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

The gushing water frills and forks its way through precipitous ravines as far as the eyes can see. On the other side, the sleepy town of McLeod Ganj unfurls with its typical Buddhist serenity halfway to the horizon. In between these two are a bunch of rocks that are holding me from sliding towards the Bhagsunath Falls. Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh had become crowded even during the days of the British; McLeod Ganj was established as a respite. The Namgyal Monastery here is where you can pick up the essentials

An overcast day. It was blue everywhere. I was feeling some too. What could I do? I had reached Kashmir the previous evening en route my motorbike run to Leh and Ladakh. An out-of-turn shower had ensured that it was not only the engine that shuddered – my entire body was shaking from icy gales that tore down at a merciless angle. Checking into a houseboat on the Dal Lake, today and tomorrow was to clean sparks, check cables and change oil. And scrub myself. The early morning muezzin call

All around me were the soothing grey of calm waters at dusk punctuated by remnants of tree trunks that rose fiercely in a thousand tales. Smack in the middle of the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, this was indeed an Alive is Awesome experience. The Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, widely known as Thekkady, is a 777 sq km tiger reserve, and is among the most popular ones in the country. While most travellers stick to the properties in the periphery of the reserve, unknown to many is an erstwhile palace on

You can bathe in water. But when you bathe in a postcard, it is an Alive is Awesome experience. Frame the Fewa Lake at dawn and you elevate your photography. This picturesque lake is in the valley of Pokhara, 200 km from Kathmandu. The Annapurna range is around you with its several eight-thousanders. On a clear day, the Machhapuchhre throws its fishtail reflection on the shimmering surface of the freshwater lake. Adding to the pervading tranquillity is the world peace pagoda, a Buddhist stupa built by Japanese monk, Nichidatsu Fujii

If politicians do it, the army does it better. Hindi film songs that were paeans to patriots and patriotism bellowed out from half a dozen loud speakers. Tens of thousands swayed, sang, lip synced and grew goose-bumps in unison. The more patriotic lot, actually those who were seated in the front row, sprang up in obeisance to some alien power that possessed them and shuddered off some very violent moves. The Wagah Dance. A stern-looking soldier of Hulk proportions, moustache dangling like a sword, a sheathed dagger that actually upped

It is awesome when you all have to do to touch a rainbow is reach out. At the Tiger Falls in Chakrata, apparently the second highest in India falling from 312 feet, you can actually do that. And with several smaller, shallower pools making for your own private whirlpools, bathing becomes an Alive is Awesome experience. Established over 130 years ago by Colonel Hume of the colonial English Army, Chakrata is a cantonment town in Dehradun district, Himachal Pradesh. This quaint little town is perched between the Tons and Yamuna

A bath that cleanses not just the body but the soul too is awesome. That too when it is surrounded by a 25,000 feet snow-lit massif, then it becomes an Alive is Awesome bathing experience. The Lake Manasarovar in Tibet is also known as Mapham Yum-tso (‘Victorious Lake’) by the locals and is believed to be the source of the four great Indian rivers – the Indus, Ganges, Sutlej and Brahmaputra – as per Hindu and Buddhist cosmology (In truth only the Sutlej originates from here.) Unseen to mortal eyes,