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...
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...
Poaching is a terror unleashed on wildlife
Poaching isn’t a word that exists only in political parlance around the world. Employees can be poached by corporates, ideas are often poached by unscrupulous writers, and of course lots of people love poached eggs. However, it is time to connect the word back to the world where it rightly belongs – wildlife and the...
Social media influencers and conservation
Conservation and fundoo tourists do not really go together. This is because the forests and the wildlife there, including the tiger, can do without their habitat getting overwhelmed by ecstatic shouts, irreverent whistles, and camera flashes that are anyway not doing much except creating layers of disgust in the heart of nature. Forests are places...
Lets Talk Tigers
‘We are seeds as well as parasites to the earth. We can either give or take, depending on our perception of growth,’ wrote Zephyr McIntyre and whenever we talk of the environment, the eco-system, wildlife, conservation, or even tigers, what matters more than anything else is perception. I have always believed that starting from the...
Garbage and eco-unfriendly trekkers and tourists
From bugyals to river beds, every possible place where trekkers, hikers, and travel-enthusiasts go, one sees irresponsible behavior. I saw a massive pile of plastic bottles and heaps of rubbish down a slope near the prime temple in Sonagir a few years back. Every tourist attraction is literally choked with garbage that everyone assumes is...
No blue, no green
We are living in times when even newspapers are carrying rep[orts of how wells are drying up and how water bodies in cities have been usurped by those wanting to construct houses and commercial complexes over them. Leakages in pipes supplying water to homes invite severe protests and action from authorities. Political parties invest money...
That thin streak of rage
Lots of people define Delhi as a city of rage… feelings that are uncaged, boisterous, out of control, and forever stampeding on to newer forms of destruction. What they do not understand is that it is this rage that invariably and inevitably explodes into an evolved form of existence. Almost like a new universe being...
The invasion of Bollywood villains
The invasion of Bollywood villains No, this isn’t a figment of my imagination. I have seen Gabbar, Mogambo, Sir Juda, Shakaal, Kaancha, Bhaironath, Dr Dang, Langda Tyagi, Lallan Singh, Jageera, Lotiya Pathan, Bakhtawar Singh and many others inside many homes… creating the worst possible chaos. ‘Are these names that you have given to mosquitoes?’ asked...
The song of the artsy cow
The song of the artsy cow Some say that getting rid of indoor pollution is a fantasy and exists only in fiction, in movies, in government files, and a zealous mind. I disagree. I’ve been taking a lot of positive steps at home and we are probably as far away from pollution and their side-effects...
The criminals inside every home
The criminals inside every home So much information about this criminal inside every home is splashed almost daily in our newspapers, they are discussed on panels on almost every news channel, and almost every kerb-side conversation is about them. And yet, they roam like the entire world was there at their feet. They are robbers,...
