|
|
| |
Language
Uttar Pradesh is a microcosm of the entire Indian nation in its diversity. Multi ethnic, multi religious and multi cultural, Uttar Pradesh has absorbed many an immigrant culture and race within its borders and created a unique cultural heritage found nowhere else in the country. Its people belong to many religions and come from distant parts of the country but have had the latitude to recreate their own native cultures. Afghans, Kashmiris, Bengalis, Parsis and Punjabi immigrants settled here. Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists all found the freedom to practise their religions and pass it on to successive generations.
The state is a curious mix of the traditional and the modern. One of the least developed states in the country; it has some highly industrialised pockets. While it is secular, liberal and progressive, at the same time it is deeply rooted in social and religious traditions and taboos. While its diversity is its strength, it is often equally divisive although rarely parochial. Inherently secular in character, it is also the place where religious buildings are torn down by rampaging fundamentalists. The urban centres have grown into modern, chaotic sprawling cities and towns but the rural areas of the state are trapped in a time warp. Old rituals, traditional practices and archaic agricultural methods are still followed and little by way of progress and development has trickled down to the hinterland. That, in a nutshell, is Uttar Pradesh, a state that defies definition.
The people of Uttar Pradesh speak Hindi, Urdu, English and a host of Hindi dialects. Hindi and English are universally spoken and understood, while Urdu is mostly spoken in the Muslim strongholds of Lucknow, Faizabad, Allahabad, Aligarh and Agra.
|
Religion
The majority of the people are Hindus while a large percentage of the minority practice Islam. There are also a fair number of Christians in Uttar Pradesh.
|
Food
The cuisine of Uttar Pradesh is just as diverse as its geography. Ranging from simple every day fare to rich, elaborate banquets, the cuisine of Uttar Pradesh has absorbed and adapted a variety of cuisines to create an entire smorgasbord of wonderful dishes. The people of Uttar Pradesh love to cook, to eat and to feed! Difference in communities notwithstanding, as a people, they are very warm and hospitable. For most of them, the ultimate in hospitality means you feed your guests till they beg for mercy.
Many of the Hindu communities are staunch vegetarians and they have created a vast variety of vegetarian dishes ranging from the all time favourite ‘puri-aloo’ or potatoes and fried wheat bread to savouries and divine desserts and sweetmeats. The Muslims, Kashmiris, Kayasthas and Christian communities cook up a storm of non-vegetarian dishes including a delectable selection of breads, kababs, curries and biryanis. The Muslim cuisine, of northern Uttar Pradesh is very different from the Mughlai food of Delhi.
The Nawabs of Oudh were great gourmets and encouraged their master chefs to create new styles of cooking like the famous ‘Dum Pukht’ of Lucknow where the food is sealed in large pots called ‘handis’, placed over a slow fire and left to cook in its own juices. When opened, these dishes release the most fragrant and delicious aromas. Lucknow and its neighbouring towns were put on the culinary map of India thanks to these rich curries, melt in the mouth kababs, fragrant rice biryanis and pulaos and an eclectic variety of leavened and unleavened breads.
|
Culture and Crafts
A cultured, genteel lifestyle was the essence of the rule of the Muslim Nawabs of Awadh. Music, dance, literature, poetry, arts and crafts flourished under royal patronage. Women were encouraged to learn the fine arts and to read and write, albeit within the ‘purdah’. Literateurs, painters, dancers and musicians created masterpieces in their respective genres.
Writers like Munshi Premchand, Mahadevi Verma, Srikant Verma, poets like Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, Harivanshrai Bacchan, Sumitra Nandan Pant, Mahavir Prasad Dwiwedi, and Upendranath ‘Ashk’; artistes of the stature of the shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan, Kathak wizard Birju Maharaj, tabla maestro Kishan Maharaj, the legendary Baba Allaudin Khan and his disciples Pt. Ravi Shankar and Ustad Vilayat Khan; ghazal singers Begum Akhtar, Rasoolan Bai, Girija Devi and many more have lived and practised their art and craft here. Uttar Pradesh is the birthplace of Kathak, a classical dance genre that was traditionally performed in temple precincts, relating mythological tales to common people but was given patronage and adapted by the rulers of Awadh,(modern day Lucknow) into its present form of artistic expression.
Uttar Pradesh has a rich tradition of craftsmanship. Ranging from exquisitely woven carpets, to gold embroidery or zardozi, priceless hand woven Banarasi silk sarees and chikankari or shadow embroidery on fine cotton voiles and muslins. The state is also famous for its glassware, brass inlay, marble ware inlaid with semi-precious stones and ivory carving (now replaced by camel-bone and sandalwood carving).
|
Related Features on Uttar Pradesh  | India is increasingly being regarded as a top spa destination, with some of the globally recommended best spa retreats, now ... | | What can one say about the Taj Mahal that hasn’t already been said before? Not much. If there’s one ... | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Holiday Packages
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Travel Tools
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|