If a Pakistan threat defines J and K, Arunachal is a state that is defined by the China threat. More so, because India lost the only real war that she fought with China, in 1962. The seeds of the dispute lie in the Tawang monastery. During the days when Tibet was ruled from Lhasa, not … Read more

Number of words: 593 I love anything open late at night. Never mind ‘the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations’; even mundane activities like filling up with petrol become enjoyably Edward Hopperish after midnight. Often the places are so quiet you wonder why they bother opening at all. But it is a strange psychological … Read more

Woke up early in the morning at Agra to have a Taj dekko. Met with Rajeev ji, an excellent guide – who used to be a physics teacher earlier. He is almost my age – and he took us through the construction aspects of the Taj in great detail. Akbar’s capital was of his own … Read more

The train journey to reach Varanasi in UP has been a long one – taking me to Andhra Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Punjab. The Railways still run the old First Class compartments on Vizag LTT Express Circular Hostel building at Andhra University Engg College, Vizag Along the way, this time two interactions were quite interesting. I … Read more

The last time I made up my mind to do the Vaishno Devi trek, it rained. We had motorcycled down from Jammu and just after entering the first station, it started raining. Taking it to be a message from the gods that they did not want to see us, we reversed direction, wet like dogs. … Read more

The original plan for the cycle rally was to go from Nagpur to Jabalpur via Chhindwara and Pachmarhi, but it was later on shifted to Pench and Kanha – rebaptising the Satpura Tour into the Tiger Tour. Spotted at Wardha Railway Station: Gandhi’s Cycle ! The group for the first time had a strong female … Read more

The longest train journey that I have done is Guwahati to Nasik. That’s only once. But the Jammu Pune journey and the return has been a regular for me, thanks to my partner in Jammu, Aakash, and also the school that we jointly run there for the last 10 years. My preferred mode of travel … Read more

There are no eternal gurus. There are gurus of the past and there are gurus of the present. I have outgrown many gurus as I grew up, but there is one who I find difficult to match up to: Jugal Rathi. He is the one who got me away from soap a couple of decades … Read more

The biggest districts in India are the ones with the lowest populations. In J & K, an example is Ladakh and in Gujarat, it is Kutch. Both are white deserts, one a frozen one, the other a salted one. Having cycled across the frozen one in 2007, 8 years later we were on the salted … Read more