Discovering India...

I have to put up another post because something rather embarrassing happened in the morning today.

So I was chatting in the morning on google chat with Pupu, who's taking her final exams of Class - 6. She had her Physics and History examinations today. She was very pleased with her Physics exams but informed me that her History exams were a little off because she got muddled up with some dates. The dates were related to the Turks invading/conquering Constantinople, and the discovery of both the United States and India.

I didn't bother about the first one, the second one I remembered with a sudden jolt but it was the last one that had me completely stumped.

I continued with my bizarre questioning regarding when indeed was India discovered, for I didn't have the vaguest idea. I asked Pupu what the books said about India being "discovered". Pupu said that it was some time during the renaissance. I replied with, "but that can't be. India was there long, long before the renaissance". Did the books say something about India being "discovered" in the B.Cs? I was wondering what in heaven's name the history books had to say about this famous "discovery" when Pupu replied (I have no idea what was going on through her own head about me) with a, "Oh no, no - not that. But it was in AD 1488, or AD 1498 or AD 1499 that Vasco da Gama discovered India".

Then of course there was that low pitched "oh" rumbling through my head. But of course! How could I forget Vasco da Gama, the little ditty, his discovering India...

And then I was left shaking my head at myself. Not to excuse myself in any way (there is absolutely no way that I can dig myself out of this hole), but I still find it considerably curious. There should be some other word describing the intrepid western voyager's first contact with a piece of land and its people, both of which had existed for thousands of years before the voyager's "discovery". Since there were people living on the land long before Vasco da Gama set his brave foot forward, one can assume that their long-gone predecessors must have had some finger in the discovery. Yet, when one talks about the discovery of India - is one talking about a geographical tract of land or a culture and her civilization? In the second sense I guess it would make some sense to talk about Vasco da Gama discovering India in the 15th century. Yet even in this sense India did have contact with the "outer" world prior to the 15th century. So we're talking about India being discovered by the "western" world.

I know I should go and read some history or potter around on google for a bit - yet part of my musings is not entirely related to the "facts" of the case - but is related to the concept of "discovery". And what it means. And then of course there is the other point that comes to my head in a trickle. If da Gama had not discovered India in the particular sense he did - when would the British have come, or the Frech and the Dutch and the Portuguese? da Gama's discovery did indeed have some immediate consequences...

One thing I do know: once Pupu reminded me of the approximate year of India's "discovery" not in isolated terms but in relation to the renaissance - now I know I'll always remember.
Err...maybe this is a good time to check up on the exact year of the discovery of India.