Crowded Cities

India is home to an enormous number of people – more than 1 billion. Although most people live in small farming villages, many are crowded into large cities. Overcrowding is a big problem in India’s cities. People live very close together, without many conveniences. The cities, however, offers more types of jobs than villages do.

While the cities offer more opportunities, there is a serious shortage of housing. Thousands of people live in slums. The largest slum in all of ASIA is in the part of Bombay called Dharavi.

Of course, not all of the inhabitants of the cities are poor. There is great wealth in cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi, Ahemadabad, and Pune.  Rich families have luxurious homes in the suburbs with air-conditioning, television, microwave ovens and many servants.

The nation’s capital is New Delhi, in the northern plains. New Delhi is really a suburb of the older city of Delhi.

Varanasi (sometime called Benares) is one of the holiest cities for Hindus. Located in the northern India on the Ganges (“Ganga”) River, this city attracts pilgrims, or religious travelers, from all over India. Varanasi has more than fifteen hundred temples, places and shrines. Hindu believes that all water is sacred. They believe it cleans the spirit as well the body. The holiest water of all is that of the Ganges River. Indians come from all over country to bathe in al drink the water of the Ganges.

The city if Varanasi on the Ganges is an especially holy place, a gateway to heaven. It is thought that a person who dies there is purified. Religious Hindus, therefore, try to go to Varanasi to die, and to have their ashes scattered o the Ganges at the special city.

Calcutta is the largest city in eastern India, with almost 8 million citizens.

Bombay, on a small island off the southwest coast of India, is the largest city in India. The name Bombay comes from the Portuguese phrase ‘bom bahia’, meaning “good bay”.  People from all over India come to this jam-packed city hoping to make their fortunes.