Clouds in the valley...

31st December in Sydney implies you better pack a picnic hamper and start camping from 7 am to grab a front seat display for the midnight fireworks. Yes, you read that right - people are crazy enough to even start camping two days in advance. But we were too lazy and impatient for this sort of ardent lingering. So at 6 pm we nonchalantly packed a small dinner and set off for one of the farther and lesser know parks of north Sydney hoping that most tourists would hanker around the iconic Opera House region, leaving a lot of breathing space in the vantage points farther away. But then, to be honest, the wait - 2 hours or 2 days - was worth it. Seeing the full pyrotechnics for the first time, I can only say it  took away my breath (and a lot of camera card space). Ostentatious, overwhelming, grand are but a handful of adjectives that I can use to describe. It will be hopeless to paint this picture in words, so I have posted a few of the 700+ photos that I kept clicking in absolute be...

It was 6 am in the morning, when X called, my hubby who lives apart in Pune,  and he spoke to me in a voice of deep despair, he would be unable to make it. I know a chance to photograph and travel to some beautiful places, means so much more to him (than travelling with his wife), I could totally empathize. Here for my Hamlet was a tragedy. I told him to take heart, we decided it would be too much for both of us, to not be able to make it, and so I would continue. There were some minor escapades with the cab driver, he arrived a bit late, and very confidently took me to the wrong Sindhi society, just as I had begun to wonder, the road seemed terribly long, and then enter tour guide Nishant and team HK. Nishant, Preeti, Tanu, Nikhil were waiting for us at the HK gate, having guided the taxi wala to HK, Nishant took on the navigator role and the front seat, which is a routine for us for all our trips, Tanu joyfully declared him as Papa'esque, Priti got him to buy juice, biscuits a...

It’s been quite a few years since my first epiphany at the beautiful sands of Diveagar – a beautiful stretch of sandy peacefulness somewhere along the Arabian blues. It was Christmas eve, 2011- a bright and beautiful Saturday in winter Mumbai, tempting anyone to run away from the confines of the city to any place that was far away. Nishant had gone back home, Justice was busy with family, so that left Preeti and Nikhil who easily agreed to go ‘far away’. Far away for that day was Harihareshwar – a beautiful beach in Raigad district, about 200 kms from our maddening metropolis. But what amazed us that day was the serendipity that was Diveagar. It started with our devoutly religious driver telling us of a Ganapati temple on the way that was worth seeing. Apparently, a woman had discovered a golden Ganapati bust in her coconut plantation while farming; she agreed with the villagers to erect a temple nearby and house the statue therein. This sounded quite interesting, so off we took a...

The call of the mountain song (Mt. Pandim viewed from Yuksom) Day 0 & 1: 6th March Evening + 7th March: The journey begins “Arey bhaiya! aap samaan kyun utha rahe ho!Hum log ko pehley jaaney dijiye ….uskey baad samaan jayega...ab aur samaan nahin jayega!!!!” Period.  And thus continued the ranting of our Shotgun to officially kick start our wonderful journey in search of nirvana in the last Shangri-la of the human world (okay, okay no more hyperboles!) WITH a motley group of a dozen odd crackerjacks, there could never a moment of dullness. (In fact, one of us was so excited about the forthcoming train journey (as he had travelled by a train just twice before, one being Munsiyari trip) that he asked his fellow auto traveler “Yeh jisme hum ja rahe hain (sleeper class) sabse ghatiya hoti hain ya isse bhi ghatiya kuch hota hai?” Well, with a bewildered look he appreciated the adjusting power of his co-passengers and took a bhisma pratigya not to use the to...