The Antiques, Colours and Beauties of India

When I was asked to prepare for a trip to India by my editors, I just saw an opportunity to visit some of the historic places from that part of the world. It all began from Indian High Commission in Abuja, when it invited Media Trust Limited to be part of a facility trip to […]

When I was asked to prepare for a trip to India by my editors, I just saw an opportunity to visit some of the historic places from that part of the world. It all began from Indian High Commission in Abuja, when it invited Media Trust Limited to be part of a facility trip to India as a part of the group of journalists to cover at the 8th India-Africa Conclave at New Delhi. After I was assigned for the trip, I submitted my visa application form eight days to our departure, and incidentally I got my visa ready two hours to my flight. I rushed to the airport mindful of the heavy traffic along the way due to the ongoing construction works. Just about two kilometres away to the airport, I was wrapped in a gridlock. I told my friend that if I had to go through this traffic I would miss my flight. It was less than an hour to the closure of boarding.

Finally, I decided to alight from the vehicle and pick a commercial motorcycle to the main gate close to the airport. By the time I reached, luckily for me, I was among the last to board the flight.

My friend called me on phone that he arrived at the airport, almost 30 minute late. Already I was inside the plane.

Our flight aboard, an Ethiopian Airline to Addis Ababa was four and half hours from Abuja.  It was a pleasant journey to Addis. On the plane, I met a friend who was going to Napal (name withheld). We had fruitful discussions on issues related to Nigerian culture, food, security and even politics. He is a specialist on Nigerian foods and cuisines. I was surprised to hear him give details about tuwo, amala, danwake, iwedu and even some foods that I never heard of.

He was in Nigeria for the past four years and had studied catering at Kaduna Polytechnic. He served as a specialist to many hotels and worked for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). His duty was to taste any variety of food first and approve before it gets to governors or his guests.

According to him, most of Nigerian cuisines are healthy, except very few that contain much fat. He said Nigerian soups are very good but cooks use of too much seasoning and salt had.

In the course of our discussion, I realised that insecurity is part of the reason why he was leaving Nigeria. According to him, insecurity and corruption are killing the country. He said he had strong affection for the country. He described Nigeria as one of the most blessed on earth.  According to him, the security personnel are not helping matters because many of them are not professionally trained to tackle terrorism. He said some times he passed check points freely, or even enter some high profile buildings without any search on his vehicle just because he is of a different race. This, to him, is wrong, he said.  We continued our discussions until we arrived Addis Ababa, and we boarded separate flights to New Delhi.

After spending about six and half hours on board from Addis Ababa, we arrived New Delhi Airport (The Indira Ghandi International Airport Terminal 3), early in the morning on March 15, 2012. On arrival I experienced a different milieu, a world of different colours and cultures.

The new Indira Ghandi Airport terminal three is the busiest airport in India.

It has become India’s and South Asia’s largest and one of the most important aviation hubs, with a current capacity of handling more than 46 million passengers. It is  aimed at handling more than 100 million passengers by 2030.

I was the only passenger from Nigeria for that event. Already a staff from the India External Affairs Ministry was waiting to pick us, along with other delegates from Gabon and Central Africa Republic. After we had gone through all the necessary security checks at the immigration, we moved to the Hotel –Taj Palace Hotel.

On our way to the hotel, I noticed many things, including the simplicity of Indians. I saw uniformed men and well-dressed persons riding bicycles, with many others on their old scooters and other Indian-made motorcycles. I noticed that despite becoming one of the biggest economies in the world, the people have not yet abandoned their traditions of travelling by means of small antique vehicles and tricycles. I noticed that Indians are hardworking because even women, in their traditional (Saaris), were involved in construction works –  carrying sand and cement at those early hours of the day.  I noticed how transport infrastructure works in tandem with one another because all the sectors rail, roads, and air complemented each other to ease the transportation challenges of the city.

Mr Devvart Chakravorthy, whom I referred as Mr Dev, was the officer assigned to receive us. He told us on our way to the hotel that the metro rails were linked to the airport and passengers on domestic routes who wished to travel by air can check-in even at the rail stations for the flight they wanted to travel by BRT buses were provided for the mass transit. The buses were in two categories: those in red paint are air-conditioned and  the fare is a little higher than those in green paint, which were without air-conditionning. At the hotel, we were offered some soft drinks, as part of the tradition to welcome guests.

From my experience at the airport and the hotel, my perception of India and Indians began to change. I began to feel differently from what I heard about India. Based on my little experience of previous travels around the world in the last 10 years, I had never seen hospitality like that of Taj Palace Hotel. The rooms are spacious, with complimentary fruits and tea every day. There was free laundry for two sets of clothes, throughout your stay.

The following day we embarked on a sight-seeing of the elegant and beautiful New Delhi. The environment was clean, the roads were decorated with colourful flowers and street signs. It will be hard for any visitor to loss his direction. A driver was attached to us, although there were some difficulties in communication because three of my colleagues were from francophone countries. We had to listen very carefully before picking what he said, even though he spoke English. I managed to be the interpreter.

A fellow visitor from Central African Republic, Mr Ngaibona Desire, is a follower of Baha’i faith, one of the many faiths in India. We were surprised to hear that an African practiced Baha’i. It sounded alien to us. He went to Baha’i temple for prayers. The Temple is one of the fantastic pieces of architecture and attractive sites for most tourists in New Delhi. Mr Serge Stephane Mounga-Mabika I from Gabon and went to a small bazaar (market) to pick some things. Interestingly, when we went to pick our Baha’i friend, Mr Desire at the temple (The Lotus House), we were not the only people who were surprised. Almost all the pilgrims and tourists at the temple were amazed to see an African Baha’i. Local Indians were amused.

