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My Indian Odyssey

By: Vincent Ebrahim
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  • Summary

  • Vincent Ebrahim, star of the Emmy and Peabody award-winning The Kumars At No. 42, explores his ancestral home visiting Mumbai, Gujarat, Delhi, Agra, West Bengal, Darjeeling, Kolkata and the Himalayas in this varied and vivid audio diary.

    Stepping off the tourist trail as he travels across India, Vincent explores mountain roads by motorbike, visits the world's largest outdoor laundry, meets the monks of the Dalai Lama's monastery and searches for answers about his heritage at his grandfather's birthplace.

    This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all 8 episodes to your Library now.
    ©2016 Audible, Ltd. (P)2016 Audible, Ltd.
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: Mumbai

    Ep. 1: Mumbai
    Jun 7 2018

    Vincent touches down in Mumbai where he's struck by the disparity between rich and poor. To learn more about how the super-rich are catered for, Vincent visits the five-star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where themed suites and 24-hour butlers cost in excess of £1000 per night.

    He also meets some of the city's 'dabbawalas', a largely illiterate group of men who use public transport to deliver home cooked lunches to offices across the city. If they can't read or write how do they deliver each lunch to the correct address? Vincent also meets some of the men and women working in Dhobi Ghat - the world's biggest outdoor laundry - and he samples some of the city's delicious Persian cuisine in an Irani cafe.

    Vincent's grandfather made a sea voyage in 1899 to begin a new life in South Africa. This journey might have begun in Mumbai, or Bombay as it then was. Vincent meets a city historian at the old passenger docks to learn more about Indian emigration and to imagine what his grandfather might have been thinking and feeling as he left his homeland.
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    51 mins
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  • Ep. 2: Ahmedabad

    Ep. 2: Ahmedabad
    Jun 7 2018

    Vincent's second stop is Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat and home to the civil rights leader Mahatma Gandhi.

    Gandhi, like Vincent's grandfather, also travelled to South Africa as a young man. Gandhi's experience of injustices in South Africa helped galvanise his later political thinking. Ahmedabad was also where Gandhi began his famous Salt March in 1930, an act of civil disobedience to protest British rule in India. One legacy of Gandhi is that Gujarat remains a dry state - the sale of alcohol is prohibited here - so Vincent joins a group of students for a Saturday night on the town, to see how they relax and socialise.

    He also throws himself into the deep end of a Bollywood dance class and goes behind the scenes at one of the country's top business schools to meet the next generation of entrepreneurs.
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    44 mins
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  • Ep. 3: McLeod Ganj

    Ep. 3: McLeod Ganj
    Jun 7 2018

    It's monsoon season so Vincent, like people for centuries before him, leaves the heat and bustle of the plains behind and travels into the foothills of the Himalayan mountain range to see India's natural beauty. He joins a local photographer on a nature walk into the forest outside the town.

    As the crow flies, McLeod Ganj is only 130 miles from the border with China - it's no surprise that the Dalai Lama chose here to be the seat of his Tibetan government in exile. Vincent meets Rinchon, a young monk, to have a tour around the Dalai Lama's monastery. He also gets stuck into a cookery class and gets to live his dream and ride an iconic Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike around the winding mountain roads.
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    37 mins
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What listeners say about My Indian Odyssey

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Profile Image for Azathoth

Fun but nothing amazing

it was fun to listen to this man's story about finding his roots in India. unfortunately it's too big a country and he spent too little time in each place he visited. it's like small snippets. good, but not life changing.

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Profile Image for Push With Ush

wow

this has made me want to go back to the country my grandad was born... I've never felt so much this urge to visit. thank you for a title that kept me hooked and gave me emotions like never before... I cried when you said goodbye!

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Profile Image for SirChutney

An easy and engrossing listen

A series of eight audio journeys through India by Vincent Ebrahim. Ebrahim is a South African actor and comedian of mixed ethnicity. He is probably best known for playing Ashwin Kumar, the finance-obsessed father on The Kumars at No. 42.
Each episode focuses on a separate parts of India. Ebrahim narrates tales of its people, sights, culture, food, beliefs and industries. At the end of his journey, he develops a more rounded appreciation of his roots. And a considerably deeper understanding for the land that his grandfather left. An easy and engrossing listen that would have been a great TV series too.

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Profile Image for Jo
  • Jo
  • 24-02-19

What is the music

I'm really enjoying this audio experience. I've been trying to find out what the music is - the song at the introduction to each section. I love it, but can't find any details anywhere, and even Shazam cannot identify it for me. Maybe it will become clearer when I have finished the whole audiobook, but does anyone know what it is and where I might listen to the whole thing?

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3 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Anonymous User

Delightful trip around India...

Enjoyed the journey across India in an ‘arc’ as Vincent puts it from Mumbai to Kolkata, over 3 weeks. A travelogue cannot get any closer to what one would experience in real life.
Vincent’s insight and his positive perspective to life is amazing and one can realize this with his narration and how he stops to relish each and every moment and experience he encounters in such strange places in India. His tour is well-charted and a great way to get a flavour of some diversity that India has to offer from the hustle-bustle of Mumbai to the quiet and calm Mcleod Ganj and Darjeeling.
I personally felt travelling with Vincent and his son (who joins him in the last few episodes). Vincent has taken the off-track and I can say he has lived the unique culture and experience each place has to offer and not sticking to the routine tourist traps.
Visiting Dobhi-Ghat in Mumbai or Chandni Chowk in Delhi or the shoe factory in Agra or the mountaineering institute in Darjeeling are just some examples that reiterates the uncommon, yet interesting places that Vincent takes us through. Vincent takes us through places that even an Indian would not have seen or experienced.
I thoroughly enjoyed travelling with him into every city he visited in India and his candid narration. He does not shy away from talking about the inequalities, poverty and of course, constant hooters etc that is so rampant, but also at the same time, cherishes the nicer things India has to offer. Vincent concludes the series rightly discussing the ‘warmth’ India has at its disposal and how easily he felt one among the people.
I would highly recommend this series to anybody wishing to travel to India or at least get a flavour of what India has to offer. I look forward to listening to more travel experiences from Vincent, in particular South India which he does not cover in the current leg of journey.

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Profile Image for G. Williams

Fantastic

A fantastic gallop around India, I really enjoyed it the only problem being it just wasn't long enough.

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Profile Image for Alison Dean

Personal journey through India

I really enjoyed the pace of each of the episodes. A gentle personal journey, it is a series of small vignettes which provides human scale histories and experiences. The reflections on his own family were interesting too.

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Profile Image for ANIL JOSHI

Beautiful

I found myself transported to India with Vincent as my guide. The descriptions were so real and everyone he yearned for chai, so did I. It took me back to my first time in India in 1992 and every trip since has added to my love for India with new discoveries, friends, places, tastes, smells and that all encompassing feeling of being part of a family ❤️❤️🥰🙏👍

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Profile Image for Amazon Customer

enjoyable

Nice and easy to follow. I liked Vincents voice. not so keen on some of the background sounds no loud noisy experience of mumbai which I'd have liked!

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Profile Image for jon clark

Magical and inspiring, well bowled, great listen!

Surprisingly great listen, beautifully narrated, Fabulous sound as if you were there with Vincent. Been to India and can't wait to get back even more!

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