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 […]
Patriotism goes pop: In Wagah
If politicians do it, the army does it better. Hindi film songs that were paeans to patriots and patriotism bellowed out from half a dozen loud speakers. Tens of thousands swayed, sang, lip synced and grew goose-bumps in unison. The more patriotic lot, actually those who were seated in the front row, sprang up in […]
‘Rainbow bath’ at Tiger Falls
It is awesome when you all have to do to touch a rainbow is reach out. At the Tiger Falls in Chakrata, apparently the second highest in India falling from 312 feet, you can actually do that. And with several smaller, shallower pools making for your own private whirlpools, bathing becomes an Alive is Awesome […]
The myth bath
A bath that cleanses not just the body but the soul too is awesome. That too when it is surrounded by a 25,000 feet snow-lit massif, then it becomes an Alive is Awesome bathing experience. The Lake Manasarovar in Tibet is also known as Mapham Yum-tso (‘Victorious Lake’) by the locals and is believed to […]
F1: More than a race
Not that I needed to be, but my mobile service provider who also happens to be a co sponsor of the Formula One in India, has been priming me for the event less than three weeks away with interesting titbits like ‘A driver loses up to 4 kg of weight due to G forces after […]