Not a Dal moment
Like most attempts at chronicling indescribable beauty, Amir Khusro’s much-quoted ‘hamin asto’ is from afar, in passing, removed from close quarters and ground reality. From the perched Taj hotel – itself a peeling, fading relic of what it was just a few years ago, understaffed but brimming with heartening sights symbolic of a changing Kashmir […]
Varanasi – The best of both worlds
Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business. (‘Travels with a donkey’ by RL Stevenson) Lighted lanes Lallan* sat maudlin next to me, wracking in sobs that his long, flowing hair bobbed. I put my arms around him, hugging him from the side. Espying […]
Border lives, Singhu
There is nothing like piping hot jalebis on winter dusks. Some of my fondest memories of Delhi itself revolve around the anticipation as vendors take their sweet time churning these syrupy love knots over and over in large cauldrons of fiery oil with cautious ennui. My habitual reticence gives way to an ebullient prattle, suddenly […]
Farmfrnd – the journey
To paraphrase a Victor Hugo, nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. Farmfrnd is just that – an idea most pertinent to our times. ‘The app seeks to network the farmers with local shopkeepers and end-customers by avoiding middlemen who typically hinder fair trading.’ (The Hindu, Oct 30, 2020). From ideation to fruition, […]
Looking for waterfalls
Willys meant cops. So when the jeep stopped outside her house the new bride peered outside the window a lot anxious. The big burly with twirled moustache and rolled up shirt sleeves sat with one leg out on the footboard so he could jump out even before the vehicle came to a complete stop and […]
Meeting point Hemis
Peregrination follows ruination. When Naropa decided to leave Nalanda it was because of a devastation of epic physical proportions – the ancient university lay razed by a series of invader ransacking and burning of texts that took Buddhism itself back by several centuries. Born into a Brahmin family in Bengal he was a dutiful son […]
The jasmine in our backyard
Day 3 Jhansi – Nagpur: 594 km Distances and midway points Jhansi – Lalitpur – Sagar: 202 km Sagar – Narsinghpur – Seoni: 265 km Seoni – Nagpur: 127 km (From the diary of my Delhi to Kerala motorcycle ride, December 2019. The third day was the coldest and the longest leg of the six-day […]
Traveller shorts
Goa / Escape routes The path was so pretty he knew it would be a dead end. It was six in the morning and he had crept out of bed without making a sound when she was still sleeping. A few months ago he had opened the windows of their hotel room in Pondicherry waking […]
#SaveAthirappilly
Forest Where there is indescribable beauty, expect to find god in the vicinity. In the pristine mountains of Himachal Pradesh, devtas, the goddesses who are the genius loci, are taken on picnics; tribal households flaunt their own deities represented by a dang, a triangular flag, tied atop a bamboo stick, in the lush forests of […]