Pluto's gone!
Pluto’s gone! In one day, the ring of planets stuck on the ceiling of my kids’ room has become outdated. I need to reach up and yank out little Pluto. What’s the big deal, you might ask? It’s just another lump of celestial stuff zipping in a higgledy piggledy path around the sun. One less, no big deal.
Well, to my kids it is. They can rattle off the nine planets from memory.
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1 minute read | 191 words
Dispatches from the border - III
I had heard about the 25-foot Shivling, even before I had reached Ziro. With the Amarnath story still fresh in my mind this appeared too tempting to be passed without an investigation. While little kids at the Don Bosco Church just outside my hotel practiced Sunday choir, I bought emergency food of a few chocolates, and set off for in search of the Shivling.
It was hardly a search; everybody appeared to know exactly where it was and how to get to it.
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6 minute read | 1115 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #north-east india, #arunachal pradesh
Dispatches from the border - II
As you drive on the well-maintained National Highway 52, given the volume or absence of traffic, you experience a serene calm. The assorted trees stand unruffled, kids play quietly in the verandahs, people appear to be talking softly or not at all, men sit bare-chested outside shops and seem to be doing nothing in particular. The Highway itself, as it snakes eastwards, appears to be snoozing in a riot of green – the fresh green of the paddy fields contrasts with the dark green of the banana groves, and the yet darker green-brown of the tall ‘tambul’ trees.
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6 minute read | 1137 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #north-east india, #arunachal pradesh
Dispatches from the border
A two and a half hour flight followed by a one hour helicopter ride, leading on to 17 hours in a taxi, is a long way off from Delhi. And here I am sitting by a mist-covered lake at an altitude of over 4,000 meters and talking to Ling Tung Tsiring who lives here and tends to ‘Chomus’.
Click on any image to view an enlarged image gallery A ‘Chomu’ is a cross between a Yak and a bull, he tells me.
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4 minute read | 722 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #featured, #north-east india, #arunachal pradesh
Bringing up a blog
I’ve spent the better part of this week wandering around in the alphabet-strewn, bits and bytes world of IT, software, hardware, all the stuff that techie geeks do sitting in front of a computer screen. It’s part of work, and I need to understand what’s happening in the Indian IT industry, what’s the buzz, or rather, where’s the buzz. So, here I am, low-tech, no-tech, floating around in blogs and websites, looking at mainstream news channels, obscure blog entries, babudom press releases, the works.
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2 minute read | 270 words
Listlove
It’s list time. School circulars are in, and we now know well and good that we can take off for another trek in September. So, I begin my lists. A list of people who can join us for the trek. A list of people who are likely to bum out. A list of clothes to be packed. A list of medicines. A list of books to be carried, and just to be safe, another list of books to be actually read.
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1 minute read | 208 words
People watching
I like people, suspect technology. If I pick up the phone, I’d prefer talking to an inept operator than an efficient machine. Till a year ago, if I wanted a train ticket, I’d prefer wading through the mass of humanity straggling outside the booking counter than “outsourcing” the task to a travel agent. I’ve been accused of enjoying this particular form of torture. And it’s probably true. I mean, what can be so uplifting about standing around for two hours in a line of sweaty, irritable people all waiting for the booking clerk to get his act together?
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3 minute read | 440 words
How do films get rated?
How do films get rated nowadays? The new and “improved” Superman is just out and everyone is making a beeline to see it. Especially kids. All hell broke loose when my six-year-old daughter Damini discovered that my son Siddharth had gone off to see the film with a friend of his. More importantly, without her. He sauntered back and informed me that I would be crazy to take her for the film.
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2 minute read | 219 words
Sailing through Spiti (Part II)
It’s freezing cold when we leave Losar. The guest house chowkidar tells us the temperature at night is normally sub-zero. So, on that cheerful note, we leave behind Losar’s square white houses, their roofs trimmed with firewood, their windows framed in black paint or tar, and a satellite dish and a solar panel practically on every roof. Cut off from the rest of the world for six months of the year, when the passes freeze up, this dish is what links them to the outside world.
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10 minute read | 2050 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #himachal pradesh, #spiti valley
Spiti: Swirling box of crayons (Part I)
Spiti has been hovering in our travel consciousness for a while now. We’ve been hovering near Spiti too, but somehow we’ve never quite made it. Last year we reached as close as Kalpa, about 12 kilometres up from Rekong Peo in Kinnaur. Instead of heading further north, we had to turn back. A landslide in Malling, combined with my daughter’s clogged nose pretty much put an end to that trip. So, we came back to hot and dry Delhi, and to make up went on a quick-zip trip to Chopta, recommended by some friends who make an annual pilgrimage to the place.
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11 minute read | 2252 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #himachal pradesh, #spiti valley
Trekking to Beas Kund
Seven adults, five kids take a trek to Beas Kund, moving away from the trodden path and opting instead for a route that is spectacular, challenging, and at times, downright tricky. The oldest beyond 40; the youngest a little over 6. On our trekking holiday in Manali, we were joined by our friends, their friends, and two trekking titans. The result: a life-changing, mind-bending, muscle-opening experience that every one is just waiting to revisit.
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27 minute read | 5718 words
#photography, #photo-features, #travel, #adventures, #himachal pradesh, #hiking, #trekking, #walking
Outsourcing the jobs of lab animals to India!
“So now we are outsourcing the jobs of lab animals to India? I shudder to think what the ‘No Indian testing’ label will be in Europe…” reads a post by nizo at [] at slashdot. An anonymous post at the same site reads, “Are you kidding? The unemployment rate for lab rats will skyrocket! How are the poor rats supposed to feed their kids? Won’t somebody think of the rat children?
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3 minute read | 448 words