Stone cliffs, silk, and bloody tales of Chanderi
Many travel enthusiasts know of Chanderi cloth but may not be aware that 1 km of silk used in this 20 to 22 DN fabric weighs just 1.5 gm and that 190 gm is the general weight of a sari. Chanderi isn’t just about hand-woven silk cotton and pure silk extracted from the roots of...
We are all travelers
The soft sound of a pin dropping on a rug. Even the whimper of thoughts as I gently scratch my head as I think. Or the thunderous buildup of musical notes as someone unknown somewhere strange walks in or rushes out or does whatever has to be done. There are no rules of any of...
Auroville enlightens!
If you can imagine a 20 sq km area transforming from a barren expanse of red sand and sparse vegetation into a haven of creative thought, divine consciousness, and sustainable living in a few decades, you have successfully imagined Auroville. This township in TamilNadu was created for the sole purpose of realizing human unity. When...
Sanchi Stupa – a mesmerizing dance of Buddhist art and literature
If you reach Sanchi without knowing what our jataka tales are and without having at least one Rs 200 currency note in your wallet, you’re going to miss out on the two big experiences you can have there. Not knowing the jataka tales will mean you will remain amazed by all the well-preserved stone carvings...
Orchha on river Betwa
Water connects people, architecture, religion, mythology, and society to each other in many ways… and this happens not just in India but the world over. Water carries with it hundreds of stories of existence, survival, traditions, rituals, and explanations for that which remains unexplained so far just as easily as it brings to the border...
The story-tellers of Bhimbetaka
There is an explorer within each of us. There are those who move to the mountains and explore the sublime beauty of nature and capture their impressions for others to find solace in them. There are those who find joy in culture or history or even religion. The spirit of exploration is what keeps the...
A citizen of passion
These are times when it is safer to embrace passion popping out of your inbox… and these words have the basic aim to brighten up a difficult period. A few of us experienced the passionate joy of travel to some of the brightest moments in the cultural history of our country when we travelled to...
Budher Caves near Chakrata
Treks can be tiring, exhausting, hazardous and sometimes be just long and winding steep climbs that seem to go on and on and on… but the trek to Budher Caves is more than how any conventional mind would define it. For one, not many know about this place. And quite importantly, the climb through a...
Jaali in Mughal architecture – poetry in stone
Life is a poetic super-imposition of patterns and as Chuck Palahniuk puts it, ‘there are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns’. The sonnet of jaalis, as I choose to put it, is all too obvious in the known and relatively unknown architectural...
Getting under the skin of tourism
We travel to see ‘beauty of souls in new landscapes’ as Lailah Gifty Akita said, and there are many who believe that tourism is what the world needs most. Wayne Chirisa feels that visiting new places ‘unveils new dimensions of this world not known to the naked eye’ and Leslie Jamison wrote in an essay...
September Symphonies
September has, so far, been a month full of actions and actionable dreams. We in India have had everything from the way Modi hugged the ISRO Chief to calm him to the way he hugged Trump to balm him and the world called them economic nationalists. The ‘Seva Saptah’ or week of service from September...
Travel Idea
‘Will to preserve heritage,’ he read on the menu-card, and then added, ‘an interesting name for a cocktail.’ A nod in the affirmative and he was soon ready to join the group with a glass in his hands. The conversation seemed to be floating on a sea of terms that sounded as intriguing as a...
