative life as sadhu, as wandering monk, or guru. For the more earthly people there is always a chance or even a special shortcut to improve their karma or to clean the register of their sins, a bath in the holy river Ganga (takes away all sins), a pilgrimage to fetch holy water from the Ganga, a visit of the seven holy places of India or even a bath in the urine of cows (heals the killing of a cow).
And there are gods to worship, indeed a whole heaven full of them, the most important the Trimurti, the three superior gods Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the king of gods who ensures the order of the universe, and Shiva, master of fertility, lord of the death and destruction. Vishnu himself has ten incarnations, among them Rama, Krishna and Buddha - the last one, Kalki, is still awaited. The wives, children and other relatives of the gods are part of the heavens, as are animals like the monkey god Hanuman or the Nandi, the holy bull Shiva rides on. A bright and colorful picture, where everybody’s belief finds it’s place. Insofar the old Brahmin was right when he told the Englishman.

They are everywhere, in the streets, the fields, the temples, even on the wrong side of the motorway. And they seem to know their special status as they expect the humans and their mechanized transports to give way and divert them. While each day millions of Indians have to fight for their small bowl of rice beef is untouchable and the killing of a cow sanctioned by law and tradition. What makes this animal, not the most beautiful nor the most intelligent creature under the sky, so special?
The tradition of worshipping cows can be traced back to the Arian beliefs, layed down in the Hymns of the Vedas. The Arians had been nomadic herdsmen and the cow was the only source of their wealth - it pulled their iron plows, was used for transport of men and goods, and gave milk, cheese, butter, cream and even dung for the fires and urine for medicine. Even today a farmer depends on his cows; he needs three cows at least, two for the work on the fields and one to produce offspring. If he has to sell or abandon them in a drought it will be his ruin because he will have to sell his land in the next season - without his cows he will not be able to cultivate the land and produce any crop.
Pragmatic considerations combined with the buddhistic Ahimsa, the respect for the living creature, finally made the cows sacrosanct. The cow became “kamadhenu”, the fullfiller of all wishes, it’s various products gifts for the gods and feeding and caring of cows became active worship. Even todays modern urban citizens can be seen buying a handful of grass from a street vendor to feed it to a cow, as a small act to improve their personal karma.
Surely Indian cows must be different from the dumb black and white milk machines that live on other continents, they are enlighted islands of calmness, as they make their way graciously and slowly through the chaos and hectic of the modern Indian cities. They always had been, as the Mahabharata tells us: the wonderful cow, known as the cow of plenty, had been created during the churning of the Sea of Milk, when the gods achieved immortality, and was able to produce anything it’s Brahmin owner happened to desire. Jealousy and greed aroused in the geat King of Vishvamitra, and offered his whole kindom in exchange to the cow. When the Brahmin refused the king tried to take the cow by force, but the cow was unwilling to leave her owner and asked him, crying with pathetic eyes, whether she had lost his affection and he really would abandon her. The Brahmin replied that he certainly was not willing to abandon her but had nor power against the miighty king and his army. The cow then replied that she would not be taken by force and produced a mighty army of warriors that drove the king and his army away and chased them over a distance of seventy and seven miles. I am sure that you have never known a cow speaking in such an intelligent way.

Cows on the streets, potholes in the streets and a constantly honking traffic of smoking black Tata Diesels and battered little cars, pidgeons in the airport buildings, people sleeping on the floors at Dehli’s old and worn International Airport, currency restrictions and a lively bureaucracy.
Only three hours flight and the contrast could not be larger - a large, sparkling airport building, no restrictions in currency or immigration, shops everywhere, motorways with twelve lanes, smooth as silk, European luxury brand cars zipping past.
Buildings sites everywhere, but while in India these are staffed with a few people carriyng gravel or bricks in bowls on their heads, here the latest concrete pumps are working round the clock. The only similarity - both times they are operated by Indians..

