Alive is Awesome in 20,000 Lakes and Ways
When the roads are too long And the sun really strong I feel awesome There, out of nowhere 20,000 Lakes everywhere I feel awesome Champakali and I squished through the marshes, stomped through the grassy lowlands and romped through the watering holes in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal for three days. Our raid was […]
The Battutah bath

As a little boy, there were so many things I knew I had to have the instant I set my eyes on it. The faculty remained intact as I grew up – just that the number of things that I wanted went up. As did the nature of the things – they either got more […]
A chakki bath

Bathing is an adult equivalent of kids playing – it does not have to be planned in advance and whenever it happens much delight is derived from it. I might have been giving the laughing deer a complex when I bathed in the stream that powered the watermill above me. Right next to me was […]
Awesome is azure

You have not seen azure till you have been to Pigeon Island in Sri Lanka. This deepwater harbour a kilometre away from the Nilaveli Beach in Trincomalee, spreads out azure in its many astounding blue avatars – some you have never seen, like ‘gunpowder blue’. Okay, I invented that one but throw in a bit […]
Excerpts as review: Travels with Charley

We live today with review sites like ‘Rotten Tomatoes’. With a name like that it can be safely assumed that conclusions are made and verdicts passed on the merit or lack of it of the creative product even before the opening weekend. Merit like beauty, is subjective. Otherwise we all would have vied for the […]
McBath in the Himalayan Foothills

The gushing water frills and forks its way through precipitous ravines as far as the eyes can see. On the other side, the sleepy town of McLeod Ganj unfurls with its typical Buddhist serenity halfway to the horizon. In between these two are a bunch of rocks that are holding me from sliding towards the […]
Bathing away blues in the Dal Lake

An overcast day. It was blue everywhere. I was feeling some too. What could I do? I had reached Kashmir the previous evening en route my motorbike run to Leh and Ladakh. An out-of-turn shower had ensured that it was not only the engine that shuddered – my entire body was shaking from icy gales […]
The reserve bath

All around me were the soothing grey of calm waters at dusk punctuated by remnants of tree trunks that rose fiercely in a thousand tales. Smack in the middle of the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, this was indeed an Alive is Awesome experience. The Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, widely known as Thekkady, is a 777 […]
Bathing in a postcard

You can bathe in water. But when you bathe in a postcard, it is an Alive is Awesome experience. Frame the Fewa Lake at dawn and you elevate your photography. This picturesque lake is in the valley of Pokhara, 200 km from Kathmandu. The Annapurna range is around you with its several eight-thousanders. On a […]