Friday, August 22, 2008

Recreation and sports


The annual snake boat race is performed during Onam Celebrations on the Pamba River at Aranmula near Pathanamthitta, Kerala.
The annual snake boat race is performed during Onam Celebrations on the Pamba River at Aranmula near Pathanamthitta, Kerala.

In the area of recreation and sports India had evolved a number of games. The modern eastern martial arts originated as ancient games and martial arts in India, and it is believed by some that these games were transmitted to foreign countries, where they were further adapted and modernized. A few games introduced during the British Raj have grown quite popular in India, field hockey, football (soccer) and especially cricket.

Although field hockey is India's official national sport, cricket is by far the most popular sport not only in India, but the entire subcontinent, thriving recreationally and professionally. Cricket has even been used recently as a forum for diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan. The two nations' cricket teams face off annually and such contests are quite impassioned on both sides. Traditional indigenous sports include kabaddi and gilli-danda, which are played in most parts of the country. Indoor and outdoor games like Chess, Snakes and Ladders, Playing cards, Polo, Carrom, Badminton are popular. Chess was invented in India.


Clothing

Bangles on display in Rajasthan, India.
Bangles on display in Rajasthan, India.

Traditional Indian clothes for women are the sari or the salwar kameezand also Ghaghra Cholis (Lehengas). For men, it is the Dhoti, Lungi or Kurta. Bombay, or also known as Mumbai is one of India's fashion capitals. In some village parts of India, traditional clothing will be most worn. Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, are all places for on going shoppers.


Cuisine


Fish curry and rice served in Goa.
Fish curry and rice served in Goa.

The multiple families of Indian cuisine are characterized by their sophisticated and subtle use of many spices and herbs. Each family of this cuisine is characterized by a wide assortment of dishes and cooking techniques. Though a significant portion of Indian food is vegetarian, many traditional Indian dishes also include chicken, goat, lamb, fish, and other meats.

Food is an important part of Indian culture, playing a role in everyday life as well as in festivals. In many families, everyday meals are sit-down affairs consisting of two to three main course dishes, varied accompaniments such as chutneys and pickles, carbohydrate staples such as rice and roti (bread), as well as desserts. Food is not just important for an Indian family by ways of eating, but it is also taken as a sort of socializing, getting together with a family of many.

Diversity is a defining feature of India's geography, culture, and food. Indian cuisine varies from region to region, reflecting the varied demographics of the ethnically diverse subcontinent. Generally, Indian cuisine can be split into four categories: North, South, East, and West Indian. Despite this diversity, some unifying threads emerge. Varied uses of spices are an integral part of food preparation, and are used to enhance the flavor of a dish and create unique flavors and aromas. Cuisine across India has also been influenced by various cultural groups that entered India throughout history, such as the Persians, Mughals, and European powers.


Popular media

Cinema


Apu from Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, which was one of the first Indian films to attract widespread international critical acclaim.
Apu from Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, which was one of the first Indian films to attract widespread international critical acclaim




Shooting of a Bollywood dance number.
Shooting of a Bollywood dance number.

Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based film industry in India. Bollywood and the other major cinematic hubs (Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu) constitute the broader Indian film industry, whose output is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced and number of tickets sold.

Besides the commercial films, India has also produced many critically acclaimed cinema-makers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, K. Vishwanath, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Shekhar Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shankar Nag, Girish Karnad, G. V. Iyer, etc. (See Indian film directors). In fact, with the opening up of the economy in the recent years and consequent exposure to world cinema, audience tastes have been changing. In addition, multiplexes have mushroomed in most cities, changing the revenue patterns.

Television


Indian television started off in 1959 in New Delhi with tests for educational telecasts.[12] Indian small screen programming started off in the mid 1970s. At that time there was only one national channel Doordarshan, which was government owned. 1982 saw revolution in TV programming in India, with the New Delhi Asian games, India saw the colour version of TV, that year. The Ramayana and Mahabharat were some among the popular television series produced. By the late 1980s more and more people started to own television sets. Though there was a single channel, television programming had reached saturation. Hence the government opened up another channel which had part national programming and part regional. This channel was known as DD 2 later DD Metro. Both channels were broadcasted terrestrially.

