CONFOUNDED & BEWITCHED

The Strange Rise of Modern India

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DESTINATION
North India – Delhi, Udaipur, Narlai, Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi

DATES
February 24 – March 11, 2012 (16 nights)

READINGS
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce

Description/Itinerary
The startling array of sensual, spiritual and intellectual riches of India resists generalizations. We will explore the dizzying contrasts of the world’s largest democracy from throbbing metropolis, to sleepy village, to the great regal excess of the famous Raj, to the restorative calm of the holy city of Varanasi.

Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie, is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people– an historical chronicle of modern India centring on the inextricably linked fates of two children born within the first hour of independence from Great Britain. Thirty years after its publication, Midnight’s Children
stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time. It has won the Booker, the Booker of Booker and the Best of the Booker Prizes, the only novel ever to be so awarded. Edward Luce’s In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India might well be subtitled Midnight’s Grandchildren. Published in 2011, it is a series of acutely observed vignettes, held together by a single theme, and an overriding question: India will soon become a great power; what kind of great power will it be?

We will return with a deep appreciation of the ancient roots that still nourish the flourishing growth of modern India as it moves towards its new position as one of the major political forces of today’s world order.

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ACCOMMODATION
A variety of comfortable Western style hotels and selected heritage palaces.

QUOTE
“There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won’t go. For me, India is such a place.”
Keith Bellows (Editor-in-chief, National Geographic Society)

Leader
For 25 years, Gary Schoepfel has led and taught folks how to lead book discussion groups. Gary thinks India is a cat of a country. She is ineffable, deep, inscrutable and singular. India is a mystery and this mystery intrigues him deeply.

Fees
US$5495 based on double occupancy

Fee includes readings, accommodation, two meals a day, discussions, walking tours, talks, excursions, and admissions.