Travel Blog - Journey, Stories and Experiences

It was another weekend in Bangalore. Just like any other. I called my friend Raman. " What's the plan? " " Just came from office, have a lot of pressure these days. " He sounded really tiring. But, it was a boring day for me. It was around 8 pm and I was really looking forward to a little adventure. I called him to my flat and told him that we will hang out for a while and then we'll sleep. He agreed and came to my flat. He was very hungry. As always. I was not surprised to hear, " Let's eat something. " We have been going to the street vendors and restaurants every weekend now. " Where should we go today? " I knew he would have something in mind as he has been in Bangalore for a while now. " Street food? " he asked with an expectation of a negative response from me. " Ummm! No! I am hungry too and I don't think that would be sufficient ." He thought for a while. With hunger continuously obstructing his thou...

I remember the day when Chandrayaan 2 was set to launch. My friend had left for Sri Harikota to watch it live in front of his eyes. It was a big event. Bigger than Chandrayaan 1. I was watching it live too. But, 56 minutes before the launch, ISRO decided to postpone the mission due to some technical glitch. Chandrayaan 2 was finally launched on 22 July 2019. I watched a lot of videos and read a lot about the mission. Its history, mechanics, trajectory, almost everything I could find. It was a big event for India and certainly a big event for the world. It is not that easy to reach the moon. I mean, you can just figure it out by seeing that only three countries have been there. India could have been the fourth. Every time something Chandrayaan 2 did, it got reflected in the foreign media. Look, India's lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 has entered Earth's orbit. Look, India's lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 has exited the orbit. Look, India's developed Chandrayaan 2 has e...

Thanks for this beautiful gift you gave this world. " Thank You ", seems like a smaller word. But wait, will this gift think like you do? Or is it independent enough? You must not have thought this. Actually, I have seen enough. I have heard enough. I am tired of this. Are you a parent? Or a child? I don't really care as of now. But, you should. You should go back and think about your actions. You should think about your thinking. Are we moving towards the age of robots or you already have given birth to one? I am confused. Wait! This letter is not for you! This letter is for your mother. Everywhere I see, every time I hear, the same whining and the same useless thoughts make me think about the existence of yours in this world.  You must have thought you are a great parent, a great mom perhaps. But, does someone else thinks the same? Is she proud of you in the same way as you are proud of her? No, she will think. Yes, she will say. " Nobody thinks of me ", is th...

As I landed in the city of Bangalore, a man is shouting just outside the airport. He is shouting something that I do not understand. Fortunately, he has learned 4 5 English words. After all, he is standing outside the airport. “ Where, ” he asks. “ Marathahalli ” I spoke. “ Bus 8 ”. He says one word and starts shouting again. He was a bus driver. But most importantly, a resident of Karnataka state in India. Yes, this place is in my country and we both cannot communicate. Many years back when I was in the eighth standard, my textbooks proudly and boldly highlighted the words, “ India is a diverse country ”. They would show the culture and folk dances of each state. Unique on its own. A moment to feel proud. You can never find a country as diverse as India, as culturally rich as India. That was just the textbook. My practical started almost 2 months ago. Soon when I reached my hotel I realized nobody in the hotel knows Hindi. Yes, Hindi. A language spoken in India....

    " Dude, I won the bet ". " No way! I won the bet ". I was dreaming about the bet I played on the gender of a child of my friend's. I definitely won that bet because I said it would be a boy. I was just arguing when the phone rang. No not in my dream but in reality. It broke my dream. It was my friend Aman Sharma calling on a Friday morning. It was his job day. I picked up the phone. " Hey! Let's go Rishikesh ". " Okay, " I said without inquiring how and why he made up his mind. The next thing he said, " Anurag Kashyap is in Rishikesh today, I guess ". He was talking about the Indian filmmaker  Anurag Kashyap . One of the best directors India has seen who has literally fought and changed the way Indian movies are made and should be made. The true cinema lover was in Rishikesh. So close to where I live. Aman had guessed this by seeing the post of his Assistant Director on Instagram the caption of which said, " Triveni Gha...

Earlier last year I went to Mumbai for an internship. People in Mumbai are of mixed culture. A heavy number among them is local people who speak local language i.e. Marathi. I also encountered the same situation everyday where I would find many people talking in Marathi in my office. Mumbai being an alive city will preserve its language for a long time to come. But this is not the case for every region. I once had a chat with an old man sitting outside his house and thrashing the wheat. It was a nice morning in the month of July at a hilly area Karnaprayag . He was sitting on the ground and lived just 10 meters away from where I stayed. I used to see him everyday on the same chair while going to office. He was consistent. So was I. It was Sunday and my day off from office when I went outside the guest house into the sun. I used to live alone in that 3 BHK guesthouse and I used to feel alone sometimes. This loneliness lifted my feet in the direction of that man. I went to tha...

