Dagshai Jail Museum tells stories of confinement and solitude- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Walking through the tree-lined hillside of the army cantonment of Dagshai in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, one comes across lush pine forests, winding roads and quaint cafes—features characteristic of a quintessential hill station. In the midst of this…
Magic Mushrooms- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Bio entrepreneur Arpit Dhupar lives in Delhi. Sometime in 2019, a year before the clouds of Covid-19 spread its wings, he was watching his three-year-old nephew paint a cityscape. To his shock, the skies were grey, instead of…
Emerging from the Shadows- The New Indian Express
Express News Service In the quaint village of Nimmalakunta, in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, there lives a small guild of painters and performers engaged in preserving a dying tradition, Tholu Bommalata, or ‘the dance of leather puppets’. It dates…
Woman at Work- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Exiles can be long if they have a cause. Nupur Tron, founder and director of ‘Foundation Frison Horta’ in Brussels, Belgium, has a cause fired by passion. She is an Indian woman in a foreign land, using European legacy, heritage…
Filling in on art in Philly- The New Indian Express
Express News Service There’s more to Philadelphia than the famous Philly cheesesteak. Pennsylvania’s most populous city is the cradle of art. Its public murals—the city is recognised as the Mural Capital of the World—make it nothing short of an open-air…
Journey to Turkestan- the second Mecca of the East- The New Indian Express
Express News Service It is a scenic drive to Turkestan from Shymkent in Southern Kazakhstan, about 680 km from Almaty, the country’s largest city. The sepia landscape is stark and generally unpeopled, with camel caravans lumbering along. Turkestan, the spiritual…
Starting at the Finnish line – The New Indian Express
Express News Service Watching the northern lights is like seeing a miracle unfold. It’s as if the cosmos is dancing and a superpower up there is trying to tell you something. After minutes of pitch darkness, the sky suddenly lights up….
A collection of crippled villages in West Germany- The New Indian Express
Express News Service B for Bonn. B for Boring. So it has been said of West Germany’s former capital city, about which A local politician once famously sniped that “the best thing about Bonn is the train to Munich”. Compared…
Dive deep into churches and churchkhela at Kutaisi in Georgia- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Thirty golden figures mounted on blue mosaic pedestals in the middle of a traffic island form the majestic Colchis fountain, the showstopper of the city of Kutaisi in Western Georgia. Modelled on ancient artefacts—from lions and deer…
Travelling in the magical land- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Recently, I made a trip to Turkey. I share some of my impressions of travelling in the magical land. GAZIANTEP There is music. Not the kind we are used to but the body picks up its rhythm…
Nurla: A stopover in no man’s land- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Alongside a murmuring brook, a gentle uphill trail dissolves from a brown, muddy one to a path flanked by willows, fields of peas and barley, and fruit-laden apricot trees. There is not a soul in sight, but the…
Notes from Ground Ziro- The New Indian Express
Express News Service The hills were alive with the sounds of music. There was Australian rock-punk band Mannequin Death Squad, getting people to bang heads, and Farhan Akhtar belted out Bollywood hits like Zinda from Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Sindbad…
Rising like a Phoenix- The New Indian Express
Express News Service History whispers from every corner of the densely populated Kigali in Rwanda, Africa. It was under the German rule, Belgians and the Rwandan kings, before becoming the capital of independent Rwanda in 1962. A visit to the…
The ways of water in Switzerland- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Switzerland’s most populous city and its economic centre—Zurich—is best known for banking and business. Most travellers whizz in and out of Zurich Airport, but linger a little longer and you’ll find that the city goes from work…
Prussian pomp and splendour in Germany’s Potsdam- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Famous as the site of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, when the UK, US and the Soviet Union decided the fate of Germany after World War II, there’s more to this tiny cosmopolitan town than just history….
Call of the Wild- The New Indian Express
Express News Service It is wild out there, but there are times when the boundaries seem to blur between the indoors and the outdoors. During the day, the tall grasses and trees surrounding an ethnically stylish collection of forest villas…
Chasing serenity in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Some 150 km from the cacophony of Goa, lies Sindhudurg in Maharashtra. The serene coastal district is not only home to the 17th-century sea fort built by Chhatrapati Shivaji, but also lush green forest, tranquil beaches, hiking…
Hurrah to Hygge in Denmark’s Aarhus- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Are the Danes happier than the rest of the world? Perhaps; Denmark consistently ranks among the top 3 in the World Happiness Report. The Danes credit the higher rating to having achieved work-life balance by focusing on…
A walk in wonderland – The New Indian Express
Express News Service Long walks along winding roads, gabled colonial bungalows and magnificent churches, quaint cafés and bakeries drawing people in with the wafting aroma of freshly brewed coffee and cake… Landour, a cantonment settlement next to the hill station Mussoorie,…
Divinity’s new dimension- The New Indian Express
Express News Service A temple dedicated to Lord Shiva in Siddipet, 100 km from Hyderabad, is teeming with crowds, thanks to it being the auspicious Karthika maasam (month of Karthik). But it’s no ordinary temple. The garbha gudis (sanctum sanctorum) have been…
Pride and patrimony- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Uttarakhand’s most revered city—Haridwar—is surprisingly a case study in art and architecture. Aside from the temples and ashrams that dot the town, there are age-old havelis and ancestral bungalows that whisper secrets of its antique past. Most of…
Taking stock of Stockholm- The New Indian Express
Express News Service When in Stockholm, set stock by Swedish design. It pervades everything and every place—the cafes and museums, the castles and parks, the streets, metro stations, and even public toilets. Characterised by a minimal, clean approach that combines form…
Isle be there- The New Indian Express
Express News Service Phu Quoc Island seems to exist in a palm-fringed haze. Nestling along the Gulf of Thailand in south Vietnam, and voted by Time magazine as one of the world’s most amazing islands, its dazzling white beaches and…