Day 1 Started from Pune by the Intercity Express, which has a Thane stop instead of the normal Kalyan one. Caught a fast local at Thane to go to Kurla. Kurla (W) is an extension of Dharavi The station road is quite narrow, to the extent that only autos and two wheelers ply on these … Read more

In J and K, the Line of Control is different from the Line of Actual Control. The former defines the real border with Pakistan, the latter with China. Our nation’s optimistic politic rarely makes us see the real cartography of our nation. Here is how the country’s borders really look like: Cycled up to Panjtirthi … Read more

Spice jet recently started a direct flight from Pune to Kochi – which is what tempted to make a short trip to say hi to Manoj Thomas, who was holidaying in Kottayam, 100 km south of Kochi. Nowadays it is fun to use the Compass google app – it works in the plane! We started … Read more

Tourism and Riding have always been combined in our long distance cycle rallies. Combining it for a short ride was something that my friend Giri suggested the other day. So we started off at 0530 hrs. Not sure whether the decision to go via old Mumbai Pune road was a good one, because the traffic … Read more

We started at 0715 hrs from Sachin Kher’s place. Sachin’s company – Alten Expert Global – is helping Mukesh’s NGO with some of their Karjat projects. We left the expressway at the Khalapur exit – and then went under the expressway towards Karjat. We joined the old Pune Mumbai highway and had a breakfast pit-stop … Read more

Breakfast was a smoothie, followed by self made gajar ka halwa. Usually I do my dessert experiments at night, but wanted to gift the younger daughter something sweet before I left, hence the early morning kitchen duty. Cycled to the mandai to buy 3 kg oranges and 2 kg guava. Reached Town hall, off Tilak … Read more

If you look at Google Maps and trace a straight line between Pune and Nasik, you realise that there is a route, slightly shorter than the highway route, running through village roads. In the 20 years that I have been going to Nasik on work trips, I have never ventured outside of the highway. Abki … Read more

Took a bla bla cab to Mumbai at 0615 hours from agricultural college chowk. The driver, Irfan, was a very interesting guy. He works in a placement agency during the weekdays, recruiting investment bankers. And drives the cab over weekends, typically on the Ghatkopar Pune route. Irfan was a Gulfie for sometime, before deciding to … Read more

1. The Reva is essentially a city car – she loves city traffic and jams. So taking it on a 500 km highway trip from its old Akola home to its new Pune home was an interesting adventure. In a long distance trip, the constraint is having a town which is approximately 100 km from … Read more

The Humsafar express is a new train by the Indian Railways, a fully AC train, with newer coaches and a premium flexi-pricing. There are no ticket concessions available on this train. Flexi-pricing has led to an increase in revenue, but a fall in occupancy. Would be an interesting study for an economics student – studying … Read more