Pritam Niwas Chowk, the court of the peacock in Jaipur’s city palace, is decorated with four large reliefs of peacocks representing the seasons - autumn, winter, spring and monsoon. While in other places summer brings sun and heat, India’s monsoon breaks loose over the land, with strong rain and thunderstorms. With it’s overflowing stream of water, for some regions some 90 percent of the annual rainfall, it is essential for the survival of humans, plants and animals.
While it’s timing is quite stable, starting in June at the coast of Malabar and then slowly crawling north until it reaches the dry fields of Rajasthan end of July, the monsoon is not fully reliable and can fail completely. In these years droughts punish the land, lakes and streams fall dry and the herdsmen wander up to 800 kilometers or more to find food and water for their animals. Bad or failing monsoon seasons have influenced the history of the country and even recently five-year-plans and government politics.
This year the monsoon rain is overdue for two weeks, and already the government has taken action - weekly status reports and evaluations are requested from the provinces and alternative crop recommendations are considered for the farmers. Some papers are already raising the question whether not only the land but also the throats will stay dry this year. But there is hope for the thirsty country - the cactusses have just been started to bloom, normally a reliable sign that there will be rain within a week.

At the beginning of the 20th century an Austrian writer and publisher got interested in one of the oldest Indian historic texts, the Rigveda, written 100 B.C. in Sanskrit by the priest kings of a group of peoples that had then recently descended from the Northern mountains to the plains of the Indus. They had taken possession of their new home land by force, driving away or killing the natives and destroying their homes. What caught the interest of the European writer 20 centuries later was how the new owners of the land, the migrators from the north, justified these cruel acts. Their priests described the natives as dark-skinned primitives designated to do all the dirty work for their light-skinned supressors, who by their superiority had all legitimation to treat the natives badly.
These stories, written down by the priests 20 centuries earlier to justify their hostile invasion, were used by the Austrian publisher as cornerstone for a crude therory of a superior northern white-skinne people determined to invade and supress his neighbors. For his anti-semitic newspaper he also used an Indian symbol, obviously not aware of it’s meaning, because he choose the Hindu icon of peace and perfect harmony of all elements. These ideas and also the graphical symbol of peace and harmony later were taken over by a non-democratic movement, which made them core elemets of the cruel dictatorship it errected, led by a former Austrian homeless who had sucked in the crude theory in his youth, the stories from the ancient Rigveda about the indo-germanic Arian people from the North invading India in 100 B.C., and the religious symbol of Hindu faith, of peace and harmony, the swastika that became the icon of the cruel and evil regime of the Nazi party in Germany.

A small compound with two or three cows, walled with thorny shrubbery. An old motor bike, battered and rusted, next to a stack of pressed cow dung, used as fuel for the simple oven. Two rooms with open walls and a roof made of grass, two round huts for storing the crop, mostly empty. An open fire side is the kitchen, with tea and spices stored in old paint cans. No furniture except of some mock-up chairs. A typical home of a farmer in a typical Indian village. Two thirds of the Indian population still lives in the country side, in some 500.000 little villages, many still without electricity and clean water. In the hot and dry climate farming is not easy, and only by using the traditional farming methods people can make a living here. The lack of water is the main issue and everybody waits for the annuan monsoon.
Ancient traditions still determine the life of the peasants. The ancient system of the Varna, the colors, in the Western hemisphere wrongly translated as castes, is still alive here, separating the people into four major colors and thousands of Jatis (castes), the Brahman priests, the Kshatryas (warriors), the Vaishyas, merchants and farmers and finally the unlucky Harijans, the children of god, who are not allowed to move freely in the village or use the well. Marriage often is still considered and ordered by the council of the eldest, and many villages are still dominated by rich and mighty landlords. Wild peacocks and antelope wander around, destroying the seed and young plants, but Hindus are not allowed to harm them, out of respect for the living creature.
How were the ancient Moguls able to extract their incredible wealth out of this poor country? They must have skimmed off every bit of surplus from their lands, using their new silver based monetary system and land taxes. The Varna system and a religion that does not encourage individual progress may have helped to keep this uneven society stable.

