Photography

Ladakh: Nature’s Eloquent SIlence

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A trip to Ladakh leaves many a visitors breathless and not just because of its high altitude location. In an ephemeral moment of truce, when the cool breeze lets you rejuvenate your thoughts long lost to the battles of daily routine, a perchance to dream, a sense of being afloat on wings of imagination and suddenly you realize you need to breathe too. It’s just like in songs, ‘a flight of fancy on the windswept fields’ when you are standing alone and your senses reel. The attraction in Ladakh can be fatal especially when emotions are involved. When you are in Ladakh all you wish for is to capture its reality and here in the overwhelming vastness even reality turns out to be abstract.

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Kinnaur-The land of apples (Part 2)

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After about two and a half hours we reached Reckong Peo,or Peo, as it is popularly known. Peo is situated at an altitude of around 2200 metres above sea level and is at the base of the Kinner Kailash massif. From here, Kalpa was a short 20 minute drive and by lunch time we reached Kalpa. Our plan was to halt at the PWD rest house, which turned out to be a cottage with an excellent view of the mountains. Staying in Kalpa can be compared to living in the lap of nature. Overlooking the Kinner Kailash range, this is one of the most picturesque  hill stations one can ever visit. This quaint town was once the headquarters of Kinnaur district before it was replaced  by Reckong Peo. The collector’s office has now been taken over by the HP Irrigation Department while the old SP office is now a small police outpost. The old building of the District Hospital is visible behind the new building of a recently constructed Primary Health Centre.  From Kalpa, one can spot the famous Shiva Linga, nestled in the middle of the Kinner Kailash massif. It is a 2 day trek from Kalpa for the strong and sturdy.

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गढ़वाल घुमक्कडी: रुद्रप्रयाग – कार्तिक स्वामी – कर्णप्रयाग

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उपर के नज़ारों ने शरीर को तरो ताज़ा कर दिया था, इसलिए उतरते वक्त ज़्यादा समय नही लगा और उतरते ही पैदल यात्रा आरंभ. कुछ एक किलोमीटर ही चले थे कि दोस्तों को थकान लगने लगी, सोचा चलो जो साधन मिल जाए आगे तक उसी मे चल पड़ेंगे. अब चलते चलते हर एक आगे जाने वाली गाड़ी को हाथ दिखाकर रोकने की कोशिश करते रहे, पर सब बेकार. किस्मत से थोड़ी देर बाद एक ट्रक आता हुआ दिखाई दिया, आधे मन से इसे हाथ दिखाया और ये क्या! ट्रक तो थोड़ा आगे जाकर रुक ही गया था.

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Wanderings in South Goa.

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You are really spoilt for choice when it comes to restaurants in Goa. Besides the beach shacks, where you can sit on the sands and gaze out at the sea, sipping on a drink, while waiting an hour or two for your meal to arrive, there are many restaurants inland which also serve excellent food at very reasonable rates. There is a fusion of East and West, Portugese and Indian, meat and vegetables, which makes Goan cuisine unique. Coconut is used liberally, along with other Indian spices in the cooking. ‘Fish curry rice’ is the most common food and available virtually in every restaurant. The different types of seafood on offer in Goa includes pomfret, kingfish, ladyfish, mackerel, tuna, shark, crab, prawn, lobster, squid and mussels. Chicken, pork, mutton and beef dishes are also on offer at all the restaurants, cooked in the popular Goan flavours such as vindaloo, balchao, recheado, xhacuti and caldin.
We had already planned that we would include at least one meal out at a shack or restaurant in our daily sight-seeing itinerary. One precaution we always took was to carry our own drinking water if we did not want to order a drink, or pay for a bottle of branded mineral water.

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ब्रज यात्रा – बरसाना गोवर्धन मथुरा वृन्दावन

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निधिवन, यमुना घाट और अन्य मंदिरों के दर्शन के बाद हमने अपने होटल से प्रस्थान किया और चल दिए वापस फरीदाबाद की ओर ! इस बार वृन्दावन आने का आनंद ही कुछ ओर रहा ! हम दिल्ली के आस पास के लोग एक ही दिन में वृन्दावन आना जाना कर लेते हैं, पर मैं समझता हूँ की एक दो रात यहाँ रुके तो बात कुछ ओर ही हो !

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देल्ली – कोट्द्वार सड़क विवरण – मंदिर दर्शन – नदी के किनारे पिकनिक – सुल्ताना डाकू का किला – गढ़ मुक्तेश्वर

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यह सचित्र लेख आपको ले जायेगा कोटद्वार, बिजनौर गंगा बैराज होते हुए, और देल्ली वापस लायेगा गढ़ मुक्तेश्वर के बैराज होते हुए! साथ में आप जानेंगे नजीबाबाद के सुल्ताना डाकू के किले के बारे में भी!

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Of Seven Capitals and New Delhi: Chapter III – Mehrauli

Of Seven Capitals and New Delhi: Chapter III – Mehrauli

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The urge to talk about Mehrauli Archaeological Park is literally irresistible now. After weeks of traveling and researching over the internet and books, I could not but wonder whether this is the most architecturally and historically rich places in the world. Turning the pages of history brings alive every alley and stone of Mehrauli area with a vigor which I had never ever imagined in wildest of my dreams as I passed through these streets over last several years I have been in Delhi.

Mehrauli is the site of plethora of monuments, so much so that a sense of history and legends pervade every lane and even stones, for here lived kings, sultans, generals, warriors, saints and monks. Prehistoric tales associate Mehrauli with the descendents of the Pandavas. Later it saw the building of Lal Kot, a bastion of the first real city of Delhi whose archaeological proof could be found. Then it became the dominion of legendary Rajput warrior prince Pritviraj indelibly ingrained in Hindu courtly love tradition. Qila Rai Pithora was witness to the glory of Prithviraj Chauhan who was later defeated in Second Battle of Tarain by Ghauri, whereupon the latter’s death, his slave Qutubdin Aibak made Mehrauli his capital and the Sultans and emperors who followed him ruled from there.

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Of Seven Capitals and New Delhi: Chapter II – Hauz Khas Village Complex

Of Seven Capitals and New Delhi: Chapter II – Hauz Khas Village Complex

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Walking down the alleys of history, the road – Delhi Metro to be more precise – led me to Hauz Khas on an unbelievable Sunday. I say unbelievable because of the stunning clear blue sky which is a rare sight in Delhi especially during winter. Hauz Khas Village is part of many capitals but is best known as important site for: Siri and Firuzabad, with Siri being the third capital city and Firuzabad the fifth official capital and last of the Sultanate of Delhi.

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Sultanpur National Park: Pathos for a Sitting Duck

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The marshland appeared more like grassland with bushes blocking the way everywhere. There were more grazing cattle inside than birds – I mean the birds which were supposed to be there according to the article. The ambience inside the park was more allusive to the Eliot’s Wasteland than the Wordsworth Tintern Abbey. You must be thinking I am totally nuts…talking like this :-) Well the thing is that I am writing this line on a few miles away from Sultanpur National Park, on revisiting the banks of “not quite” marshlands of the park and 15 months had passed since my last visit to this one time birder’s paradise.

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Ghumakkar Insights – Camera-derie

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Browsing through old albums is one of those things that bring unalloyed joy. Be it the wedding pictures of my parents, the pictures from my birthdays and rice ceremony, the pictures of us as we grew up, or the pictures from that first trip to Puri and Vizag, I could spend hours browsing through memories left decades back in some forgotten alleys of time.

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