The Ahoms and the Holy Brahmaputra
One of India's most beautiful north-eastern states, Assam is nestled between the Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai hills, and irrigated by the mighty Brahmaputra river. It boasts of its tea gardens, rivers, forests and rich culture. It is situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra River and is a mix of natural beauty, historic cities and religious temples. One of the longest ruling dynasties of India, the Ahom, ruled over Assam. Sukaphaa, a Yunnanese Shan prince, founded the Ahom kingdom and not only introduced the cultivation of wet-rice and a sophisticated irrigation network but also a new system of governance, which emphasised the idea of collective governance, ecological balance and cultural assimilation rather than domination.
The Royal Heart of the Ahoms
Once the capital of the Ahom dynasty, which ruled Assam for more than 600 years. It is where a dream of empire and silence exist, with glittering tanks, fine temples and palaces as permanent reminders of the civilised rule of its masters. The Rang Ghar, the oldest extant amphitheatre in Asia, still echoes with the echoes of such festivals and the buffalo fights that had preceded them. Its curved pavilions are peering over the fields where once were played, and the fetes were. The most famous complex of Ahom ruins is Talatal Ghar, which is not very dramatic. a seven-storey structure, with chambers and underground passages, an object to the ingenuity of its construction. It has a high spire on the horizon, a 104-foot spire to Lord Shiva, the Shivadol Temple, constructed in 1734. The temple is decorated during Shivratri by the use of lights and prayers, and this is symbolic of the spiritual values of Ahom rulers.
Assam’s must-do attraction is rhino spotting in the expansive grasslands of Kaziranga National Park. Kaziranga’s population of around 2413 Indian one-horned rhinos represent over two-thirds of the world’s total population of this species. The Kaziranga National Park was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985.
Kaziranga has extensive areas of high elephant grass, wetlands, and riverine woodlands that are as dramatic as they are extreme, and memorable experiences with nature. It is also a permanent Tiger Reserve with one of the highest populations of Bengal tigers, and a healthy population of Asiatic wild buffalo and eastern swamp deer. Explored by the jeep or elephant safari, Kaziranga is guaranteed to give a glimpse into the wild soul of India, the place where every twist and turn presents the uncivilised beauty and wilderness of nature.
The World’s Largest River Island
In the midst of the great grey Brahmaputra River, an ever-shifting puzzle of sandbanks includes Majuli, the World’s largest river island with a topography formed entirely by water.
A few days here allow you to gently contemplate mesmerising landscapes of rice fields, water meadows and fish traps. This great island, covering large alluvial plains, is of dynamic origin as the dynamic flow of the Brahmaputra and numerous of its tributaries forms an ever- changing landscape of wetlands, canals and riverbanks. In addition to its natural beauty, Majuli is a living cultural landscape, with a solid Assamese tradition. The island is also famous because of its sattras (Vaishnavite monasteries), which continue the centuries-old traditions of art, dance, music, and spirituality. Majuli is a unique experience: a land of changing landscapes, ecological richness, and rich cultural heritage colliding in an Indian landscape that is both unique and poetic.
Agra is a city that is proud of its history. The wind here whispers a story from its past of emperors who dreamed in sandstone, of poets who penned in love, of masons who carved in stone. Sitting on the banks of the Yamuna, Agra is not a city but a history of the Mughal dream, a gallery of domes, minarets and stories. Agra was once the heart of the Mughal Empire, blazing in the custodianship of emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
From the splendour of Fatehpur Sikri to the glittering marble of the Taj Mahal, this city was the expression of the empire's vision of paradise. It is today one of India's three UNESCO World Heritage cities, and to walk its streets is to read a picture book of ambition, devotion and aesthetic splendour.
The city of Delhi is the political nerve centre of all India and the largest commercial hub in northern India. South Asia's rulers have always prized the city. The ancient epic Mahabharata places the great town of Indraprastha on the banks of the Yamuna River, perhaps in what is now Delhi's Old Fort. Late in the first millennium AD, Delhi became an outpost of the Hindu Rajputs, warrior kings who ruled what's now Rajasthan.
Delhi is a city that breathes in two tenses at once — in the smoke-blackened lanes of Shahjahanabad, where the call to prayer spirals above the rooftops of the Jama Masjid and handcart vendors cry out over the same cobblestones that once trembled beneath Mughal elephants, time moves in circles, thick with the scent of cardamom and centuries; yet just a metro ride away, the broad imperial boulevards of Lutyens' Delhi unfurl toward glittering towers of glass and steel, where young professionals tap at laptops in air-conditioned cafés, entirely unbothered by the fact that a few kilometres north, a silversmith is still plying a trade his great-grandfather taught him in a haveli that has not changed its face since Shah Jahan sat on the Peacock Throne. This is Delhi's quiet miracle — not that old and new coexist, but that they coexist without apology, each utterly indifferent to the other's existence,.
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