The king of the Mewar tribe, Udai Singh, was a proud son of the desert. The Mewar kings then were the highest Rajput dynasty, claiming to be direct decendants of the god king Rama and superior over the other rules.
In an age where most of the country was already under the rule of the islamic Great Mogul Akbar, Udai refused to give in. His own capital, the strong fort of Chitaurgarh, had been overrun three times by the islamic troops, but Udai did not gave up. But it was obvious that the city’s fortifications were not save. So Udai was looking for a new place for his capital and finally selected a place surrounded by mountains, natural walls, with plenty of water.
In 1567 he moved the capital to the place he had named after himself Udaipur. But Akbar also did not gave up, but instead of seeking a new battle with the Mewars he tried to weaken the Rajput solidarity first - he married the daugther of the Rajput king of Amer. Having ensured the support from Amer Akbar sought battle with Maharana Pratap, the son of Udai. Paintings in the Udaipur City Palace still tell the story of this battle - the exchange of letters with the other Rajput kings to ensure solidarity against Akbar, the flaming speach Pratab gave to his troups before the battle, the rider and horse he cut into two halves with one stroke of his mighty sword, the defeat and retreat.
But even then the Mewars did not gave up - supported by the desert tribes they organized the first guerilla war against the Moguls. Only after Pratap had died his son Amar surrendered and accepted the rule of the Moguls. It must have been a very bitter pill for him to swallow, but it brought a period of constant piece and prosperity, progress in arts and culture. New palaces and gardens were build, City Palace was enhanced and the Temple of Jagdish errected.
But the Mewars always kept their heads up. In 1911, when King George, then Emperor of India, moved the capital to Dehli, the Maharana of Udaipur refused the invitation that had been sent to all local rulers. Claiming that he, the king of a small and poor state in the desert hills of Rajasthan, was not a subordinate but an equal to the ruler of the mightiest nation in the world he rejected to sit among the other local rules. Seems that a piece of Udai’s spirit still was alive in his descendants.

A flat tyre in the middle of nowhere - daily routine on the Indian roads. No flimsy spare tyre or one of the modern foam kits - a real tyre, which to change is hard work. Sweat is dripping in the hot road dust. We can’t risk to continue without spare tyre, not on these roads. So a repair is needed, in the next village. A young man, skinny and dark, starts to work on the broken tryre using a sturdy iron hammer and iron rods to separate the rubber from steel. After the rubber hull has been loosened a tube comes out of it - it must have been twenty years ago when I saw a car tyre with a tube.
The hole is found easily and marked with a yellow chalk stick. He is really going to patch the tube - like we would do it with a bicycles tyre. With an iron he scrapes the rubber until the surface is gleaming. And then - he takes a needle and sews the hole, like an old sock. Stitch afer stitch he makes, until the hole is nicely mended. Then glue and a rubber patch, and with an iron press the patch is firmly set in place. The tube is placed back into the tyre, a little air and the car again is ready to go.

