Promote Northeast tourism for racial harmony
A murder and a rape within the span of a week are not that random when the victims of both incidents are from the Northeast. Denying there is racial discrimination in Delhi would be a monolithic bluff like calling the Commonwealth Games a ‘grand success’. On the upside citing deep-rooted hatred, fear and insecurities as […]
Bhangarh, Acropolis of India
Romance gets precedence over credence in populist writing. And travel writing is one big pleaser – aiming to pull, pique and prod. Many of the bubbles are what you ‘buy in’ to when you just pass through, fated to burst if you look around a little longer and engage deeper with the locals. So those […]
Telling Tales: Ramphool Gujar, graduate
An occasional series on the more interesting – and helpful most of the time – people I come across during my travels. “Calling one of them Bina is alright. But naming two of them Bina-1 and Bina-2 is for the SPCA.” I said. “But the minister was personally involved in every step of their growth.” […]
Fact of the Ater
The river Chambal has been found to meander continuously towards the right during the past 28 years (1972 – 2000) at a distance of 140 kilometres away from the origin. ‘Stream dynamics change analysis of River Chambal using remote sensing and GIS techniques’, International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences, 2011. Jeep drivers are icons in hinterland […]
Highway highlights 2013: India from the road
Real India is still in the villages and viewed best from the highways. I spent a sizable chunk of 2013 travelling in the north and central regions of the country on assignment. Besides learnings and memories, friendships and experiences there were also the photographs. Prodders, grabbers, freezers. Stokers of the intangible. A handy tool while […]
Behind the boom barrier: What you never knew about toll plazas
Bet you never knew Mr Robert Vadra is not exempt from paying toll. Am kidding, sure you knew. Then, did you really? Know that the Gandhi in-law – unlike in airports in the country – was not on the ‘exempted’ list of highway toll plazas? I went through the entire list of 13 ‘exempted dignitaries’ […]
The quintal dumbbell of Kotwan
All the while I was in Kotwan I couldn’t shrug the queasy over safety of my car. My Red was parked right in the village square – or whatever you call four charpoys arranged in waking disarray under a grandpa tree – and some kids had already discovered the wonderful slide the hood would make. […]
An evening in Vrindavan
Save the flirtatious cavorting the rest of it is still intact in Vrindavan. The guys are all Krishnas, women are Radhas and the cows a happy lot. What drives the thousands flocking to this part of brajbhoomi or land where Lord Krishna was born and spent his youth, attired in dhotis and half saris and […]
The gasp-spell according to Paul
Die-hards of ‘Star Wars’ series getting into Darth Vader costume for premiere have always struck me as a bunch of losers. Then, I’ve done it myself – getting into ‘character’ that is. God forbid, not to honour Skywalker. A dozen-odd years ago when the first instalment of ‘Fast and the Furious’ came out I was […]