Heart to Heart

  Go Goa Goa is synonymous with feni and fun. Its beaches and iconic churches have a magical pull that attracts tourists in hordes. The very mention of its name tickles your heart and gives you a dopamine rush. Nostalgia strikes you at once, and you fall into a reverie recalling your old ‘educational’ tours to Goa with your classmates, which were less about education and more about wild and reckless revelry. It was as if you had been briefly set free from your iron cages of patriarchy and insularity to touch the skies and let the golden sun warm the cockles of your shy, sullen heart. Inhaling the free Goan air, wading through the sands and frolicking with sea waves, splashing water at each other and pulling your sea-shy friends a bit deeper, you felt the throbbings of what ‘freedom’ is all about. For us young, land-locked northerners it was like being on some kind of ‘temptation island’. Emboldened by its sensuous sea-breeze, and merry festive ambience everywhere, you gave your i...

  Jamshedpur diary                                                                                 With the newlyweds  For those of us northerners ensconced in the hills and vales of Himachal, and accustomed to making occasional sorties to Chandigarh, Punjab or Delhi, the prospect of a travel to the northeast evokes a sense of eager anticipation. My maiden October-end Jamshedpur trip (for a wedding though) felt quite so, even if tad less exciting than, say, travelling to the pristine and remoter Meghalaya or Arunachal Pradesh.   A 4-lane highway (NH 43) cuts through the terrain between Ranchi and Jamshedpur. On either side are vast vistas of paddy fields to soothe your weary eyes, being cradled by mother nature to yield a bountiful harvest for th...

  Trip to Kullu                                                The Chandra, Lahaul In the first week of October, while nymphet autumn, with a sunny but shy grin, was wrapping my Palampur valley in its ruddy pristine charm, we – the ageing duo of husband and wife – set off to the  apple-valley Kullu for a wedding.   The NHAI, past Mandi, has made travel easy. But at what terrible  cost – both financially and ecologically – is not hard to fathom. However, the winding kilometers  between Joginder Nagar to Mandi continue to be a pain in the arse. Abandoned, neglected, forsaken,  and left to the mercy of the gods and weather, this pitiable road-stretch seems like no one’s baby; a  poor  orphan. Despite the widening, and new state-of-the-art tunnels that make the famous Atal tunnel pale in comparison, the massive landslides, mountain...