You can find out a lot about a country if you look at the headlines of it’s newspapers. This is what the Times Of India features today:
Parliament has broken up, the ruling frail coalition has lost one of it’s members over a planned US-Indian nuclear deal., and there might be elections soon. Although the Indian government is ill-famous for it’s ineffiency,the democracy seems to work.
A major fire destroyed one of Mumbais crucial mobile telecom switches, leaving parts of Mumbai uncovered. Mobile phones are as popular as everywhere in the world, and rates are cheap, it is said that even the beggars have one these days. Computer sciences still is the most popular selection for young students, the number of people seeking education in one of Rajasthan’s engineering college again doubles the number of seats available. “The choices of students are directly related with payments or high salary package”, and while the students graduate with a firm technical knowledge many seem to lack enthusiasm - “students are carried away by job opportunities and neglect their own interests, ending up nowhere”.
Sports pages are puzzling for foreigners as the only sport featured is cricket, a game with enormous popularity in India and the other Commonwealth nations. Indians may oppose, but at first sight it looks like baseball, a slow game where people hit a ball, thrown by the other team, with a club and run, while the opponents try to bring back the ball in time. Matches can last for days, and of course the game has it’s own confusing expert language, with wickets, sparks, knocks and slips.
A group of gynaelogists has been found guilty for female foeticide. The Indian traditions still value sons much higher, they stay in the parent’s household and provide support for their aging parents while daugthers will become part of their husbands family. A son plays an important role in the funeral procedures where he is tasked to light the funeral pyre. Already the birth ratio has changed in a significant way in favour of boys, and women for marriage are sought after. Maybe the laws of demand and supply are able to change traditional beliefs in the future.
The economic uproar India experiences today has lead to soaring prices and a double inflation. Restaurateurs in the major cities complain that diners prefer to eat at home, and raising menu prices will drive away even more customers. As essentials like vegetables, pulses, cooking oil and gas have become more expensive than ever before, what does this mean to the poorest, who can only dream of having dinner in a fancy or exclusive restaurant?
And there is a story labelled “Mascara and death” on the owner of a beauty parlour serving well-off women conserving their beauty, who at the same time is member of a wellfare society that claims orphaned bodies for burial. For the poorest of the poor even the cost of a burial is too much, and “mothers have to leave behind the bodies of their children, wives desert their husbands and sons flee the hospital because they have no money to bury their dead parents”. So the beauticians do what they would like others to do for them one day.
The business section finally announces that Tata Group, that dominates Indias car market by the looks on the streets, has recently aquired the British brands of Jaguar and Land Rover in a 2,3 billion dollar deal and now considers to enter the luxury segment of the market. At the same time they announce the release of the world’s cheapest car.
Antique traditions and high-tech, tragedy and bright outlook, next to each other in the daily newsaper paper.

First he prepares his workplace, which is actually a stone on the floor. He puts some dry clay on the stone, then takes two handful of soft, watered clay and walks it like we would walk a piece of dough for christmas bakery. Over and over it is kneated, cut into half and merged again. Finally he forms a even cone and sets it aside. Then the potters wheel is set into action, driven by a wooden stick. Finally as it has reached enough speed the lump of clay is put in it’s middle, formed to a cone, and with his strong brown fingers the potter starts forming a bowl. He bends and tweaks it’s edges, forms a narrow neck and widens it again, repeating this until the bowl’s walls are even. With a wooden twig we smoothens the surface, giving it the final touch by applying a small watered cloth to it. Then, with a quick move he cuts the bowl from the rest of the cone using a wire. In quick sucession the potter forms a matching lid, another cup and a closed jar that gets a slit to become a piggy bank. One day in the sun to dry the clay, then the earthenware will be put into the oven, fired with the dry brushwood that can be found here, at the edge of the desert.

Proud and wild people are the Rajputs, noble warriors that preferred the honorable fight man to man over the use of guns. And so stories of love and hate, blood and honoir are engraved into the walls of Meherangarh Fort. Right at the entrance the walls still have marks from a siege, when the kings of Jodhpur and Jaipur fought battle over a woman. . Tradition had it that the widow of the Rajput king had to marry his successor, but the king of Jaipur tried to interfere, capturing the caravan carrying the wedding gifts. War was the obvious answer and Meherangarh was under a terrible siege for six months, with severe shortage of food and water, but the Jaipur king was not able to break the walls and had to give up.
The Fort might have fallen easily into the hands of the enemy, water was short in this dry country, but the sacrifice of a noble and brave men had seen to that. When Rao Jodha founded the city in 1459, giving her his own name, a holy shasta lived on the hill where Jodha had planned to errect his fort. When he was driven away he cursed Jodha and the place, announcing that the fort would always lack water. Now a curse like this was a serious issue, especially here, at the edge of the desert of Thar. The priests demanded a sacrifice, and a noble and brave kinsman volunteered. He was immured into the forts foundations, and until today his families descendants have a tight bond to the royal family.
More proof of sacrifice can be found at the fourth gate, where red impressions of human hands remember of the satis, the royal widows. When the king had died his body was prepared for cremation on the main square. A large procession came down from the fort, sedans covered in white cloth. The royal wives and concubines, dressed and made of for a feast, silently rode in them, stopping here and there giving away their golden jewelry. When they reached the square they silently embarked, enterd the funeral pyre and sat down at the side of their dead husband. When the pyre was lit they did not utter a single word.
Such is the spirit, honour and traditions of the Rajputs.

