April 22, 2006
MUMBAI, INDIA -- On the bustling streets of Mumbai, journalist and activist Sameera Khan is an ordinary face in the cosmopolitan landscape and a contributing member of the city’s globally competitive workforce. Yet in the villages of India, she might...
April 22, 2006
When Hindu militants gather, it's equal parts yoga circle,
calisthenics, capture-the-flag and story-time.
March 20, 2006
They’re mending the sidewalk down the street from Chhatrapati Sivaji (formerly Victoria Terminus) train station. Mumbai’s ubiquitous Premier Padmini taxis swerve to avoid a seven-foot pile of gravel. But instead of the Caterpillar backhoes and lounging men that make up U.S. road crews...
March 19, 2006
Day 12. We are almost broken. For nearly two weeks, we have rumbled across India, taking in two, sometimes three, world-important sites per day. We have slept on trains. We have been bounced silly in five-hour bus rides on stretches...
March 17, 2006
When traveling on an overnight train, follow these rules: Make sure to wake your bunkmate if you go to the bathroom, stow your suitcase with zippers facing inward, and avoid prolonged eye contact with strange men. On our third and...
March 16, 2006
Wobbly toy cobras in cheap bamboo baskets. Peacock feathers tied into fans. Snow globes swirling glitter around a two-inch Taj Mahal.
“I give you cheap. Just take a look,” insisted one of some two dozen vendors who thrust a...
March 15, 2006
“India’s about as remote as you can get,” mused Emma Goldman, as she sat in the restaurant inside the Radha Ashok Hotel in Mathura, deep in the “Hindi Heartland” of Utter Pradesh. “But I watched ‘Almost Famous’ this morning...
March 14, 2006
It is day seven of our marathon journey through northern India and after a 3 a.m. wake-up call, a seven-hour train from Amritsar to Delhi immediately followed by a four-hour bus ride, and some very questionable “cheese” sandwiches, we...
March 13, 2006
In a land of differences—religious, political, economic, and social—India’s history is in some ways defined by murderous conflict. Amritsar is the spiritual center for Sikhism as well as the staging ground for some of the country’s bloodiest battles...
March 12, 2006
After putting our bags down in our hotel in Amristar and feeling rested from a five-hour train ride from Delhi, our group drove to Wagah to observe the ceremonial closing of the border with Pakistan.
In the last several years...
March 11, 2006
This is it.
We're in a classroom in the infamous town of Deoband, 100 miles north of New Delhi. This is, according to some, the point of origin of the radical form of Sunni Islam whose sphere of influence ranges from...
