Something to Declare

Upcoming Travels with Stan

Southern India, December 1-21, 2024.

India has always been on my bucket list. As many of you know, I’m drawn to places where civilizations, cultures, religions (let’s not forget cuisines) bump up against each other and mix ‘n’ match. Think places like the Balkans, where Austrian, Slavic, Turkish, Italian, and so many other flavors came together.

India is a world unto itself in that regard. India is the home of over 700 indigenous cultures, many with their own languages. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain. And then you add in Christian and Jewish. And on top of that the influence of English, French and Portuguese colonists.

Nobody’s going to be surprised by this, but my first connection to India had to do with food. In the early 70s, my classmates and I discovered a restaurant called Gaylord on East 58th Street, and I was introduced to Indian cooking. Later learned to prepare it myself (Madhur Jaffrey’s An Invitation to Indian Cooking, and Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking). Later, I read (and saw the film of) E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, then watched the series The Jewel in the Crown and Indian Summers on PBS. And read the “Flashman” series by George MacDonald Fraser, about a fictitious British soldier who served in India in the 19th century.

Some of you will remember my blog posts from March 2023, “Bali, Borneo and Beyond,” when Stef and I went with a group on a tour of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. So when Stef’s high school classmate and Asian travel impresaria, Ellen Friedlieb Mayer, organized this trip to southern India, I was all “hot damn!”

Like the southeast Asia trip in 2023, I feel that I’m still at something of a disadvantage. In school, we studied Western Civilization, with an emphasis on the “Western.” Our school system does us a disservice, I think, by giving us an insufficient introduction to the world east of Russia and south of Italy. In Indonesia and Singapore, we visited museums displaying a cultural heritage about which, beforehand, I knew absolutely nothing.

Most of what I’ve read about India has to do with the north, e.g., Jodhpur, Jaipur, Simla and Srinagar, Amritsar, Delhi, Meerut, Kanpur, Lucknow. And, of course, Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.

This trip is to the southern part of the country (no Taj Mahal for us). We’ll start in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and move along to Chennai (formerly Madras), Pondicherry (with its French colonial history), Tanjavur, Chettinad, Madurai, Munnar, Kumakorum and Kochi (Cochin). As usual, I’m taking in a lot of the Jewish historical stuff (long history of Jewish settlements in Mumbai and Kerala, some thought to go back to the time of King Solomon). Currently reading The Last Jews of Kerala by Edna Fernandes.

Stef is sitting this one out, but I know that Ellen puts together a great group of people. It promises to be a cultural cornucopia, temples, shrines, markets, performances, colors, sights, sounds, smells, tastes (as always, the food porn). I’ll do my level best to bring you the experience. Stay tuned!