A modern three lane highway crosses the flat countryside. Trucks, buses and cars are passing by, pedestrians are crossing, herdsmen drive cattle, sheep or goats from one side of the road to the other. Cows are grazing on the grassy strip between the lanes and trucks are serviced on the narrow bank. Wrecks of trucks line the highway, secured only by a row of stones on the road, victims of collisions that, looking at the state of the drivers cabins, must have been deadly. Most of the large “goods carrier”, the kings of the road, are in a poor condition, with rusted tanks, badly mended cabins and tyres without profile. To compensate these minor faults they are painted colorful, with pictures of Hindu gods or verse from the Holy Koran, depending on the drivers beliefs, to protect the trucks and their drivers from any harm.
The road narrows and now real driving starts. Trucks overtaking just before road bends, having a bike with three people squeezed in the middle, Jeeps loaded with at least 10 people and four more on the read bumper. Cows that step into the road just before a heavy truck, overtaking cars on the wrong side of the road, pot holes that suddenly force trucks and cars to change lanes. No wonder that the drivers need the protection from all gods available…

When Madho Singh II, Mahajara of Jaipur, went to Britain in 1900 to join the coronation festivities of Edward VII, preparations had to start months before. Beeing a strict follower of Hindu faith, he needed holy water from the river Ganga for his ritual cleaning ceremonies. As his trip to England would take some months, the amount of water needed was huge. So Madho Singh ordered his silversmiths to create two silver urns for him, each weighing more than 2.000 kilograms, with a capacity of 1.800 gallons of water. 13.000 silver rupies were melted, hammered to sheets of silver and then, heated again, were applied to a wooden master and forged together. After returning from England there was no further use for the urns and they were placed in the inner courtyard of Jaipurs City Palace, where they are exhibited together with other witnesses of an area of wealth beyond affluence. Weapons in all deadly forms, ceremonial clothes, crystal chandeliers, marble elephants, large as cupboards, made out of a single block. Paintings, delicate miniatures, carriages, bronze cannons - accumulated witnesses of a golden age.

July 19th in the year of the Lord 1735. We had crossed the desert of Thar, a deathly place where the heat burns down like fire, when shortly after midday we saw a large black tower on the flirring horizon. Our native scouts started to whisper around, obviously scared and nervous, and finally Captain Nicholls, the leader of our escort, asked them about their worries. They told us that the tower belonged to the outer wall of a gigantic castle called Amber Fort where a high and mighty Rajah, a local nobleman, was living. They were not sure whether this Rajah would welcome foreigners like us, but we entrusted our souls to the Lord and went on. We entered a valley which was guarded by high walls on each side, so strong that five men could walk on them next to each other.

Then we saw the palace, yellow golden in the evening sun, sitting along the ridge of one side of the valley. We passed several gates, guarded by severe looking warriors with long curved swords, and finally came to a square surrounded by low buildings where the horses and camels were kept. We even saw an elephant there, the first I have seen since my arrival in India. A man came to greet us in the name of the Raja, and he gave us water and food for our animals and ourselves.

