yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

This post shares a piece published in Deccan Herald on 20 th October 2015. Thanks are due to Anitha Pailoor, Deccan Herald , Dharmendra Khandal , Firoz Ahmed and Priya Singh . Reports of a golf course coming up in the township of the Numaligarh Refinery Limited in Numaligarh near Kaziranga National Park in Assam created ripples and troubled many; some also regarded it as one of the ‘regular’ depressing news on the wildlife conservation front. Why - one wonders though - does a Miniratna Public Sector Unit need an arena for a sport usually associated with the elite, that too within a ‘No Development Zone’. Golf courses are ‘infamous’ for their water guzzling abilities; an average 18 hole course’s annual water consumption can fill up approximately 130 – 140 Olympic sized swimming pools. To add fuel to the proverbial fire, pesticides are applied in golf courses at higher concentrations than almost any other type of land; and their extensive use could contaminate waterways and d

The Heat and Dust Project: The broke couple’s guide to Bharat Devapriya Roy & Saurav Jha HarperCollins Publishers: 2015 Book and its pluses The first time I read of the book it came like a breath of fresh air with its stress on a lower budget ( and as a corollary – in most cases – lower carbon foot-print ). Especially when, all around, one comes across avenues to spend more. The second time I read of the book I got a picture of the book being about a couple’s trip. Which it is; but it is also about much more. It acquaints us with the past and present of authors and the places, it tells us of people in these places, bonds developed during travel and excitement – challenges – perks of travelling on a budget and more. G K Chesterton wrote: Traveler sees what he sees and a tourist sees what he goes to see. This is, by all means, a lovely travel narrative. Authors walk the streets, move in buses, climb hills, have meals and conversations with locals eat at s

This post shares a piece which appears in Sanctuary Asia – October 2015 issue - Mountain Musings.  We stands for Arpan and I. The trek - like most that is good in life -happened by chance and we have since been on a trek in GHNP again! Thanks and more thanks are due to Sanju (and colleagues) for being together along the treks and bearing our eccentricities, Stephan and team at Himalayan Ecotourism for enabling the trek and Sanjeeva Pandey for GHNP as it is and more. One after another, six Himalayan Vultures came into view as we sat in the large balcony of a small hotel adjacent to the river. They kept close to the hill side, appearing exceptionally stunning against the blue sky. The vultures did not perch even once in the half an hour that we spent watching them, more than once adjusting our own positions to their movements. I felt as if I could lie on my back and watch them soar for all eternity. They seemed to share that sense of freedom; a longing for great expanses an