India is almost a continent and I have barely begun to scratch its surface. Posts below span the capital Delhi, Kashmir, Ladakh, Jodhpur, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Lucknow, Hampi, Thanjavur and more. With brief cultural snippets from my home-town on the west coast and my adopted home on the east.
Granted, my earlier visits had been limited to meetings with modular furniture makers and interior contractors, but charm was still the last thing I expected to find in Delhi. An insidious allure that gets under your skin even as you wilt in the heat and the pollution smothers your lungs. “Do tourists really get to know […]
Read MoreA mid-morning chai break. See that lady in the blue sari in the background? R is convinced she is the old man’s wife…..”No question!”. Her body language (see below), according to him, resembles mine during the days when I briefly tried to give up all caffeinated beverages in the vain hope of losing my weight […]
Read MoreWe are back from our 1700 kilometer road trip – excluding our flight to and from Delhi – that covered more tombs and places of worship than we have visited in all our years of travel! It was an intense roller coaster ride into centuries of Indian history in reverse, from imperial New Delhi to […]
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Every custom, folklore, tradition and value system across Eastern cultures is heavily influenced by religion. Secularisation of society and mass tourism pose real threats to these shared beliefs and traditional ways of life. Traditional dress is already on its way out and language, customs and value systems are constantly under assault from global media. Imagine a […]
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All change is not growth,as all movement is not forward. ~Ellen Glasgow Little heed has been paid to the preservation of the traditional tile roofed structures of my once charming hometown in its race to ‘big-townhood’. Their distinctive profiles are fast being replaced by characterless concrete high-rises. And malls! What is it with Asians and […]
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If we had come here first, like everyone else looking to explore the romance of Rajputana, maybe, just maybe, we would have liked Jaipur better. But as it is, we came here from Jodhpur, and Udaipur before that, and we perceived a more jarring urban version of the famed Rajput culture and hospitality. We missed the […]
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“I regard myself as a soldier, though a soldier of peace” For a generation far removed from the struggles of the freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi seems to have been reduced to just a face in their history books and on their currency bills. Neither the high flying, tech savvy, middle class Indian on his race […]
Read MoreFor centuries people across the world have tried various means to divine what the future holds for them……pendulums, spirit boards, tarot cards, crystal gazing, palmistry or even from the pattern left by tea leaves or coffee dregs in the bottom of a cup! Heck, I have tried a few just for the fun of it. […]
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Chennai City – Background and photos of the adopted city I’ve been calling home for over two decades.
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The Urge To Wander 