On the next day he came back and told us to follow him, up on a broad staircase and through a huge gate with wooden doors, into a square with a open hall. This was, as we were told by the man, the public square where all people could come and address the Rajah. A lovely smell of flowers scented the air and we were told that beds with roses had been planted on to of the hill and beds of crocuses in the valley, so the wind would take their smell to the palace. We spend some time admiring the richly decorated columns of the hall, the marble walls and the delicate ornaments covering the windows of the palace.
We were told that there was an inner square where the Rajah lived with his several wifes, who would, unseen by the visitors, watch and listen to the gatherings on the square. Some people also told us that the first wife wore so many heavy clothes and jewelery that she had to be carried around in a cart, but we did not believe this. Servants brought food and water to all the waiting people and we spend a pleasant time here, especially after all the hardship we had to endure in the desert. Finally large drums could be heard and the Rajah appeared. When he saw us he ordered his servants to bring us to him and we greeted him in the name of our good King George.
When the Rajah heard that Captain Bowers was a geographer and astronomer he got very excited because he was very interested in astronomy. Bowers and him soon were deeply into discussions about planetary eclipses and orbits. All the people that had gathered in the square had to wait, but nobody complained. Finally the Rajah ordered that we should be taken to the inner square. We all were hoping to see the black-eyed women, but none was visible, although we could hear them giggle and laugh. The inner court also contained a open hall, this one even more beautiful. It made of white marble and little mirrors were let in into the walls and ceilings, which reflected the light of the oil lamps a thousand times over. Aromatic sandal wood was burned in plates that scented the air. When we finally parted the Rajah insisted that we should visit his new observatory in the nearby town of Jaipur where he recently had constructed some astronomical instruments, among them a sundial that showed the time in two-second steps. This we did on the following day and I have to admit that I never saw astronomical instruments of such a size and precision. Such are the wonders of India, and I will tell you more in my next letter. Please give my greetings to everybody back home, may God bless you until we meet again.

Once upon a time there was a rich and mighty king, called the Great Mogul of India, who had three wives, one Muslim, one Hindu and one Christian. But none of the three was able to fulfill his greatest wish and give him a heir. One fine day he got word of a wise man, an old shakti, living three days away. So he decided to leave his palace and ask the wise man for advice. He left Agra, his royal residence, and went to see the wise man. Three days he had to wait until the wise man spoke to him. “The gods have heard your plea, and your wish will be granted, but your live will change and so will everything around you.” The Great Mogul thought very long about this and finally spoke: “If one of my wives will bear a son I will give you a white marble tomb, and I will move my residence to this spot to remember your advice.” He went back to Agra and within a year the Hindu wife had given birth to a son. The Mogul kept his promise and erected a new city made of red sand stone which he called Fatehpur Sikri. He also build the marble tomb and a large palace for his Hindu wife.
Unfortunately the city had no well and the land was dry. So the Great Mogul went back to the old wise guru and asked for advice. This time he had to wait nine days before he got a reply. “The town and the son, both are your children, but only one can live. Such is life that you have to choose”. In the same night the great Mogul decided to abandon the city build of red stone and moved back to Agra.
The white tomb and the red city is still there, for the wanderer to find. And if women are without child they still come to the wise man’s tomb to ask for advice.

A sea of green fields, with the occasional group of trees, shrubs and small round wooden huts that people use to shelter from the rain. 80 percent of the Indian population still lives in the countryside. Like islands above the waves of green vegetation small market towns are the focal points for the rural farmers. Distributed along the road are the shops, blacksmiths, bike repairs, shacks full of sacks and boxes, spare parts and soft drinks. People are streaming into these little villages, on bikes, on foot, huddled together on the back of a tractor drawn cart or crowded in a small three wheeled mini taxi. Women are wearing their finest saris, specks of bright color in a painting of green, gray and brown. Large groups gather around a squeaking TV set and around each craftsman a group of spectators is supervising and commenting his work. Camels, drawing battered carts full of hay, walk graciously through the crowds. Crude tractors exhaust black fumes, slowly driving on the wrong side of the road. Large overland trucks honk madly to drive the road clear and even the cows that wander around freely give way to these kings of the road. People are everywhere, in the shops, on the streets, mending pot holes, driving goats or cattle, getting a haircut, servicing mini taxis, selling heaps of banana, mango or other fruit. This is the center of it’s little universe..

