By the time the beautiful Barna Borat, our hostess in the air, smiled her customary goodbye at the drenched Guwahati airport, we had had enough of the clouds. The ATR from Kolkata was a bit scarier than the usual air journeys. Turbulence, the captain had said as I was reliving childhood fantasies where clouds shaped into snow castles, prancing unicorns, landing eagles and fighting demons. Then we proceeded to the house of clouds - Meghalaya. Guwahati is the sole gateway to the north-eastern states, linked to the rest of India by the 20-kilometre-wide Siliguri Corridor sandwiched by Nepal a [View Full Entry]

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‘At least 199 killed in heat wave in Andhra Pradesh in the past week’ read a story in Tuesday’s newspaper. Resting in Bangalore after two days of travel in Andhra Pradesh, we sighed, “It could have been 202, including the three of us.” Four days later, in Kochi, we were to read another report, ‘Krishnagiri-Kolar hooch death toll crosses 100’, and thank our stars for still being able to see each other. After four days on the road - sleeping on open terrace, train berths, inside and atop rickety buses - the hard bed in a lodge in Dharmapuri was a [View Full Entry]

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They say there are eight traditional gateways to the Mallikarjuna Temple in Srisailam. At dusk, we were looking for any. All buses out of this remote temple town were full. Taxis were unheard of on this hill in this season. We wanted to go to Kurnool. But we were ready to go anywhere provided we got seats. Then the advice came: “Upar baitna, aaram se.” The bus driver was recommending a crazy journey, atop the bus! Mark Tully was prophetic in naming his book, 'No full stops in India'. We buy three tickets to Kurnool, hum movie songs featuring bus-top sequences [View Full Entry]

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“I was full of gratitude,” I tried to recount my experience two days after we returned from Agasthyarkoodam. Our thighs, calves and soles were still stiff, but our minds wandering over the breezy mountain. “We should have spent more time on the summit. It was an energy field,” said Nazeeb. “I felt like flying in the hard cold wind. My mind was weightless,” said Sunil. The three of us made a pact to go there every year. We wouldn’t even think of it 24 hours ago, when an imaginary elephant waited at every bend in the dark road and an imaginary [View Full Entry]

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Red eyes and white fangs are everywhere. Deft artists paint terrifying patterns on pieces of spathe spread all over the courtyard, car porch and living room. Santhosh Kaviyur led me through the kitchen door into the house to meet the host, Mohan, who quickly invited us to dinner with the artists. The family has had an offering to sponsor this year’s Padayani at the Kaviyur Sri Bhagavathi Temple. Mohan’s mother, wife and daughters are busy taking care of the guests. It’s already past 9 in the night and any time the performers will be here to take the masks and paraphernalia [View Full Entry]

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As I reach the Sri Krishna Temple in Thiruvananthapuram with Renjith Chandran, his anxious relatives were waiting for us. We have only 40 minutes to complete the ritualistic packing and set out to Sabarimala. Hari and Reji, our fellow-pilgrims, are already there with all the material we would need on our journey. We have to start before 3 pm, when rahukalam starts. Nothing is done when Rahu, the mythical planet, is aligned with Sun. The packing (kettunira) has to start with me, the first-timer. But there is a veteran pilgrim called guruswamy to guide me. I pour ghee into an emptied [View Full Entry]

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But for the long tusks, the elephant is successfully camouflaged. Its huge black body merged into the darkness of the woods, the wild elephant would have escaped our eyes if Ramakrishnan had not whispered: Aana, aana…. The tracker was already chasing the evasive elephant when the forester goaded us to a solitary watchtower protected by a ditch. A lone tusker is dangerous. A maimed one could be fatal. The tusker had its tail cut, probably in a duel with another bull without tusks. We follow Ramakrishnan on toes for another glimpse of the beast. But we are comically lost, a group [View Full Entry]

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I missed the picture. A blue train filled with pilgrims in red. The train crossed my train before I could even think of a picture. As Preethesh Babu and I sat watching an English news bulletin at his house in Rajahmundry that evening, a neighbour - a pious woman - pointed to the TV and said, ‘Vijayawada’. All we could see were Buddhist monks in their red robes protesting the military regime in Myanmar. But in this part of Andhra at this time of the year, every road leads to Vijayawada. Pilgrims wore red, kept their vows and flocked to the [View Full Entry]

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Rickety drive on shitty roads is passé. Godavari shines in the morning light, the temple across it enveloped in a haze. The river, which stinks of buffalo dung and paper pulp in Rajahmundry, is fresh 80 kilometres upstream in Pattiseema. The boats are waiting for enough tourists on board to set sail for Papikondalu, a jungle deep inside the Eastern Ghats. Our dilapidated bus was one of the many suppliers. Nuclear families, extended families, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law…people are making the maximum out of the Dusshera vacation. Thankfully, the river is still a destination for lo [View Full Entry]

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Lean rickshaw pullers wait for passengers on dusty alleys illuminated by the evening sun. Loud women in front of vegetable baskets bargain with customers in the small market square. Children in school uniform gather for another round of games before returning home. Peddapuram is just another island of houses in the vast paddy-field green on the way from Rajahmundry to Samalkot, until Parimala Jyothi tells me there are more than 1250 commercial sex workers in the 10-square kilometer town. The counselor with CHANGES (Community Health Awareness and Natural Green Environment Society), an NGO cr [View Full Entry]

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