Love lurks in every corner / Varikkat Heritage, Trivandrum
If the stories are anything to go by then this is a hopelessly romantic place; we won’t go to the extent of telling you that ‘this is the best place to renew your vows’ etc but certainly you could renew your love here – there is love in the air, in the history at least. […]
Sonabai’s wall of fame
Daroga Ram raked back with his hand the sparse tuft of white feathery hair repeatedly. Frowns cut burrows across his high forehead. He had no idea what to do: this time the scrimshanking contractor had abandoned work altogether and had vamoosed. The museum that was coming up in the memory of his mother, celebrated folk […]
Life, simplified / Olavipe, Kerala
Being right next to the backwaters has its advantages – like free canoeing lessons for one. At the Thekkenat Parayil house on Olavipe island, the cerulean Kaithappuzha backwaters provide the best training ground for all wannabe-Robinson Crusoes – it is still and average a depth of just three feet. Then, till about early 2000s boats […]
Paharganj lessons: Moneysaving tips for backpackers. By backpackers
The cab went around the landmark state secretariat building for the third time making the passenger, a tourist, suspicious. “But didn’t we pass by here earlier?” he asked, cautious, not wanting to offend the affable, garrulous driver. “Sir,” the cabbie replied, in his die-rather-cheat tone, “in Trivandrum we have six of them.” This could have […]
Dabanng nagar Mohada
What make a place really memorable are not its landmarks or landscape, wealth or history but the dreams of its people. As dreams shape action which chart destinies this could indeed be a faultless gauge on how it should be marked for posterity. ‘Dabanng nagar’ somebody had not scribbled nor sprayed in the hasty haze […]
Kotgarh’s Stokes of good luck
‘I thank god for this beautiful country and for the balm it is to my spirit, which has been in the last two years so cut and torn and is now by his mercy receiving comfort and strength again,’ wrote Stokes from Kotgarh to his mother in America in a letter dated September 1913. Thank […]
Kasauli and the rogue Himachali
If Shimla is about all that’s gone wrong with Himachal Pradesh, Kasauli is everything that’s going awry. Despite repeated warnings and notices by the Green Tribunal, the state government is in a perennial hurry to lift the construction ban on 17 green belts around Shimla considered the capital city’s lungs – and pave the way […]
Gondola town / Coconut Creek, Kottayam
The oar latched on to the show wall is not reminiscent of an era past but pretty much a pointer to all the fun and action awaiting you on the creek – right next door! Okay, fun and action in slo-mo; these are canals that lead to the famed Kumarakom Lake. Here under the masterful […]
The puke-green room: A Halloween feature
The first thing i did upon waking up was marvel at the ingenuity of the decor. My head was throbbing, threatening to split itself open. But over the years i had learnt to focus on other things through terrible hangovers, resilience cultivated through good time on the road. The jackhammer pounded at my temples from […]