Wings of dream
Natasha Mehl is the youngest pilot in Zambia today. She looks it too – wide eyed, inquisitive frown, warm smile and braces. At a recent aviation summit in Zambia, we bonded over the Concorde – the most beautiful thing in the sky ever built! I showed her the one and only photograph of the Concorde […]
Lusaka to Livingstone
There are two views from a moving car – the far and the near. While the first is barely moving, the second is a swishing blur. Between the knolls in slow motion and the swarming swards is you. Belted into a metal capsule, hurtling forward. Over soporific savannahs, just-vanished mirages, through blinking shades of patulous […]
A walk in Windhoek
You lose count on two accounts: one, when the number exceeds your counting ability and two, when you don’t count and instead just look forward to the next. I started visiting Namibia about two years ago on work and every time I am here, I am decided on what I have to do the next […]
Herero, kosher
Acts of assertion At airports: Bole International, Addis Ababa One would think it a gold-plated oil pipe if it was found anywhere else but on the passenger’s wrist. Even then the dimensions were adequate to traffic a newborn. Definitely more of what it was made of in little pellets or pewter format inside. The stuff […]
Walking through rainbows: Victoria Falls
Those who still say David Livingstone discovered Victoria Falls are counting on the slightly tongue-twisty name ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ given by the local Kololo tribe who lived there forever. It means ‘smoke that thunders’ – how straight-from-the-heart-beautiful! But tribe members and other locals who still reside near the park, working as rangers and guides, bear no grudge, […]
Theyyam – The folk and the lore
Once a kolam Extraordinary experiences make one a raconteur. Gopi sat in our midst, narrating tales animatedly but unhurriedly from his outings as a kolam, theyyam performer. Elaborate, gilt-laden headgear, sharp gleaming nails, metallic bulbous eyes, jangling anklets, all came out one by one from an ancient box unopened for many years. Most of it […]
Goree Island – Confrontation as reconciliation
All around me was dark. I think it has been kept that way – midday outside but a kind of gloaming inside – probably the closest a visitor can be made to feel what went on in these narrow corridors and dungeons. The wall plaster is peeling in most places and remains of corroded iron […]
Through the fourth wall, lightly
Tripping across the imagined barrier, from director calling the shots, to actor and audience. A truism yes, but one of the most alluring aspects about mortality should be the enthusiasm with which we take on new things. I never say no to anything extraordinary that comes my way; heck, I even go out of the […]
The anatomy of an emergency landing
I prayed and offered my soul to God. Then I took Susan’s hand and held it tight. She was crying. I told her it was good that we are together – if we are to die, we will die in each other’s arms. Of course, not that it stopped her from crying. Bob On my […]