Shah Jahan was a very lucky man. Emperor of the world’s richest nation state, the borders safe, religious conflicts settled, he could dedicate his life to arts and other pleasures. Being a Muslim he had a harem full with the most beautiful women. He could have become a playboy, although this term was not yet invited in his time. But he did not.

When he was 19 years old he went to the royal bazaar where a young princess was selling large sugar crystals. He asked for the price and the girl, playfully, asked for an astronomical sum, which he, mistaking the sugar lumps for large diamonds, readily paid. She burst out in laughs and heir veil fell of her hairs. It must have hit him straight in the heart. They got married and soon she was named “Mumtaz”, the “crown of the palace”. She must have been pregnant most of her life as she gave birth to 14 children, six of them reaching adulthood. On her deathbed, old for her time with 38 years, she asked him to erect a monument to show the whole world how deep his love had been.
The best craftsmen from all over the world were engaged to work on the finest materials money could buy. 20.000 people were at work on the site, and many more at other places. Marble was carried on oxen carts to the building site from quarries 400 kilometers away, and jewels were provided from far away places to create the finer elements of the facade. Immense sums of silver rupies went into the monument and finally the rich state became bankrupt and Jahan was overthrown by his own son, loosing his throne. He, as he had promised to his wife, never married again but spend his remaining time sitting on a balustrade of the fort, looking at the monument he had erected to honor his wife Mumtaz Mahal, named after her the Taj Mahal. And now you know the whole story…

This city has been in the hands of many rulers - Persians, Mongolians and British among them, and all have left their marks. Mosques, palaces, tombs, gardens still tell their stories of victory and downfall of great empires.
The Persians invaded in the early 13th century from Afghanistan. In a country with a Hindu majority they destroyed the temples devoted to the Hindu gods and erected mosques. At Quatab Minar, India’s oldest mosque and today a field of ruins, the Persian kings erected one of the world’s largest Islamic monuments, dedicated to their victory. This former mosque also houses the famous iron column that does not rust, according to the legend more than 3.000 years old.
But the Persian Empire broke down when the country was conquered by the Mongolians in the 16th century, which, unlike the other foreign rulers, stayed here and founded the Mogul empire. A census, followed by a new land tax, created a new source of enormous income for the Mogul Empire which then became the richest nation in the world.

They erected the Red Fort, a gigantic compound walled with red sandstone, was used as garrison and home of the kings. It’s public area, where the officials and soldiers had access, was separated from the private space of the rulers. They lived in open buildings constructed of while marble, crossed by a little channel that carried fresh water. If you close your eyes you can imagine their nightly feasts, under the large trees that were lit with little oil lamps, the air scented by burning incense, dancers performing on the ways. Jama Mashjid, like the Red Fort erected by the Persian king Shah Jahan, was one of the largest mosques in the world, with space for more than 30.000 people. But after only six generations of Moguls the empire broke down, when civil wars broke out after the death of Mogul Aurangzeb.
Busy with their own fights against each other the successors were an easy prey for the British who had taken over the property of the old East India Company, which then had, over time, bought large parts of northern India. When the British Empire moved their capital to Dehli in 1911 they created a new part - New Dehli with its imperial architecture, broad alleys and white villas. But when the last buildings had been finished in 1931 the Empire had only a little more than a decade.
One question remains - why has a culture as old as the Indian, known for it’s poetry and scientific achievements, with superb technological knowledge -the non-rusting iron column still puzzles todays experts- always been the prey for foreign invaders?

