Goa Diaries 1 Being in Goa in the monsoons is always uplifting. The pouring rain every few hours, the luxuriant greenery growing wildly, the sea all grey and foamy and the absence of shacks and tourist paraphernalia makes it my favourite time of the year to visit. The village I…

In our house everyone is a Potterhead. Harry Potter and the folks at Hogwarts have influenced and inspired us and we have each grown up with Harry. The stories are funny, adventure-filled and deeply inspirational, the premises and characters often drawn from myth and life-truths. The series chronicles a long-drawn…

If you are standing at the edge of Europe and are looking towards Asia, and a bridge is visible across blue waters as boats cross your line of vision, you are likely standing in the city of many names — Istanbul. Byzantium,Constantinople, Istanbul. Once the capital of the Eastern Roman…

says Calvin. I was in the place of my dreams. Tabo, a tiny village in the heart of the rugged moonscape of Spiti Valley. At 11,000 feet the air felt thin, a rarity in its texture, sharpened by the crisp knife-edge of winds of a cold-desert. The power had gone…

There is a mysterious place high up on Alpine pastures of northern Italy, where witches roam. Its called Alpe de Siusi. Jagged, fang toothed and bare mountains of dolomitic limestone brood over the emerald green prairies and a walk along those trails is riddled with magic. The Schlern mountain, Sciliar…

My tv screen blinked and flashed as the credits rolled. I had just finished yet another evening of pandemic-induced OTT entertainment and today was a cult classic — Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”. Uma Thurman as The Bride, on a revenge frenzy against those responsible for leaving her for dead. …

Have you heard of a place called Nuuk? To me it sounded like a place in the craggy mountains where seabirds nest. When I looked it up on the internet, it turned out to be a colourful, modern town — the capital of Greenland. A year has gone by when…

(or just your own) The plains of Kurukshetra were agog with the smell of war. Tents had been pitched on either end of the battlefield. Weapons had been readied and the war-horses pounded their hooves in impatience in their stables as twilight fell over the last day of peace before war-cry. The Pandavs and…

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,