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...
Redefining ‘Sanjeevani’ at the Valley of Flowers
It was sometime in the nineteen thirties that Frank S Smythe ‘came upon the lush and colourful Bhyundar Valley, the Valley of Flowers’ and he describes his adventures in the lower and upper Himalayas in his book. Smythe discovered that ‘the predominant note was peace; not the faintest breeze ruffled the herbage and the silence...
On a catamaran to see what Indra’s jealousy did
Trip to Mahabalipuram – 02 ‘If you want to go on a catamaran to see the submerged pagodas, you will need to be at the shore at sunrise,’ said the friendly manager of Chariot Beach Resort. And yes, I was there and I must say the sun rising on the horizon has an hypnotic...
Finding yourself – poetry and the potter’s wheel
Pottery-making, some of us may think, is just another job… but trying to discover elements of poetry in it is certainly an adventure. Adventure, let me add here, isn’t about confrontations with evil forces, nor is it about victory over whatever is perceived as unwholesome. Adventure has more to do with travelling into the heart...
The creative writer and kayaking
I’m not new to kayaking. The first time I stepped into a kayak was on the River Denva in Madhya Pradesh in tiger territory. This was two years back and I was participating in the NDTV-Volvo Adventure Challenge then and our task was to kayak to a location about a couple of hours distance to...
Truly alive
I guess an adventure is when you do something that you have never done… so yes, by this definition even writing a poem for someone who has no idea of metres, syllables, and rhymes is as intense an adventure as is driving the F1 car in an international driving circuit for someone who generally drives...
Treads of Adventure
Adventure isn’t always on a dark cold night deep inside a dense forest… it can be there in the city on a bright sunny day as well. Adventure doesn’t need you to have six packs and be a regular in a gym… it can happen even to a 5’4” short guy who hasn’t kept up...
Toy Train to Shimla
‘This train is going to take us from 656 metres above sea level to 2076 metres above sea level,’ I said, ‘adding, ‘from Kalka to Shimla… and yet they call it a toy train.’ Specky, my wife smiled and said, ‘It is probably because it is a narrow gauge railway line.’ Well, travelling on a...
Alphonso on a mountain trail
I was standing on a mountain trail that was around 7300 feet above sea level and was surrounded by deodar, oak, pine, rhododendron and lots of spiny bushes. The trail had become faint and Specky, my wife, had a doubtful expression on her face. ‘Are you sure this trail is going to lead somewhere?’ she...
The adventurous woman in my life
I clicked this and the other pics inside the London Olympics Park in Stratford. This happened on one of our walks there when Specky, my wife, pointed to the site where a Burma bridge and other rope obstacles beckoned. She said, ‘I’ve never done all this.’ I said, ‘Go ahead and reach for the top....
PicTale 011 – Dissection of a racing car
I flew down to Coimbatore in December 2012 to drive with Narain. Yes, Narain Karthikeyan, the legendary Formula 1 driver from India. I was right next to him as he drove his twin seater at a mind-blowing… oops, body-blowing 260 kmph for full five rounds of the racing circuit there on the outskirts of...
The mathematics of travel
Travel is all about happiness… and happiness is all about togetherness. To be travelling alone doesn’t deprive you of the experiences and impressions of the place where you are, but you always feel there was something missing in all these smiles that you gave while being clicked, or something incomplete in the way you described...
