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 […]
The travel bug also mutates
Advanced age hinders accepting more than it hampers understanding. The resistance fuelled by conditioning than sound sense or fair play. My folks know there’s a contagion in the air and that it’s a mean one – after all, the chief minister of the state can’t be lying everyday on the dot at 6PM. But why […]
Midnight ice cream at India Gate
At this roundabout I give my turning the miss, deliberately. Once in the car I did it thrice prompting my co-passenger to firm up her mind on what she always suspected: I was a directionless nig-nog. Its hugeness doesn’t let me notice the hexagonal shape but allows me to zip, zigzagging through traffic. There are […]
Stilled life
Like my mother’s favourite refrain these days goes ‘every day is worse than Sunday.’ Then born and brought up bang in the middle of town with the landmark Kurisupally chapel next door and a busy junction where vehicles slowed to gather steam before springing in different directions, it was understandable that she found the quietude […]
Digits Entangled…AHU
(At home during the Corona lockdown, I decide to do some spring cleaning and come upon a bunch of albums where termites are having a ball. These happen to be of my folks from their years when they were younger than I am and dapper than I ever will be. As I show them the […]
The fastest Bullet
Some people will tell you that slow is good – and it may be, on some days – but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I have always believed this, in spite of the trouble it has caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being […]