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My Indian Odyssey

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My Indian Odyssey

By: Vincent Ebrahim
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About this listen

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.
Asia Travel Writing & Commentary
Episodes
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
All stars
Most relevant
How delightful to be taken along on this most fascinating of journeys with your esteemed self, Vincent Ebrahim.
Your energetic adventures were thoroughly enjoyable ( the music still plays in my head ) and although not without hiccups, your friendly manner, compassion and humour won the days. I was sad indeed, to say goodbye to you and your travels.

If you've never been to India! Now is your chance.

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I enjoyed this series so much, it was so calm and interesting. It feels like you are walking round with Vincent and taking it all in with him. I didn’t want it to end!

Brilliant listen!

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I very mich felt as if I am there on the journey with the author and it made me want to go and see these places for real. His own experience and back-story is well interwoven with the travel prose and description of places. Nice blend of travel prose and discovering family history with cultural identity.

vividly described, enjoyable

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This is a wonderful account of a personal journey. The sounds of India evoke the country and people. Memories come back along those paths. Brilliant!

Evocative and engaging

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Thanks for this free trip to India! A travel with Vincent. You can feel the warmth, smell the odours of the food...

a gem

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