Read the below excerpt and answer the questions that follow.
“I was travelling from Gwalior to Delhi … when 1 met a group of people … about twelve of them, some three or four women and seven or eight men … They said that they had been on a pilgrimage, three months long, up to Rameswaram, among other places. They came from two different villages north of Lucknow. They had various bundles of things and some earthen pots with them … They had taken all the necessities for their food-atta, ghee, sugarwith them … 1 asked them, “You are going to Delhi now?” “Yes!”, they replied. “You will stop in Delhi?” “No, we only have to change trains there. We’re going to Haridwar!.., We don’t have time … We have to go to Haridwar. And then we have to get back home.”
(a) What are your observations? Locate the route the group must have taken from Rameswaram to Haridwar. Why do you think the group was going straight to Haridwar instead of stopping at Delhi?
(b) In ancient times, when people were travelling from Madurai in Tamil Nadu to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, what languages would they come across? How would they communicate with people in those places? Where would they stay? What food would they eat?