In 1991, the government liberated its markets, opening them up to cable television. Since then, there has been a spurt in the number of channels available. Today, Indian silver screen is a huge industry by itself, and has thousands of programmes in all the states of India. The small screen has produced numerous celebrities of their own kind some even attaining national fame for themselves. TV soaps are extremely popular with housewives as well as working women, and even men of all kinds. Some small time actors have made it big in Bollywood. Indian TV has evolved to be similar to Western TV, including stations such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and MTV India.

See also: List of Indian television stations

Radio

Radio broadcasting began in India in 1927, with two privately owned transmitters at Bombay and Calcutta. These were nationalised in 1930 and operated under the name "Indian Broadcasting Service" until 1936, when it was renamed All India Radio (AIR). Although officially renamed again to Akashwani in 1957, it is still popularly known as All India Radio. All India Radio is a division of Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India), an autonomous corporation of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. It is the sister service of Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan, the national television broadcaster.Indian women are effected by daily serials.Since the turn of the 20th century, radio frequencies in India have been aggressively opened up to broadcasters on the FM and AM bands, although such service has been mostly limited to the metropolitan areas. Cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and many others have many private FM channels to broadcast popular Hindi and English music, although they are still not allowed to broadcast news like Akashwani does. Recently World Space launched the country's first satellite radio service.


Religion and philosophy

Philosophy

Main article: Indian philosophy
Swami Vivekananda was one of the most famous and influential social reformers of the 19th century.
Swami Vivekananda was one of the most famous and influential social reformers of the 19th century.

Indian philosophy throughout the ages has had a tremendous impact on world thought, especially in the east. Following the Vedic period, various schools of philosophy, such as the many sects of Buddhism and Hinduism, have developed over the past 2500 years. However, India has also produced some of the oldest and most influential secular traditions of logic, rationalism, science, mathematics, materialism, atheism, agnosticism, etc., which are often overlooked due to the popular conception that India was and is a 'mystical' country.

Many of complex scientific and mathematical concepts, such as the idea of zero, found their way to Europe via Arab intermediaries. The most famous school of Indian atheism, is Cārvāka, considered by some to be the oldest materialistic school of thought in the world, composed around the same time as the early philosophy of Buddhism and Jainism. The period around 500 BCE is marked a huge leap in both Indian and world philosophy, with contemporaneous Greek schools emerging simultaneously. Some believe that certain Indian philosophical concepts have been introduced to Greece, while others traveled via the Persian empire to India; during and after the campaigns of Alexander the Great such mutual exchanges increased.

In addition to the unbroken high emphasis placed on philosophy in India since ancient times, modern India has produced some very influential philosophers, who have written both in their native languages, and often in English. During the British colonization of India, certain secular and religious thinkers achieved a similar level of recognition across the world as ancient Indian texts; the work of some of them was translated into English, German and other languages. Swami Vivekananda traveled to America and participated in the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, impressing delegates with a groundbreaking speech that for many of them provided a first introduction to Hindu philosophy.

Various religious thinkers such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and other members of the Indian freedom movement, created new forms of political philosophy that formed the basis of modern Indian democracy, secularism and liberalism. Today, economists such as Amartya Sen, who won Asia's first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, continue to give India a reputation as an important contributor to world thought.

Religion

The Jama Masjid in Delhi is one of the world's largest mosques.
The Jama Masjid in Delhi is one of the world's largest mosques.
A statue in Bangalore, Karnataka depicting Siva in yogic meditation.
A statue in Bangalore, Karnataka depicting Siva in yogic meditation.

Indian religions, a major form of world religions next to the Abrahamic ones, include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism. Today, Hinduism and Buddhism are the world's third- and fourth-largest religions respectively, with around 1.4 billion followers.

India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Religion still plays a central and definitive role in the life of most of its people.

The religion of more than 80.4% of the people is Hinduism. Islam is practiced by around 13.4% of all Indians. Sikhism, Jainism and especially Buddhism are influential not only in India but across the world. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Bahá'í Faith are also influential but their numbers are smaller. Despite the strong role of religion in Indian life, atheism and agnostics also have visible influence.


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