One more Halloween. And more of Pirates and Jokers, Grim Reapers and Draculas. Isn’t it strange that in a country inundated with faith healers, psychic mediums, temple oracles, exorcists and haunted dak bungalows, we are yet to come up with an indigenous spectral line up? Here are some spooky tales, from the road, which might inspire. Yes, travelling does have its advantages – a wizened old chowkidar who warns you not to hang around the Bhangarh Fort after dark, a weary cabbie who reminds you to take that extra bottle

First blank then incredulous stares are flung my way when I ask a local the way to Taj Mahal. ‘In a city that grew around the Taj, you don’t know the way?’ They seem to ask. Awkward tinged in condescension raises a nodding head when the ‘dummy out of town’ realisation sinks in. Ask a local for the ‘Red Taj’ (‘Lal Taj’ if any better) and you’d still get the same blank, incredulous ‘get outta here’ stare. Not surprising, considering many of my intrepid travel buddies too hadn’t – forget

Bernie Ecclestone is to Formula One what N Srinivasan is to Indian – and by extension international – cricket. At 82, the patriarch of the sport is an angry old man. What cheesed him off were the tough Indian tax laws and of course, the ubiquitous red tape which we the natives have come to understandingly embrace as ‘bureaucratic hurdles’. At the receiving end of his ire is not just the future of F1 in India – which is more or less sealed – but also a foetal demise of

Disclaimer: You are forgiven if you start to strut about, one hand behind your back, head tilted at an imperious angle. No hard feelings if you give the gardens a critical once over, though impeccably maintained your disdain frowns forth. However that glint of pride in your eyes is hard to conceal – can be espied even from the resplendent ramparts above. After all, one fifth of the world is under your dominion. You might stop short of addressing your friend ‘my lady’ but there’s a mammoth five-glass landau clip-clopping

The gory so far. A Swiss tourist was gangraped while cycling with a friend from Orchha in Madhya Pradesh to Agra. The assailants – five of them – then decamped with her mobile phone and cash. A British national had to jump off the second floor of her hotel room in Agra after the property owner tried to force his way in – at 4am – offering her a free oil massage. Michaela Cross, am American student, put up with three months of being stalked and molested, groped and masturbated

  Dogs and Indians were infamously kept away from the clubs and restaurants frequented by Europeans during the colonial days under the British. While we do not know how the dogs took the ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’ signboards – or how it kept them away, for that matter – it definitely struck a bitter note with the natives. Back then it led to bloody skirmishes, a suicide mission, even: In 1932 the feisty 21-year-old Bengali revolutionary Pritilata Waddedar led an armed attack on a club which displayed the sign

All the things I could do If I had a little money… Goes the ABBA hit ‘Money, money, money.’ I, for one, would travel responsibly by taking only direct flights to cut down on my carbon footprint. And what I still emit, I would gladly offset. I would make my other jetsetter pals do the same. And if they don’t know about carbon footprint offsetting, I am going to tell them about it. It’s an esoteric concept albeit a meaningful one. As a mechanism, it has been around for more

All I said was ‘Tashi Delek!’ Now my camera batteries were getting charged. I polished off one serving of special momos (momos with more meat and an extra helping of blazing-hot chutney), washed down with strong Tiger beer. I was fleece-fitted snugly in the midst of Sherpas and porters – the kind of crowd you ought to hang out with when you are in a mountain country like Tibet, was being regaled with lambent accounts of obdurate climbers and miraculous escapes. It was a wholly different story just a few

Unless you are eyeing the strip passport world championship, you can afford to travel responsibly. Responsible travel is essentially slow travel, less invasive and more beneficial to the host community and environment. At the core of travel – and not just responsible travel – are new experiences, discovering new places, making new friends, facing new challenges. A journey of discovery becomes memorable, even successful only if it does not destroy what it discovers. This is where travelling responsibly comes in. As an increasing number of travellers gain a global perspective,

The last time there was so much anticipation – and speculation – in the air was when Willy Wonka was giving away tickets to visit his chocolate factory. Today hundreds of thousands have applied for Mars One – the mission to colonise Mars with humans by 2023. The shortlisting is on and finally a handful will be chosen to be the Cooks and Columbuses of the Galactic Age. Even if we discard Nasa’s scepticism about this ambitious foray (or Mars One counting big on crowd funding to develop the technology,