Author: Thommen Jose

For 17 years I was a consultant specializing in corporate and responsibility communication based in Delhi. I wrote scripts, and directed films which were in turn used to build brand awareness, mobilize people, and raise funds, or just goodwill. My work mandated widespread traveling and to ensure I saw the places and got to know the people better, I began documenting it. My blog Wanderink.com was once among the top 10 travel blogs on responsible travel from India. I think its my writing that landed me book assignments from the Times of India Group which resulted in two road tripping books which I still talk about like yesterday: Experience Agra and around on the road and Experience Chhattisgarh on the road (both are available online). There were more that came along but I guess the discipline of writing was killing. Ok, actually, I think it was some other pressing personal issues. Before moving on to my wonderful present job, quickly about me: I hold a graduate degree in economics and a post graduate degree in communication and journalism. I was sub editor with The Week, a national newsweekly before moving on to advertising and later stints as copywriter, creative director with a few national agencies. All these glamorous stints and travel outings put some tattoos on me including one of an airplane on my neck. It was, let's say, closest to soothsaying that ever came my way. Right now I am with the company of some great people who represent airlines across markets - AirlinePros. Of course, my job is a continuation of what I have been doing - communication. My workplace has lots of airplanes and photographs of beautiful people and places. Contact me thommenjose@gmail.com

Good food diaries – second day, third helping

It’s like your first dinner with a date – you take a while to gather gusto. Except for the food on the way you know little else. You look around and take in the décor with intensity, inspect the chandeliers, peer approvingly at paintings and nod at waiters. You laugh nervously, not mirthlessly, a few […]

Bahraich, international border

There is not much difference when you look at Bahraich from half a kilometre in the sky and from street level. It is a tumbleweed cluster of shanty dwellings, lean-to shops, road-facing sculleries, pointy minarets, lowing buffaloes snacking on plastic, milling rickshaw pullers and little figurines cowering in black, chaffering with lingerie and veggie […]

Red Fort revisited: In the footsteps of the last emperor

Heritage plays a temporal trick – it can make history feel within reach. I walked up the pathway leading to Lahori Gate, entrance to Red Fort, where friends waited. On my right was the eyesore barbican built by Aurangzeb; Shah Jahan, his father, who built the fort, was miffed with the looming gorgon in garish […]

Birdbrain? Ask the butterfly!

Butterfly, butterfly Fly in the sky Butterfly, butterfly Flies so high Butterfly, butterfly Lands on my thigh Butterfly, butterfly Motionlessly lies Butterfly, butterfly Gracefully dies (Full transcript of poem ‘Butterfly, butterfly’ by Adryan Bates.) For a life that rarely goes beyond a couple of weeks the amount of cloak and dagger was overwhelming. I, […]

Oh, blogger!

(Buoyed by the inclusion of my short ‘Highway 666’ in ‘Have a safe journey – The world’s first collection of short stories on road safety‘ I thought I’d do another zany one. While the first one takes place in a world I am yet to accustom – the underworld (of the Gehenna-order), this one I […]

Art Meens conservation

We are on the Kumily – Munnar route, one of the most scenic drives in Kerala. I am being introduced to a large canvas – from where smaller ones originate. There are two via options – Kattappana and Udumbanchola – the latter, along which we are now, is simply breath-taking. Our eyes are alternately […]

Snakeboat racing – the passion, the future and a controversy

My favourite pastime while riding public transport in Kerala is listening to conversations of co-passengers especially when they are talking into their mobile phones. Then, this is like saying the bomber decides to die as his ticking torso goes off – there is not much choice here as they practically declaim into their devices. And […]

Ghost train to badland

The only woman passenger in the entire coach was furious and scared. Maybe she was furious because she was scared. As she huffed her way to the next, more inhabited, coach on the Patna Rajdhani, she kept taking photographs and venting. “I am going to send it to Prabhu right away. He should see the […]

#TomMama: Lessons by the sea

The young sand sculptor was visibly chuffed as he stepped back to enjoy his creation – a mermaid. Recognisable as one from all angles. It was his first ever work, he claimed, beaming. I expressed a sincere appreciation and asked all the right questions – his name, place, where he stayed and even what he […]