Haryana is the cradle of Vedic civilization and looks back on a 5,000 year old, glorious history, and excavations keep adding more valuable information to this history. It was here, that the Vedas were written and that Lord Krishna preached. The Hindu state split off from Sikh Punjab in 1966, but they still share Chandigarh as a capital. The fertile land of Haryana is also known as India’s bread basket.

The radically modern city of Chandigarh was designed by the architect Le Corbusier with visionary designs and is one of the greenest and cleanest cities in India with a young and modern population. Its straight streets are lined with trees, there are public gardens and an artificial lakes, and the houses are designed to face quiet roads: a sharp contrast to the chaos that is so typical for the rest of India.

The Haryana tourism development programme has built a range of modern hotels and restaurants, they are all named after birds found in the state.

Kurukshetra in Haryana is, according to Hindu teachings, the birthplace of the universe. There is a museum of Krishna with ancient and modern artworks displaying Vishnu’s reincarnation, who preached in this place to Bhagavad Gita so he could fight the fight good versus evil, in which good triumphed.

Header image taken from Flickr CC, courtesy of Alma Salvaje.