No matter how far we go, there are a few sights that give our life a direction. They become a part of our memory and sometimes, our waking dream. I’ll call my dream, Binsar. This was my second time in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon mountain town of Binsar but it felt like a first time. It was…
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Saxony’s capital, Dresden, overwhelmed me. With its Baroque beauty, spectacular museums, interesting cafes and bars, and seamless (but confusing) public transport, I knew I had too less time in the city even before I arrived. Only one-and-half hours by train from Leipzig, Dresden has a beat of its own. After the fire of 1491, Dresden…
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It was a hot summer morning when I mailed Ishita Khanna, the co-founder of Ecosphere, a social enterprise in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh. At that point, I was a desperate traveller at my workstation in Mumbai. After an exchange of 42 emails across months of planning, my first solo trip to Spiti was finalised. It was…
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As the wheels touched the runway of Leipzig/Halle Airport in Saxony, eastern most state of Germany, I could sense the cold weather outside from within the aircraft. My face, however, was gleaming like a spring blossom. I was ecstatic to finally be in Germany. Leipzig was first of my three destinations in Saxony. On assignment…
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Many versus in poetry and references in literature had led me to believe that winter is probably the most desolate and monochromatic season. Between Virginia Woolf’s ‘Melancholy were the sounds on a winter’s night’ and PB Shelley’s ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ I was convinced that winter was made of sorrow and…
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On a bright summer morning, I ambitiously set out to hike Rochers-de-Naye, a part of the Swiss Alps, which overlooks Montreux and Lake Geneva. There are plenty of scenic hiking trails here and my plan was to walk from Jaman to summit. Once I alighted from my cogwheel ride at Jaman, I stopped to ask…
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