The Many Attractions of Pi’s Life
India tourism office in Beijing did not even have a director till March this year. In fact, there was no need for one – outbound figures hovered around 50,000 accounting for a meagre 0.001 per cent of the global number. Now things have changed. No, it’s not that the office got a new head but […]
Telling Tales: Looking for Rebecca
‘Telling Tales’ is an ongoing series on my more memorable fellow travellers. Pierre found his daughter Rebecca in more places than he looked. Strangers came up to him and told him where he would find her while some just wished him that he found whatever he was looking for. Another time a little girl, a […]
To conserve mountains, forests and seas. And thereby, travel.
Where would we all head to if there were no more snow-capped peaks? Where would we trek if there were no more forests to trail? At the rate the polar caps are melting how many more full moons in Bali? Some days ago I got a call from a Greenpeace volunteer asking for donation; I […]
The Walking Tourist
“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin,” said Bruce Chatwin. Any traveller worth his visa can rant offhand many promenades of perambulation – from the whole of Siena and parts of Rome in Italy, most parts of old Zurich to our own Mall Road in Darjeeling. Then again, how about a stroll if […]
Jokbahla joyous
‘Mela’ must have its origins here. Around me were colourful plastic goggles like props-in-calling for the retro-theme Vespa ads, mandating humungous physical strength from the parents to pry away boys who just stood there transfixed to imagined bell-bottomed Bollywood numbers from the 70s. Little girls stood in queue outside bangle shops awaiting their turn while […]
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 […]