A smile on his face, tied to the ropes, 10 heads and considered one of the most intelligent man, Ravana is standing in front of me. He is about to die. He is about to be "killed" actually by a man who was exiled, saving his wife and one of the greatest leaders in mythological history who led millions to the other country for this event. For those of you outside the boundaries of India, Dussehra is a festival celebrated in India. Coming back, I am standing with hundreds others. They are celebrating, eating street food and enjoying with their family and friends. It has been like this for the past hundreds of years. It has been like this for the past 23 years of my life. But today, I am alone looking at him and his brothers and wondering a small thing. Why are we celebrating this festival? Every festival has a meaning, a lesson which is moral and some reason to be happy and celebrate. You must be having your own festivals with all these characteristics. But what about Dusse...

Vishnu poured four cups and the owner asked me, " Do you want some? " I asked, " What is it? ". " Oh! this is our favourite alcoholic drink prepared by jaggery in our homes. We can't go so far into the town just to bring a bottle. Our forefathers have derived a way to make it in home. Our mothers and wives prepare it. " Although I would not have accepted the drink, but it sounded exciting and I knew I might never get to taste it again in my life. So I happily agreed. It tasted just like jaggery dissolved in some bitter liquid. I drank very very slowly intentionally so that they can enjoy their last day with whatever they had without involving me. I asked him, " So what are your plans for the future after this? ". " Plans? Huh! This was not even a plan that is happening with us. We are in pain ." Vishnu said, " Brother, this is something we never wanted. This is our living and they are snatching it from us " " They wh...

I climbed to the peak with a dog whose both eyes had different colours. A disease maybe. The scenic beauty of Kheerganga trek is something you cannot miss and would crave for later in your life. It was a hard trek, especially for someone who does not trek regularly. The path was natural, unpaved and quite narrow. At some places, there was no path at all due to the landslide happened just a night before. It was tiresome to climb such a trek for 14 kilometres but I had a companion that I told about in The Untold Story Of A Few Good Men . I reached the top of Kheerganga trek at around 5 in the evening. It was very cold at the peak. Nearly about 12-15 degrees. But thankfully there was a hot spring bath at the top. A hot spring bath is all you need after such a growing latitude. I booked a tent and quickly went for the bath. It was the best. The natural hot water flowing continuously and in the centre of the highest peaks you can see them capped with snow. I spent nearly an hour there...

This blog post is about a few good men I met on the way to the peak of Kheerganga and I will come later on it. Don't presume from the name Kheerganga that I am going to recite you the beauty of the nature that I saw and how white snow embellished the high peak mountains. Well, as I said in my earlier post I would like to share my experience. The natural experience is experienced by everyone. I decided to write this post because of something else to which I will come a little later. This post is about a story which resides in the humble heart of these few men whom I met in Kheerganga. My Kheerganga story perhaps. Kheerganga is a beautiful place which is in the hilly ranges of Himachal Pradesh. I went from my hometown Haridwar to Bhuntar by boarding a normal bus. The driver was old and I thought he might take some extra time to reach the destination i.e. Bhuntar. But no!! I was wrong. The way he drove the bus on the hills is inexpressible. He was driving at a speed on wh...

The Landing I had finally reached Gangtok . It was a hell of a ride but I did. Gangtok was a beautiful place and a really disciplined one. I liked how people were so fond of following rules and maintaining the cleanliness of Gangtok. I remember one example of the same. I saw a guy who was not from Sikkim , eating a packet of chips and was on the other side of the road than where I was. He ate all the chips and threw the packet on the grass which was on the other side of the footpath. So basically you have a road, then a footpath on the edges and on the other edge of the footpath you have little grass. The dustbin was around 10-20 meters back to the direction of that guy. As soon as he threw the packet, the lady who was walking just behind him picked the packet and went back to the dustbin and threw the packet there. She did not even let that guy know about what she has done, not scolding him like what Anushka Sharma did and definitely not uploading it on social media like a publ...

" Can it be fixed? " were my words as I was so doubtful about the final result. He said, " yes, yes, look what I will do, I will take this rope and tie this to this spring and remove the mudguard by hammering it. Although tyres will not be straight as the spring is broken but since there is no mudguard, what will they touch to? And the spring which was hanging, I will tie it. ". This was his solution. I smiled at him and he smiled back, I knew he would do it but I was not sure about the final destination whether it will be Gangtok or some village where this car will finally breakdown. I rushed towards the two boys who were smoking a cigarette under a shed of a house about 10-15 meters away. The visibility was just 5-8 meters by then. I could just see the main road and the people sitting outside their house where I was standing. Another boy who was sitting beside me in the cab also asked the same question to the driver and he gave him the same answer. While I was...