Wiki-Trip

Here has what I have been told by my friends and random strangers so far:

• Delhi feels like a mosh-pit at a rock concert and smells like the Evergreen State College.
• Be careful, you might get lost/kidnapped/your luggage stolen/stared at/sick/leared at or felt up by Indian guys. (Ooooo, I wonder if they will be cute.)
• Don't worry, man. I've had Malaria, like, three times.
• You should just look at everything, except in Kolkata - you should ride the metro.
• Why would you want to go to Varanasi?

Varanasi Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi] ( listen)), also commonly known as Banaras or Benaras (Banāras [bəˈnaːrəs] ( listen)) and Kashi, Kāśī [ˈkaːʃi] ( listen)), is a city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres (199 mi) southeast of state capital Lucknow. It is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the oldest in India.

The Kashi Naresh (Maharaja of Kashi) is the chief cultural patron of Varanasi and an essential part of all religious celebrations. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the River Ganges and the river's religious importance. The city has been a cultural and religious centre in North India for several thousand years. The Benares Gharana form of the Indian classical musicdeveloped in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians resided or reside in Varanasi.Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath located near Varanasi (Kashi).


People often refer to Varanasi as "the city of temples", "the holy city of India", "the religious capital of India", "the city of lights", "the city of learning", and "the oldest living city on earth".  

- For you Catholics out there, imagine a trip to Rome and you will get a bit of an idea.

Kolkata: Kalikata is derived from the Bengali word Kalikshetra meaning "Ground of the Goddess Kali."  It is the capital of West Bengal and one of the largest cities in India. It is also the largest city in the historic region of Bengal (today's West Bengal and Bangladesh). Kolkata is an 'in your face' city that shocks and charms the unsuspecting visitor. Long known as the cultural capital of India and home to the Bengal Renaissance, Kolkata continues to spawn generations of poets, writers, film directors and Nobel Prize winners.

Kolkata's history is intimately related to the British East India Company, which first arrived in 1690, and to British India, of which Calcutta became the capital in 1772. Job Charnock was widely known as the founder of Calcutta (There were 3 villages named Sutanuti, Govindapur & Kolkata.Later the village Kolkata became the city Kolkata.) but in recent years a number of Indian historians have disputed this claim, arguing that Kolkata occupies the site of an older Indian city, centered around the ancient Kali temple at Kalighat. This claim has been accepted by the Kolkata High Court. The Court has dismissed the name of Job Charnock as the founder of the city and 24th August as its date of birth. The historic Judgement was based upon an high level Expert Commitee findings. It has been proved that Kolkata had an highly civilized society for centuries before the Europeans first came here.

Whatever its origins,Kolkata flowered as the capital of British India during the nineteenth century, the heyday of the Raj. Calcutta University, the first modern Indian university was founded here in 1857.Kolkata became the center of Indian arts and literature, and the national movement for independence got its start here. 

- My friend tells me that Kolkata is the New York of India.

Chennai /ˈtʃɛnaɪ/, formerly Madras /məˈdræs/, is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Although the area has been part of successive South Indian kingdoms through centuries, the recorded history of the city began in the colonial times, specifically with the arrival of British East India Company and the establishment in 1644 of Fort St George, an English settlement. The British defended several attacks from the French colonial forces, and from the kingdom of Mysore, on Chennai's way to become a major naval port and presidency city by late eighteenth century. Following the independence of India, Chennai became the capital of Tamil Nadu and a hotbed of regional politics that tended to bank on Dravidian identity of the populace. Chennai had become a bustling metropolis with beautiful classical and colonial European styled buildings, lining the city’s thoroughfares.

Chennai's economy has a broad industrial base in the automobile, computer, technology, hardware manufacturing and healthcare industries. The city is India's second largest exporter of information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.  A major chunk of India's automobile manufacturing industry is based in and around the city and hence it is called the Detroit of India.

- I would not have chosen Chennai, but this is where my friend Sharanya is from and where the wedding will be.



Delhi (/ˈdɛli/; pronounced Dillee in Hindi), officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) that includes the Indian capital; is the second largest metropolis of India after Mumbai. With the population of 16.7 million in 2011, the city is the 2nd most populous metropolis in India and 8th most populous metropolis in the world.

Delhi is known to have been continuously inhabited since 6th century BC. Through most period of its history, Delhi has served as a capital of kingdoms and empires. It has been invaded, ransacked and rebuilt several times, particularly during the Medieval era, and therefore today's city of Delhi is a cluster of many capital cities scattered across the city's dimensions. Delhi is also widely believed to have been the site of Indraprastha (the legendary capital of the Pandavas during the times of the Mahabharata). Delhi re-emerged as a major political, cultural and commercial city along the trade routes between northwest India and the Gangetic plainafter the rise of the Delhi sultanates. It houses many ancient and medieval monuments, archaeological sites and remains.

In 1639 AD, the Mughal emperor Shahjahan built a new walled city in Delhi which served as a capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 until 1857. The British had captured Delhi by 1803 and George V announced in 1911 that the capital of British controlled parts of India would be Delhi. So a new capital city, New Delhi, was built to the south of the old city during the 1920s. When India gained independence from British rule in 1947, New Delhi was declared its capital and seat of government.

- Undoubtedly the D.C. of India. A guy I dated told me Delhi was the city that broke him. My friend, Chetan, called up his mother the other day because he was worried about the power outage and she replied, "what power outage?"

Agra - the cliche. Isn't this what all of you think when you first hear the name India?

Agra (ⁱ/ˈɑːɡrə/; Hindi: आगरा, Urdu: آگرہ), the former capital of Hindustan, is a city on the banks of the river Yamunain the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, 363 kilometres (226 mi) west of state capital, Lucknow and 200 kilometres (124 mi) south of the national capital New Delhi. 

The city finds mention in the epic Mahābhārata where it was called Agrevaṇa, or 'the border of the forest'. Legend ascribes the founding of the city to Raja Badal Singh, a Sikarwar Rajput king (circa 1475), whose fort, Badalgarh, stood on or near the site of the present Fort. However, the 11th century Persian poet Mas'ūd Sa'd Salmān writes of a desperate assault on the fortress of Agra, then held by the Shāhī King Jayapala, by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. Sultan Sikandar Lodī was the first to move his capital fromDelhi to Agra in the year 1506; he died in 1517 and his son Ibrāhīm Lodī remained in power there for nine more years, finally being defeated at the Battle of Panipat in 1526. Between 1540 to 1556, Afghans beginning with Sher Shah Suri to Hindu King Hem Chandra Vikramaditya, also called Hemu, ruled the area. It achieved fame as the capital of the Mughal emperors from 1556 to 1658 and remains a major tourist destination because of its many splendid Mughal-era buildings, most notably the Tāj Mahal, Agra Fortand Fatehpūr Sikrī, all three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

- I don't think there is an equivalent.