Windy Skies

The Mystery Woman

2009-11-06T02:19:00.000-08:00

I have no idea how long she’s been there, nor how she came to be there and I know even little of why she’s there, sitting on a platform by the road, surprising travelers as they round the bend on their way elsewhere.The red of her blouse accentuates the sky blue of her sari, and on cheerful days she might as well have stripped a length off the blue skies overhead before wrapping herself with it.

The Devil’s Fragrance

2009-11-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

Returning late one night last month I stepped out of the rickshaw and into the familiar glaze of sodium vapour lights. Skipping puddles on the road I made for the invisible footpath to shelter from the light drizzle under trees that merged into dark outlines of brooding leaves, beyond the seeming warmth of sodium.I was not carrying an umbrella having delighted in the sunshine of preceding days.

A Vermillion Morning

2009-10-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Udupi, 2009.In the song of a worn stoneFloating in the silence of timeAn ancient temple speaks,Of how the enduring faithLent the awakening sunshineThe melody of a vermillion morning.

The Bridge At Corjuem

2009-10-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Like with most things in Goa the bridge at Corjuem revealed itself as we rounded a bend in the road we had ridden over from Aldona. The road ran on to Quitla while we turned right before slowing down on the approach to the cable-stayed bridge over the river Mapusa at Corjuem (Khorjuem).Earlier in the evening while passing through Carona on our way to Aldona we rode down a gentle slope that ran

A Buffalo Gets A Bath

2009-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Buffaloes love their bath. They love water, more so if it is muddy. Then they can roll in the mud until the mud can roll no more.There’re folks who assign buffaloes the capability of thought. I do not dispute their ability to entertain thought, but to say that buffaloes revel in mud baths to keep ticks and flies away is stretching it too far. It might well be true, the effect of keeping ticks and

A Sunday Morning in Chandor

2009-10-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

At Guirdolim we waited at the railway crossing for the train to roar past before continuing on our way to the village square dominated by the Nossa Senhora de Belem Church as it rises over the countryside in Chandor, once known as Chandrapura, the ancient capital of Goa during the reign of the Kadambas in 11th century A.D.Most know the church as Chandor Church. And most know Chandor for the

Coloured Worlds at Cymroza Art Gallery

2009-09-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

Bus number 63 operates between Chunabhatti in Kurla and J.M. Mehta Road near Churchgate. The Breach Candy Hospital lies enroute. We could have boarded the bus outside Byculla (West) railway station but chose to hire a taxi instead for Bhulabhai Desai Road, a little under five kilometers from Byculla (W) station. Located in Hormuz Mansion, the Cymroza Art Gallery is across the road from the Breach

The Doctor is Out

2009-09-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

Except on Sundays Dr. K. S. Porwal opens his clinic opposite Digvijay Textile Mills in Lalbaug at ten each morning, leaving for lunch at 1 p.m. before returning to reopen it at six in the evening, continuing until nine in the night before retiring home. Thursday evenings are an exception. He does not return to the clinic. On Sundays it remains closed all day.His clinic is on the ground floor of

Sunshine, and Good Times

2009-08-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

At a little over ten in the morning two elderly gentlemen dismount their bicycles outside Sunshine Bar in an old locality in Panaji. It is Friday morning. In the warmth of October sunshine they’ve cycled through a narrow road flanked on either side by Portuguese era homes to keep their rendezvous with the King Of Good Times.

Premier Padmini, The Workhorse

2009-08-09T01:23:00.000-07:00

Murad Panjwani shifted in his seat and leaned over for a peek at the preview screen in the seconds after I had leaned out of his brand new Japanese model taxi and clicked the overloaded Fiat to our left. I had asked Murad to slow his taxi down as it drew parallel to the black and yellow Fiat cab leaving the Dadar vegetable market on Senapati Bapat Marg with more load than it was ever designed to

Talacauvery, Stairway to the Heavens

2009-07-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

No one told me there was a stairway in the Brahmagiri hills that led up to the heavens, to the gods, well almost.The most I had imagined of Talacauvery when we left Bhagamandala for the hills was a pilgrim centre not very different from the many dotting the countryside, drawing urgent pilgrim feet into traveling long distances to pay obeisance as much to the deity as to the faith of their

Water Woes

2009-06-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

I opened the newspaper today to news that water supply to the city might be restricted to every alternate day unless the south-west monsoons drop their load on the streets soon. The Met department would like us to believe that it may not rain as much this time around. I cannot be sure though.Last week saw one heavy burst that brought parts of the city to a standstill before weakening to

The Painted Day

2009-06-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Kala Ghoda, Bombay. 2009.When life throws a palette of colours your wayStep away from the wind.For, if it is too strong as it will likely be,The colours will blur quickly into one.And where you could have painted your day brightlyIt will now shiver in the bleakness of none!

