INDIA.

A vast and varied country pulls together after a devasting earthquake.

Asishbhai Rathad, 15, and his cousin Darshansingh [DIR-shun-sing],13, sit on a pile of rubble that was once their home.

"Weren't you scared after last night's aftershock?" a reporter asks.

Both boys laugh. "After the earthquake that crushed our house, why should we be scared?" says Asishbhai. "Now we sleep under the open sky Even if there's another earthquake, nothing can fall on us."

The cousins live in Anjar, in the western state of Gujarat. On the morning of January 26, Anjar was almost completely demolished by an earthquake.

With a magnitude of 7.9, it was, scientists say, one of the worst quakes in the past 100 years. Already, more than 18,000 people have been pulled from the rubble. Rescue workers fear that tens of thousands more victims will be found.

According to one relief organization, nearly 2.5 million children have lost family members, homes, schools, and their sense of security.

Although the epicenter of the quake was near Bhuj, the rumblings were strong enough to sway buildings as far north as Jammu and Kashmir (see map, p. 15). Even residents of Kerala, a state on the southwestern tip of India, felt trembles.

The earthquake was the most deadly since India gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947. With a population of more than one billion people--second only to that of China--India is often heralded as the world's largest democracy. It is a smorgasbord of people, faiths, cultures, languages, and geographical features.

No one region resembles another.

The towering Himalaya, the highest mountain range in the world, stretches across northern India. The northern plains lie between the mountains and the southern peninsula. This is the rich heartland of India, where the majority of people live. To the south, separated by mountains and hills, is the Deccan plateau.

The faces of the country are just as varied. Some Kashmiris, who live in the northwest, are blue-eyed and blond. The two largest groups are the Indo-Aryans, who live mostly in the north, and the Dravidians, who have darker skin and live in the south. Then there are the strapping Sikhs of Punjab, as well as groups in the northeast who resemble peoples of East and Southeast Asia.

An Enemy Helps

Like most Indians from traditional families, Asishbhai and Darshansingh live with a large extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. In the quake, the boys lost their mothers, a paternal grandmother, an aunt, and a 3-year-old cousin.

"At first we heard this huge blast, and we all thought that Pakistan had exploded a bomb in India," recalls Asishbhai. Pakistan, which lies a stone's throw from Gujarat, is a bitter enemy.

"Soon, we discovered it was a dharatikamp [literally translated as 'shivering earth']," explains Darshansingh. His right hand is in a dirty looking plaster cast, and his face is full of scabs from the falling rubble that had pinned him down. "Pakistan had nothing to do with it. Actually, for the first time in 53 years, they even sent us blankets to help us."

Before independence, India and Pakistan were one country. But as independence approached, bloody rioting broke out between Hindus and Muslims, in which half a million people died. The British agreed to create Pakistan after witnessing the ugly tensions between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority.

But partition did not lead to lasting harmony between the two neighbors. Over the past five decades, there have been three full-scale wars. Last year, the two countries were locked in a tense border confrontation. Most conflicts have been over the control of Kashmir, a region that both countries claim as their own.

Hundreds of Languages

On the face of it, the boys seem unaffected by the tragedy. Clothed in dusty pants and shirts that they've been wearing for days, they are thrilled to be interviewed and insist on speaking in English, even though all of us understand Hindi, the most widely spoken language.

With so many cultural and regional variations, India does not have one language spoken by all its people. Hindi predominates in the north; Bengal in the east; Gujarati and Maharashtrian in the west; and Tamil, Teluga, and Malyalam in the south.

But there are many other languages and dialects. It is entirely possible that an individual from Kerala will not be able to understand someone from Punjab.

Officially, the Indian constitution recognizes 18 languages. You can see the script of 15 of them printed on a 10 rupee note (worth slightly less than a U.S. quarter).

The English language, an enduring legacy of colonial rule, is understood by most people and is referred to as a "link language." Over the years, it has become the language of the elite.

"We are the first in our family to go to an English-speaking school," says Darshansingh proudly. "We insisted on going there because English is the language of the powerful."

As the afternoon sun wanes, the boys' uncertainty starts to show. They sift through the debris to salvage what they can. A ball here, a comic book there.

Darshansingh, an eighth-grader, wonders who is going to make one of his favorite foods, khakra [CAKE-a-ray], now that most of the women in his family have died. Khakra, a flat, round, mildly spiced bread about the size of a plate, is a popular Gujarati snack.

Darshansingh also thinks about his classmate Rakesh Patel, who died along with his sister Puja. "I pray that he didn't feel any pain."

Asishbhai, a tenth-grader, is the practical one. He wonders how the family will make ends meet now that their modest textile shop has been destroyed.

In Gujarat, it's not unusual to see elder sons like Asishbhai learning the family trade. Before the quake, whenever his younger cousins played cricket, climbed mango trees, or watched World Wrestling Federation (WWF) programs, Asishbhai would visit small textile shops with his uncle. Or he would sit in the shop with his father and do the daily accounts.

It is this spirit that has made Gujarat achieve an annual industrial growth rate of 9.2 percent, one of the highest in India. And it is this attitude that doesn't allow Asishbhai to be despondent for long.

"Something will turn up," he says. "We are not going to depend on charity. We are lucky we are still alive."

INDIA

With nearly one-sixth of the world's population, India is a vast country with many different peoples, cultures, and religions. India gave birth to two major religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. India was a British colony from 1858 to 1947.

FACTS TO KNOW

AREA: 1,269,340 square miles; the seventh-largest country in area.

POPULATION: 1,002,100,000, second most populous country; 28% urban.

GOVERNMENT: Parliamentary democracy; Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

ECONOMY: India has one of the world's largest economies. But because its population is so large, its per capita GDP is very low ($1,720). Agriculture provides the main source of income for a majority of India's people. Rice is the leading crop. India is one of the world's leading iron and steel producers.

RELIGION: 80% Hindu; 12% Muslim; also Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and Sikhs. LITERACY: 67% males; 44% females.

LIFE EXPECTANCY: 60 years males; 61 years females.

FYI: Background information for the India and Hinduism articles

3000 B.C.: One of the world's great civilizations develops in India.

1500 B.C.: Invaders from central Asia merge with the native population. Hinduism evolves. So does a golden age of art, science, and literature.

333-327 B.C.: Alexander the Great of Greece invades northern India to protect his troops in Persia. This opens contact between India and ancient Greece and later, Rome.

A.D. 711: An Arab general invades northern India and converts the state of Sind to Islam. Other Muslim invaders from central Asia follow.

1497: Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama pioneers an eastward sea route to India and sets up a trading post there.

1603: English traders form the East India Company to exchange English-made goods for Indian teas, silks, and spices.

1664: The French East India Company is established and competes aggressively with the British.

1763: The British defeat the French in India and gain control of large areas.

1857-58: Dissatisfaction with British control through the East India Company triggers the Indian Mutiny. The British win and establish direct rule over India, which includes what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

1885: Indians of many backgrounds form the National Congress to campaign for Indian independence by peaceful means.

1919: Hundreds of unarmed civilians at a National Congress rally at Amritsar are killed by British troops.

1930: Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), better known as the Mahatma, begins a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience against British rule.

1947: British India is partitioned into mostly Hindu India and mostly Muslim Pakistan. Both become independent nations. Violent migrations of millions of people occur between the two countries.

1948-Present: Despite assassinations, disputes, and ongoing border conflicts with Pakistan, India remains the world's largest democracy.