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

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 […]

Windmills for Windhoek

Vincent came running. “I was in that house cleaning their swimming pool,” he said pointing and with a broad smile I had gotten used to in Africa by now. “The rain and the wind had mucked it up,” he added, swole in damp clothes and wiping off drizzle from his face. The woollen cap was […]

Swakopmund – Like a movie set

The setting Swakopmund would be a ‘living movie set’ kind of township if there was one. Bright timber gables, solid color tapering steeples, pastel-hued facades, stark lintels and turrets, pavements tessellated into patterns, neatly trimmed median gardens, shiny classic vehicles, all make you feel like that. The people here, as sparse as they come, could […]

If I stopped rolling now…

The devoir of a good son is to break the news of surviving a near-fatal miss to his mother softly. Fortune is on his side as it is dusk preventing her from seeing the numerous bandages stuck to his limbs and jaw, torn jeans flapping and a second chin from stitching together the long cut […]

The longest ride

A life cannot be reduced to words, but we still do it because we are yet to find ways to keep our dear ones from dying. Memories penned down become something else altogether but we keep at it whether it is love, loyalty or a sense of legacy. Soon after I got the news I […]