The Palmist

2009-06-10T02:34:00.001-07:00

Mumbai, 2009The future you trace in the sands of time,Will tempt the waves into washing over it.Instead, let the ocean embrace you,And I will show you how to ride the waves of life itself.

The Masjid-e-Ala in Srirangapatna

2009-06-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

I could’ve passed by the open door oblivious to its significance if not for the two towering minarets that rose from behind the high walls along a path hewn from the earth not far from where the Bangalore Gate of Tipu Sultan’s fort in Srirangapatna lay.From the street the door parted on young children in kurta pajamas, mostly white, and skull caps moving about the open courtyard fronting a

Leaves Of Life

2009-05-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

In the early hours of the morning before the sky lights up over the horizon the city wakes up to urgent feet scrambling to make their rendezvous with street-side markets in Dadar, and elsewhere.Fisherwomen hugging baskets of fish board local trains on their way to suburban fish markets along Central and Western railway lines that bisect the city into ‘West’ and ‘East’ sections. They must start

Vintage and Classic Cars Rally at Nariman Point

2009-04-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

In the distance Gopilal Sharma appeared nondescript among the others, featureless in the bright white uniforms of chauffeurs waiting their turn by the vintage cars to the back of the line along the sweep of Marine Drive in South Bombay last week.Gopilal Sharma had ridden Ajaypat Singhania’s 1956 Mercedes 300 to the rally and reveled in the attention it was drawing from curious onlookers.Across

The Innocence of an Evening

2009-03-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

When I look at this picture now and reflect on the fate that befell the pigeons that used to gather across the road from The Taj Mahal Hotel before the terrorists struck Mumbai the night of November 26 last year, I try not to think of whether this particular pigeon made it through the night of carnage. I like to believe she survived the night.Early one evening several months before the terrorist

Butterfly Morning in Mollem

2009-03-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

If it wasn’t for the frog that I was chasing across the stream with my camera we might never have discovered the tiny sandbank hidden from view by trees along the turn the stream took before cutting through the wildlife sanctuary at Mollem, 56 kms. off Panaji and bordering Karnataka State to the east. And we wouldn’t have seen the Common Map Butterfly (Cyrestis thyodamas).Much of the stream along

A Holy Bath in the Tirumala Hills

2009-03-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

On my way to the shrine to Ganga (India’s holiest river) at Papavinasanam I avoided looking in the direction of little Ramu while he pranced around his handler lest I pause and let the little fellow inveigle me with his charms and delay my schedule. I have difficulty in telling the age of a monkey just by looking at its face excepting of course when they’re newly born and only a few days

A Riverside Inn

2009-03-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Finding no one around to hear her out the old lady turned to me and said, “I asked him for tea. He hasn’t brought it yet.” Then she turned to face the youth she had come with, possibly someone she knew from the village or maybe her relative. He stood near the door talking into the mouthpiece of a yellow coloured coin phone resting on a narrow table that also doubled up as a shelf, and a counter.

Best Travelogue Nomination in the Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009

2009-02-25T03:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you for nominating Windy Skies in the Best Travelogue category in the first ever Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009.Lonely Planet released the top five nominees in each of the 14 categories from the nominations received, and I’m thrilled to find this blog listed in the top five nominees in the Best Travelogue category.Public voting opens today, and will count towards 50% in the judging,

A Shrine On The Streetside, Faith On The Inside

2009-02-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

It is a warm feeling and it does not come from the early morning sunshine alone.In a narrow Bombay lane an old lady makes her way across the road from her hut at the break of dawn. Clutching a matchbox, some oil for a lamp, water in a steel utensil to wash the stone slab with, and a damp piece of cloth, she walks uncertainly across the narrow road to the footpath opposite. There, affixed to the

Second Chance

2009-02-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

A Second Chance in Bombay. 2009.

Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009

2009-02-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

Lonely Planet is closing nominations for its first ever Travel Blog Awards tomorrow, February 18, midday Melbourne time.For quite sometime now travel blogs have come to inhabit the Social Media space in a niche of their own, bringing stories and images from around the world, and opening up trails less known, and connecting with their readers.Here’s an opportunity to nominate your favourite travel