It was a strange period. After gaining independence from the British, India underwent radical changes not only politically but also in the field of geography, culture, society, economy and national behaviour. However, our obedience to religion has hardly diminished. Despite the classes bathed in modernity and lateral thinking, religion is the basis of life even today.
In conversation with a teenager sitting comfortably in the spacious ‘entertainment’ room of a house in a posh part of Delhi, I realized that some of the projections are far from the wider reality. For him, vacations meant skiing in the Swiss Alps, shopping in Knightsbridge in London or a wildlife safari in Kenya. He was shocked to hear that spiritual or religion-based tourism accounts for more than 60 percent of the domestic flow.
Pilgrimage tourism has evolved over the decades, but during the early years of independent India, it was the primary travel that people made apart from events such as weddings. As the Vice-Chancellor, the members of the joint families gathered around the dining table…
.