India tourism office in Beijing did not even have a director till March this year. In fact, there was no need for one – outbound figures hovered around 50,000 accounting for a meagre 0.001 per cent of the global number. Now things have changed. No, it’s not that the office got a new head but ‘Life of Pi’ is out. Never so wide-eyed for 3D, I have so far only caught ‘Beowulf’ that too for Angelina, ‘Avatar’ and ‘Hugo’; never thought much about giving the miss to ‘Piranha’ for all
‘Telling Tales’ is an ongoing series on my more memorable fellow travellers. Pierre found his daughter Rebecca in more places than he looked. Strangers came up to him and told him where he would find her while some just wished him that he found whatever he was looking for. Another time a little girl, a farmhand, pointed to the picture of Rebecca Pierre carried in his wallet and assured him that she was of the land. Only catch was Pierre was a Canadian travelling through Tibet. Yet he did not
Where would we all head to if there were no more snow-capped peaks? Where would we trek if there were no more forests to trail? At the rate the polar caps are melting how many more full moons in Bali? Some days ago I got a call from a Greenpeace volunteer asking for donation; I promised her that I could do something more than just pay. So, a dull day at work, I came up with this piece of communication I hope you all will share on your social pages
“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin,” said Bruce Chatwin. Any traveller worth his visa can rant offhand many promenades of perambulation – from the whole of Siena and parts of Rome in Italy, most parts of old Zurich to our own Mall Road in Darjeeling. Then again, how about a stroll if at least to hush that guilt-of-the-glutton every destination seems to offer? In which case, what becomes of the virtue in walking, Bruce? Then, who cares about virtue these days. Let’s just say that you are
‘Mela’ must have its origins here. Around me were colourful plastic goggles like props-in-calling for the retro-theme Vespa ads, mandating humungous physical strength from the parents to pry away boys who just stood there transfixed to imagined bell-bottomed Bollywood numbers from the 70s. Little girls stood in queue outside bangle shops awaiting their turn while the shopkeeper with grave nods and dramatic shaking of head decided on the colour of the chudi that went best with each skin. His judgment was sacrosanct and his wry little comments were met with
When the roads are too long And the sun really strong I feel awesome There, out of nowhere 20,000 Lakes everywhere I feel awesome Champakali and I squished through the marshes, stomped through the grassy lowlands and romped through the watering holes in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal for three days. Our raid was not in vain – safely ensconced atop her broad black back I saw many creatures of the wild go about their everyday and their fights for supremacy and survival. I rode in kayaks, closely encountered
As a little boy, there were so many things I knew I had to have the instant I set my eyes on it. The faculty remained intact as I grew up – just that the number of things that I wanted went up. As did the nature of the things – they either got more expensive or risky. Mostly, both. The yearning to bathe in the stream that gushed fresh lilacs by the roadside was one of those – risky as the road was narrow (I was in Kerala) and
Bathing is an adult equivalent of kids playing – it does not have to be planned in advance and whenever it happens much delight is derived from it. I might have been giving the laughing deer a complex when I bathed in the stream that powered the watermill above me. Right next to me was the wooden cog that powered the atta chakki or the flour mill bucketing water at me like a miffed sea monster. I didn’t know what made me happier – being able to clean up after
You have not seen azure till you have been to Pigeon Island in Sri Lanka. This deepwater harbour a kilometre away from the Nilaveli Beach in Trincomalee, spreads out azure in its many astounding blue avatars – some you have never seen, like ‘gunpowder blue’. Okay, I invented that one but throw in a bit of sulphur grey to powder blue and lo! ‘A small universe with as many variations of colour, scenery and climate as some countries a dozen times its size,’ said Arthur C. Clarke about Sri Lanka.
We live today with review sites like ‘Rotten Tomatoes’. With a name like that it can be safely assumed that conclusions are made and verdicts passed on the merit or lack of it of the creative product even before the opening weekend. Merit like beauty, is subjective. Otherwise we all would have vied for the same girl; the same author would have walked away with a Nobel, Booker and Pulitzer. Most of the book reviews are from information winnowed from an inchoate browse-through. The rest of the time it is
