RoustAbout

The day could be divided into two clear parts. The first was our astounding visit to the Bhaja caves. We had to choose between Bhaja and Karla, and Diya reminded us that Dalrymple had described the beauty of Bhaja as rivalling that of the caves at Petra. Since the caves opened at 9.00am and our room came with complementary breakfast, we asked for an early breakfast and went off to see भजे लोणी as it is called in Marathis. Both Bhaja and Karla caves are roughly 10 kilometers from Lonavla and on either side of one of the several Mumbai – Pune highways. At a place called Karla (not the caves) we turned off the road towards Bhaja caves, We reached the Bhaja village around 9.30 am. There were several cars travelling with us and we thought they too carried tourists visiting Bhaja, but that was not so. There was a temple in the Bhaja village which drew more visitors than the caves. We knew we would have to climb some distance from the road, but we were not sure where the path began because ...

  Our plan to visit Lonavla was partly due to my desire to see the Buddhist caves that were close by. I had read about Karla, Bhaja and other less well-known caves in William Dalrymple’s newest book The Golden Road and was keen to check them out. We were expecting a 6 – 6.30 hour journey and we were out of the MTDC Ganapatipule resort by 7.15. The map read 296 km to destination and estimated arrival was 1. 21 pm. If we were in around that time we could probably make it one of the caves that day itself. The first stretch of 20 kilometres was on a flat plateau. It was later when I was reviewing the route that I came to learn that we had passed by a couple petroglyphs . We had seen petroglyphs at Usgalimal near Rivona in South Goa and the prehistoric rock carvings from 8-10000 years ago were very impressive.   At Jakadevi, a village where businesses had already opened and children were turned up and on their way school, we turned off towards a more rural road. The area became m...

We had been wrapping up our flat in Benaulim the previous day so were packed and ready to leave at 7.20 am. The car was gleaming as I had taken it to the car wash a day earlier Now it was free of all the sand that had collected in the crevices over the last four months. Since we were driving back, we were carrying back a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have if we were flying. The car slowly filled with the many big and small bags. Two of the bigger suitcases and a duffel bag were enough to fill the boot. Three suitcases that had the stuff we would use on the trip were put on the rear seat. We had packed biscuits, namkeen, energy bars, the makings of coffee and some fruits so that we were not stranded for food anywhere. We were now ready to leave and I was excited with a tinge of anxiety as I pressed the started button and we slowly moved forward. A short visual presentation Our first point of interest was Malvan, a coastal town in southern Maharashtra. We had been told that the Malvani cuis...

Goats strung together and hustled away Yesterday evening I was going from Dhakuria to Shambazar by Uber. We were a little past Park Circus Maidan when he announced 'Google abhi Convent Road se raasta dikha raha hai'. I was surprised. Circular Road diye jabo na. 'Nahi yeh paanch minute short raasta hai, koi red light nahi hai' bole he drove into a darkish gulli off the main road near Sales tax bahaban. Soon we were on Canal West road passing under a railway bridge behind Sealdah station. The day before on a Sunday we had marvelled how neat and clean the relatively empty streets in Jadavpur and beyond towards Baisnabghata Patuli in deepest South Kolkata  were. Small parks, with benches, smartly coloured railings on pavements , the roads recently swept. But here Beleghata in the middle of the city it was grimy and nothing seemed to be different from the late 70s when my way to school passed this way. I asked the driver 'jaldi hoga is raaste se?' He answered co...

Last week I was in Rwanda for the International Conference on Family Planning. I had long wished to visit Rwanda, intrigued how a country was coping with a genocide that had killed nearly 1 million people and affected almost everyone. The border police at the immigration counter was very polite, Rwanda has a visa on arrival policy and it did not make getting a visa difficult at all. Travelling on my flight was an Indian skilled labourer who had landed without a visa and without a penny in foreign exchange. I did a bit of translation for him but the immigration officer did not seem to lose his cool at this man who couldn’t understand much English, did not have a visa, did not have a hotel address, did not have any foreign exchange and only waved a letter of invitation to work as a fitter for a Rwandan steel company. Thankfully he had the telephone number of a contact and the immigration officer seemed inclined to make a call on his behalf using his personal phone when I finished my bus...

Every time I am in Europe I am struck by the diversity of people and cultures that I see on the streets, on public transport, in the shops and markets. Of course the greatest diversity is in the kinds of restaurants one gets to sample in most big European cities. I have more often than not avoided getting into an Indian restaurant, but that evening both Jashodhara and I were very hungry. We had landed in Lisbon in the afternoon, and after quickly checking into our room went to the old city which was a very interesting place we were told. We had walked around for quite some time, and soon we were very hungry. And we were now in that part of the city without any obvious cafes spread out into the streets. Around a corner I thought I saw an Italian restaurant – we went in to check out – and it turned out to be a hybrid Indian – Italian one. This was our first interaction with such a hybrid outside the subcontinent. In any other condition we would have not gone in, but there was a young So...