The term tamasha, designating a popular form of rural theatre, also stands for trouble, chaos, exitement, loud hustle. You don’t have to visit the theatre for this - just take a drive on the Inner Ring Road at noon. One side of the road is a building site, full of iron meshes and beams, concrete tubes and heaps of rubble. There are no marked lanes and in many parts no pavement - deep holes force bikers and cars to crisscross the street. The horn is the most important instrument to communicate with the other drivers and constant honking lies like an acustic blanket over the city.
Motorbikes, three-cycled taxis, small battered white cars with bearded drivers wearing turbans, overcrowded buses exhausting blue fumes and old trucks, stitches together from differently colored steel plates, fight their way through ine incredible noon traffic, stopped by threecycled bikes, pushed by two men and overloaded with stacks of furniture, heaps of bananas or cardboard boxes of eggs.
A small group of cows lies on the small grassy strip that divides the lanes, slowly munching their midday meal completely ignoring the hectic around them. Peple are everywhere, waiting fur buses at rusty shacks, bravely crossing the street, repairing bikes at the side of the road, selling glasses of ice cold water. It’s impossible to take in all the sights that happen at the same moment - that is tamasha.

Dubai International Airport, 01:00 am local time. Four hours stopover, and tired and red-eyed we enjoy the show that is happening right in front of us. Like on a catwalk people from all countries and cultures of the planet are passing by. Arabic women, dressed in black burkhas from top to toe, with only a small slit for the eyes, pushing pink child carts, accompanied by young men wearing Western sport clothes. Indian gurus with white turbans, long white shirts and sandals, carring mobile phones and bright colored hard cases. Chinese women, skinny and small, passing the stream of people in the wrong direction with tight lips, with their men, wearing the uniform polo shirt, in tow. Indians in pink and yellow glittering saris, with thick black hair knotted in the back and golden arm bracelets. Eurpeans in washed-out shirts and shorts -the ones wearing sandals must be Germans- and a small group of hardrock fans dressed in black, with greasy long hair and tatoos. Two airport officials with their long white arabic dresses and headsets. Persians with white round caps, long shirts and long beards, next to Jews with their traditional black dresses. Sit for an hour and see the world pass by.

This trip is a project, and a really well-planned one. We still have a comfortable buffer, despite this morning’s last minute purchases and a change in the malaria medication.
Only seven kilo overweight luggage, but Emirates Airlines charges 322 Euro for this. That’s out of budget, so our shoes now travel in the cabin. Let’s see what customs and security have planned for us…

This trip can be defined pretty well in project terms. It had a very long preparation phase. The project sponsors have developed the initial idea already last year. Over time and several discussions it was refined and finally put on the road map (in this case the list of places to see). It was put into the priority list and the timeframe was determined, not an easy task as we are bound to school holidays and business quarters. The only window was in July - monsoon in India and apparently not the best time of the year to travel to India. But the go-live was given and not to be negotiated..
A thorough vendor selection has been performed, using an external consultant (our travel agency), and it turned out that the market for trips to India is rather small compared to more popular destinations. After some consultations we finalized a vendor short list, identified the best option and closed the contract.
As the “technical implementation plan” is given by the travel agency, we just need to work out the “functional part”. But that is enough to perform next to a full days job - coordinating various special purchases and vaccinations, getting visa and details on currency handling (you are not allowed to import and export), organizing cat-sitters and locums, getting additional information on the country, its culture and habits, prepare this blog… Until now we are still in a planning mode, using our trusted “pre-vacation” checklists, but as go-live day comes nearer I expect some last-minute tasks and unplanned activities. Well, we will give you the status reports here…

Only one week to go until the plane leaves German soil. And still a huge list of ‘to-dos’ - get sun protection and sun-glasses, rain protection (it’s monsoon…), antibiotics and other medical supplies (you never know..), mosquito repellent and more.
And now summer vacation becomes a topic in every chat and talk with colleagues and friends. Interesting and encouraging stories about India - I really hope that not all of them are true. Bad water causing cholera, moskitoes that spread hemorrhagic fevers and malaria, hot spicy food that creates burn marks on your tongue, terrorist bombings in tourist places - well, it seems that this will be a very interesting journey and an unforgettable experience.