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

Amdavad Thanks are due to Apurva Bahadur for sharing the stunning glimpses of Amdavad and to friends for accompanying for the food trips. Sidi Sayyed Ni Jali – a very unassuming but confident looking structure - stood at a busy junction. As I put in time looking with awe at its skilled artisanship and caressing its - rough with age – walls I wondered whether it was less than adequately maintained or just adequately used to enable it to be standing thus, more than 400 years after it was constructed. Just across the road stood The House of MG . The structure has been beautifully restored and besides the famed lodging its restaurants too are well known. I went to its recently initiated Textile Gallery which showcases images and textiles of different regions of Gujarat - from Patolas to Ajrakhs. The Gallery’s two rooms are the most exquisitely coloured ones I have been to in recent times. On the same floor stands the elegant Heritage Bookstore. It stocks books on textiles and ...

At Varanasi’s Dhrupad Mela, a celebration of classical music unlike any other in India Thanks are due to the team at First Post. The unedited version placed below. The piece on First Post here . All images by Roshni Subhash. During my trips to Ramnagar for the Ramleela I came across people refer to the performance as Mela – celebration of the epic. On similar lines, this music festival, organized under the auspices of the Banaras Vidya Mandir Nyas, and now in its 45 th year, is known as the ‘Dhrupad Mela’ – a celebration of Dhrupad. Where else to celebrate the oldest existing form of north Indian classical music but in one of the oldest cities in the world?   The entry, like at most music events in town is free, decoration is simple or basic while the artists and connoisseurs mingle ( away from the stage ) after performances. Absence of the west influenced practices for music concerts, read formal and dry, is conspicuous. Shailaja Khanna , during 2018, wrote,...

Kangra’s Toy Train This piece finds place in the Hindu Sunday Magazine here . The unedited version is placed below. Thanks are due to the team at the Hindu Sunday Magazine.  You can take the train if you want to. But do you have the time? This is the question each of those I had mentioned my intention to take the toy-train had asked. I was at Bir and was keen to take the train to Pathankot. Bir invites with its monasteries and cafes. It also presents a sight which few other places do – that of fellow humans fly like birds. It is the paragliding capital of our country. I was keen to experience what Angus McDonald, the person behind ‘India’s Disappearing Railways: A photographic journey’, had referred to as ‘ The most beautiful railway line in the world ’. To ensure zero confusion and confirm the details, a day prior to the journey, I cycled to Ahju. Ahju lies on the narrow guage line that runs from Joginder Nagar to Pathankot and is the station nearest to Bi...

Navjeevan Singh and I share our experience at the Delhi Book Fair. A book (af)fair Some people felt the books with hands, some squat near corners and read, some read random pages and covers, some just flipped and glanced, some took the books closer to their noses, some looked up the books online to figure out more, some looked for books at wrong places, some sought books that weren’t there, some observed other people while some just drifted in and out of the stalls. We were at the Delhi Book Fair. People and more people  Books and more books There were those who had come with large bags having wheels while some had converted baby strollers to book carrying apparatuses. There were people who had come with friends and family, people who had come alone to put in time with books and people who had come to put in time with those they had come along with. Some had done their homework; they were armed with lists. The young appeared to outnumber the old. ...

Title: The Great Himalayan National Park - The Struggle to Save the Western Himalayas Authors: Sanjeeva Pandey and Anthony J Gaston Publisher: Niyogi Books Year of Publication: 2019 ISBN: 978-93-86906-71-7 Number of pages: 364 Number of sections: 15 Price: 1,500/- A new book on the Great Himalayan National Park offers compelling insights into the quest to save the region Thanks are due to the team at First Post . Roughly 15 years ago, during a workshop organized for reviewing conservation projects, after an engaging speech, the presenter (a forest department officer) was asked “ This all is great, but what of the National Park and the project after you? What do you tell the people in the villages? ”. “ I tell them not to trust the Forest Department ” was the response. The capturing presentation and striking response were my first introduction to Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) and Sanjeeva Pandey. Two treks in GHNP in recent years, have left m...

Bring your own tiffin box Thanks are due to the team at The Hindu EDGE . Of course none of this would have been possible without the younger ones, colleagues and our trip-partner. “All of us will take 2 empty bottles and 2 empty tiffin boxes during the trip ”, - we shared along with details concerning warm clothes, footwear and so on. Bottles for water were fine but tiffin boxes for food! “ What is the need? ” said the looks on half of the younger faces! Leisurely walk  We were planning the annual trip for one of our classes at school – this time a trek in the Garhwal Himalayas – and were keen to do better than what we had ended up doing during the previous year , especially on the sustainability front. One sore sight had been disposal of packing material for food – this included paper, plastic and aluminium foil. A group of 40 during a 16 hour rail journey itself has the potential to generate a substantial load of trash . For this trip, we used our tiffin boxe...

Schools beyond textbooks Title: Not just Grades – Schools That Educate Differently Author: Rajeev Sharma Publishers: Portfolio Penguin -An imprint of Penguin Random House IIM Ahmedabad Books Number of Pages: 389 Price: 599/- Published in Teacher Plus’ February 2019 issue. Thanks are due to the team at Teacher Plus . The preface and introduction are clear and concise. They convey what the book is all about and whom it caters to. Schools, the book tells us, are not free of the social and political contexts they are located in. Like children, they have a life beyond textbooks. This is the life the book focuses on. More than a book which talks of ‘schools that educate differently’, this is a book about school leadership. A book meant for practitioners, which addresses the need of the hour. The language is simple, direct and free of jargon. It will not only help school leaders and aspiring school leaders to avoid reinventing the wheel but also to raise questi...