Goan Rain

My third trip but a first during the monsoons. For a water baby like me, it was just..Heaven!

Wet green blades of the coconut trees, vision
The hum of the sea, sound
The fresh whiff of the earth, smell
Drops of pure rain melting on my skin, touch
The welcoming tang of the imli sweets... taste

Ohhh... A brutal attack to all the five senses! A mere photograph will not give you the same feel.
Just imagine it.

There for just two days, camping in the quiet of the South, the Goa I remember during the film festival (IFFI) is a different world.

Women working in fours in the brimming rice fields, not a soul disturbing the wild wild sea...so different from the touristy Goa we all see.

That’s the pleasure of travel, going to the same place, three times over, but discovering a completely different world each time...

A gift, I’ll treasure in all my travels.

Roads oft Travelled

Trying to get myself to sleep last night, I got this random thought (one of the zillion, I'am sure you’ll agree) – A thought that life seems like a series of roads – roads we travel by to the destinations we have to reach.

Let me explain.
Starting from base camp – Mumbai.
Mumbai’s pot holed roads. Tell me, sometimes doesn’t life get way too bumpy, so bumpy that your eyes stray into the rare view mirror and say, “Hey, this has to be Mumbai??”

Or talk about some stomach lurching bends – everything’s going awesome, your friends are back, great job, a promise of something lovely and then – a steep hairpin bend – am back to the roads of Ladakh!

A synonym, a metaphor, but life sure seems like the roads we travel by...

Happiness..pure bliss – like the Mumbai-Pune express way! A new beginning in a relationship or friendship – like the mystery of an undefined forest trail, a dirt track – like the first question to a terrible exam paper... you see the metaphor emerge!

They indeed are, Roads oft Travelled..

Dying for a Road Trip

So the thing is, I am almost done with my course, the PGDM in Mass Com, and the first obvious thing that comes to my mind is - I have to go, some where any where, my favourite pace in the word may be - Leh, or a road trip down south may be - right up to the tip - Kanyakumari!

That feeling you get as you step into the Rajdhani knowing its your first step to reach the crisp chill in the hills..

Packing your brand new Woodlands for the trek up north and comfortable in the security of their 'I will never fail you' message.

Wow, I miss taking off! After two years of studying(ok, I admit lots of lukhagiri too)everyone's worried about placements, a good paypackage, etc. etc. But I just wanna go. Continue my travels, photograph, write, and travel some more..

Any Godfather out there willing to sponsor this child's dream?

Seriously.

Travel to Rogue Countries

"Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of the popular Lonely Planet travel guides who recently published a book on his travels to nine rogue nations he labelled 'bad lands' told the trend reflects travellers growing desire to visit places few others have been to before."
Thus went a quote in an article I read recently in the TOI. It is quite topical and interesting considering the amount of trouble most such countries are in right now thus generating constant news footage and therefore getting a lot of free visual space on Prime Time news.

It affected me for sure, i.e, I bagged a four day Taj package to Sir Lanka a while back and I said, why not? My Experiences on a trip to Sri Lanka and the beauty I witnessed, even though the bomb blast just minutes before we arrived was a little unnerving. Nevertheless, the country caught my curiosity.
So the moment I read in the papers that Prabhakaran's HQ has been captured by Sri Lankan commandos, it seemed like a crazy buy apt idea to head back there.

That's the kind of trip that really brings the zing in travel! Just a thought.

Goa: Off the Trail

When in Goa the next time, quit lazing around in the shacks on the beaches, try out the DoodhSagar Falls, India's second highest waterfalls located almost on the border of Goa and Karnataka. There is no better place to christen yourself with an appetizing shot of cashew fenni than the spice farms in Goa. Its not all about the beaches you know!
Cheers!

Back to Ladakh

You know, there are times when you yearn for something, but somehow you feel guilty for wanting it, I don’t know why but throughout last year I yearned to travel again...
...again to Ladakh.

This was after my first visit with the army to Kargil, three years ago. Back then, with the tight schedule the army had planned for us, there was very little time we could spend going to the remote places that this mountainous desert was famous for.

So here I was, flying back.


Ladakh welcomes you even before you land. You’re flying high above snow covered peaks and suddenly a rage of mud brown mountains soar in front of you giving you a peek into the lush green valleys sprinkled below.

Like in the movies, there was no music of triumph but goose bumps galore - trying to register the fact that I was finally there.

I was there with an almost selfish motive – to get over my photographer’s block – a sudden incapacitation lasting two terrible years that stopped me from clicking. I had heard of a lake in particular – Pangong Lake and I made that the central theme of my visit this time.


There was much more I discovered on the way; which is a beautiful side effect of travelling.

Apart from the crazy adventure on my way to the lake (which would need another entry in this blog) witnessing a now modern commercialised Leh market was a little unnerving. Seeing people of other origins owning jewelery stores and the local Tibetan/Ladakhi women sinking deep in poverty, begging on the streets or selling their meager wares made me think...

...they were better off without us, aliens to their culture, their traditions, their peace.

Peace, a kind of magnetic spiritual culture, one which any one from any part of the world is attracted to.

Kid lamas in red robes,
Revolving prayer wheels,
The flutter of a prayer flag,It’s unbound threads becoming one with the wind,
chanting the magical Om Mane Padme Hum.


There is something about the silence of this place,
serene but not quite,
pristine but not quite,
magical but not quite,
maybe the not quite comes from the ‘not quite’ within me...