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Travel

Shanghai Expo

May 20, 2010

Vikas Swarup, author of Slumdog Millionaiore, was quoted in the Shanghai Daily, that the Indian pavilion at the Expo is “stunning,” so I went there first. That author is a career diplomat now located in Japan, and he writes (he says) to fulfill an urge to use his talent. At the Indian pavilion the line [...]

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trifling with history in Halebid

March 17, 2010

Two minutes before arriving in Halebid a farm came up, its house painted in pink and green fluorescent colors completely foreign to this region, but our eyes were drawn beyond the startling walls of the house to a mound shaped like the smooth top of a giant sarcophagus fifty meters behind the house. The mound, [...]

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Chasing the Race

October 1, 2009

He was pleasant and made good conversation, and for a Singaporean manager, seemed quite easy, there was not that brusqueness about him. He is determined to source a range of aerospace components from India; for which he will open his office in Hyderabad by January. “You will be our first source,” he said, showing more [...]

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the taxi from Farmington to Hartford

September 12, 2009

Image via Wikipedia Omar’s “executive” taxi was long and clean and smelt sweet inside. It was Friday, and he wore a crisp Moroccan kaftan for the mosque. He is Egyptian. I would have called him for the return trip from Farmington, but my customer wanted to help and she organized the return. I watched this [...]

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up and down the bosphorus

July 4, 2009

At the pier everyone held back, knowing to be polite, but in the tension and the poise you could see that each wished everyone out of the way, and all suppressed (or didn’t have the strength for) the urge to push the rest to the edge and out. The woman behind me sneezed, and my [...]

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The great travelers

June 15, 2009

Travels with my Briefcase was strongly recommended to me last fortnight, and I’m not disappointed. Also A Short Walk in the Kindukush, which I’m now reading, and I’m laughing every few passages. But I have to reconcile myself to this style of writing which, while it recounts enviable adventure, also looks derisively at the host—the [...]

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Mauritius : about honoring past heroes

August 17, 2008

Port Louis is a small capital city, but it is the most beautiful capital I’ve seen. Most of Port Louis lies in a palm-cusp formed by mountains, suggesting a city being held out to the sea, as an offering to it. It is a city founded by Europeans and its citizens today are descendants of [...]

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Mauritius: Arrival

July 23, 2008

From the window of the plane I saw a rainbow appear. It was at first a short stroke across the top of a hill, and soon it was a dazzling arch straddling the hills, a part of the ocean, neatly marked cane fields, and large haphazard pockets of water. The plane passed it over a [...]

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to Mauritius

July 19, 2008

I like to enjoy the sea without getting my hands and feet wet (though I can swim a little, in freestyle, the breast stroke, and I’d once succeeded to do the butterfly). Of course, once my hands and feet are wet I go all the way, but I try hard to be dry. I like [...]