The next historic and amazing site for tourists was the Qutb Minar (Qutb Tower), built in the early 13th Century, a few kilometres south of Delhi. The red sandstone tower of Qutb Minar is 72.5 meters high, tapering from 2.75 m in diameter at its peak. The tower was built by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the first Muslim ruler of Delhi. He commenced construction of the Qutub Minar in 1193, but conical shafts, separated by balconies carried on Muqarnas corbels.

The minaret is made of fluted red sandstone covered with intricate carvings and verses from the Qur’an. Numerous inscriptions in Arabic and Nagari characters in different places of the minaret reveal the history of Qutb.

We also viewed from a distance the massive presidential palace and parliament, as well as India Gate in New Delhi. When we completed the New Delhi tour, one of my colleagues, the Gabonese said he hadn’t felt India yet. I asked why? He said what he expected to see in India, as a populous nation, was a crowded and densely populated New Delhi, since it is the capital of the over one billion people. But the tour of New Delhi ended, to him, as a surprise because the streets were empty and clean.

The following day, Saturday, March 17, we traveled to Agra, an amazing visit to Taj Mahal, one of the “Wonders of the World”. We left early in the morning to Agra, a distance of just 200 kilometers from New Delhi. Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal some 360 years ago. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage”.

We arrived Agra behind schedule, due to the heavy traffic along the road. Mr. Mounga-Mabika saw the real India on our way, with densely populated villages along New Delhi-Agra Road.

Despite having a letter with us as official visitors for the site, we were denied access, due to the preservation of the heritage. No hydro-carbon engine vehicle is allowed to drive-in to the Taj. So we had to drop out about one kilometer away and joined the battery-powered buses to the main entrance of the Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal is one of the magnificient architectures that any living being would love to visit. The building is beyond description. Our facilitator said the building attracted about two million visitors annually and 5,000 people daily. We concluded our Taj Mahal Tour with a special lunch at Jay Pee Palace Hotel, in Agra.

The main event for our trip to India, the 8th Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Exim Bank Conclave on India – Africa project partnership started two days after our arrival. On Sunday, March 18 was the opening ceremony. The turnout was very impressive at an underground conference hall of the Taj Palace Hotel.

The CII has been at the forefront of driving this new business synergy. CII endeavours to strengthen ‘Brand India’ in Africa by building a long term, sustainable partnership between the two continents.

With this objective in mind, CII aims to promote continue dialogue, change existing negative perceptions, articulate needs and opportunities in various fora, move from just trade to resources allocation, facilitate technology transfer, and strengthen training and capacity building.

India’s Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textile, Mr Anad Sharma said the deeper economic cooperation between India and the African nations will provide the growth impetus to both regions, stressing that the world is witnessing a re-balancing of the economic order. This, he said, presents new growth opportunities for India and Africa which are endowed with rich natural and human resources.

As part of the programme in New Delhi, we had an interaction with the Minister of External Affairs of India, as well as some Indian journalists and visited the Press Trust of India.

After two days of networking and interactions by the delegates at the conference, we traveled to Ahmadbad, the largest city of Gujurat, a state in western India, one of the Holy states in India. It has an area of 75,686 sq mi (196,030 km2) with a coastline of 1,600 km, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula, and a population in excess of 60 million.

Gujarat played an important role in the economic life of India. The state has the fastest growing economy in India. It is also one of the most industrialized states of India, and has a per capita GDP almost twice that of the national average.

The city hosts the Tata Nano plant, the plant that manufactures the world’s acclaimed cheapest car. We were at the plant for a tour. We saw all the productions lines and the finished products. The Tata Nano launched in January 2008, marked the beginning of the return of so-called “people’s cars” because of its low price – claimed by Tata as the world’s cheapest car at US$2,500.

We left the plant for Sabarmati Ashram, also known as Gandhi Ashram, a museum. It was one of the Gandhi’s residences. Mahatma Gandhi spent approximately 12 years of his life there.

This Ashram is now a national monument established by the Government, of India due to its significance for the Indian independence movement in the form of the Gandhi March of 1930.

On our second day in Gujarat we visited a small town, Anand, the milk city. The distance to the city from Ahmadbad is almost 90 kilo meters but along the way there was no wasted land, because everywhere was farm land. The villagers were busy growing varieties of food and cash crops. That was not our place of visit, but Amul Milk factories, owned by a co-operative society – Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd in 1946.

Amul’s success story is amazing because it is a company that survived decades fetching money for the villagers by buying their milk, processing it and marketting the finished products, using modern technology.

The co-operatives now increased under the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., India’s largest food product marketing organisation, with annual turnover of (2010-11) US$ 2.2 billion. Its daily milk procurement is approximately 12 million litres at peak period per day, from 15,712 village milk cooperative societies, 17 member unions covering 24 districts, and 3 million milk producer members. The company is now the largest exporter of dairy products in India.

We concluded our tour with a visit to India Institute of Management (IIM), one of the prestigious post-graduate awarding institutions in the world.

The story of the institute and its achievements left no doubt in my mind that the rapid development of India is not by accident, but by planning. I realized that all the visits had meanings. It open up India’s secrets for advancement through agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and education, and these are what our countries, especially Nigeria, that have similar advantages with India need to emulate. India is truly ‘incredible’.