Our Introduction

Maths and poetry holding hands is what can produce the architecture of life! True… at least for Specky (ie, Sangita) and me (ie, Arvind) as our son Pushkin is, in fact, studying for his Masters in Architecture from AA, London.

Specky is working as HOD with DTTE, Govt. of Delhi and was a Commonwealth Scholar who completed her doctorate (Maths) from the University of York, UK. Besides delving into her world of teaching, Specky has also top-spinned into table-tennis since her school days. From representing her school, state, university, and now Delhi Govt. in the All India Civil services TT Tournaments, this game still ping-pongs into our moments.

So far as I am concerned, 1978 saw me at the Indian Military Academy lugging a 7.62mm SLR over the Shivaliks and the Kumaon ranges, front-rolling on frozen dew-drops, learning the art of sleeping with eyes open, and shouting YES SIR at the top of my voice — all combined to give me a mental and physical robustness that, even after 16 years, clicks its heels and winks from the 6 inch scar on my forehead. More than 20 years spent in pharma selling and now taking care of Corporate Communications for the BLB Group makes up the smaller part of my life. The bigger part is the 1500+ poems (largely unpublished) & photography that are a real part of the real me.

Thats it… more in blogs!

We are the best candidates because…

No, we aren’t the best and we haven’t rocked any international platform… we simply love life and to love it properly, we try to explore it as well as possible. For instance, while in York in the mid-nineties, we chose to visit most of the small towns around. We opted for the walk-talk-rock route and not the ‘Aha! I’ve touched this city – 108th on my list! Off I zoom to the next now.’ Even two years back, when we went to Leh, we took the more arduous Srinagar-Kargil bus-route and stayed on in Kargil for 2 nights. Our mantra is to reach-out, stay-out, kuch-naya, kuch-click, word-it, and store-it! What helps us is Specky’s practical approach and my impulse-promotion! It is something like my saying: ‘Chalo, yeh karte hain’ and then Specky doing an operational recce and replying: ‘Hmmm, good idea!’ Adventure for us is taking the plunge together, simple!

Our Travel Plan

We intend exploring a vital part of India’s cultural eco-system and the way this diversity actually helps in unifying the mind-sets of people who have belief systems that differ the moment one steps out of a certain geographical boundary even within the country. The route that we have chalked out starts from Delhi and goes on to connect Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, (3 places in Rajasthan), Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat (3 places in Gujarat), Indore, Ujjain, Bhopal Khujaraho, Gwalior (5 places in MP), Jhansi, Agra, Mathura (3 places in UP)…. and then back to Delhi. This route has geographical, cultural, historical, fiscal, and traditional differences that are all working towards making India what it is. The pictorial and written words that will be a part of our blogs will surely give some interesting insights in these aspects.

Our Travelogue

Travel experiences for us are summed-up in a combo of ‘whoosh’ ‘wow’ ‘wooohooo’ and ‘wah’… from the precarious tourist-free Gilbert trail in Kasauli to understanding pottery-secrets from labourers in Khurja, from clicking a monk peering through his binoculars in a monastry in Leh to deciphering the phonetics of Skipton residents, from dodging giant breakers at the Scarborough sea-front to imagining Dracula emerging from the dark misty corners of Whitby… always a combination of ‘lets go’ and ‘what more?’ We remember the time we took a motor-bike trip from Delhi to Dehradun and Pushkin recounted his memories even during his interview with the Headmaster of Doon School. Driving towards Jaipur was as fascinating as the pot-holed route to Khurja or the jammed sectors towards Mathura or the toll-loot on the Chandigarh route. But the best was the jet-boat ride in Scarborough… as scary as the time spent in the low flying airline over the jagged roughness of Afghanistan. Our first ride on Delhi Metro took us back to riding the London Underground and… this is simply fascinating… the experience we had from Wimbledon to King’s Cross where we had to catch the last InterCity train to York. Phew! We huffed and puffed and double-jumped on the escalators amusing the serious-looking Britishers and managed to board the Guard’s cabin just a fraction of a second before the doors closed. Travel experiences that touch the borderlines of emotions or spurt adrenaline are the ones that are remembered the most.