• People - Places

    Anandwan – The Forest of Joy

    Travelling around, seeing new places and people is certainly joyful. But it has another remarkable aspect as well as impact. At times, we are reminded of the mightiness of nature, the timelessness of the universe, and how insignificant we human beings are in this grand play. At other times, there are instances when we stood in awe at the immense capabilities of human beings in dreaming, creating, and inspiring generations to come. A reminder that all of us have the power to create and change the world for better. And a sharp nudge to some of us who often crib…

  • Arts & Culture - Heritage - History - Places - Publications - the great driving challenge

    Pick Your Escape Route (Mid-Dday Feb 02, 2012)

    If you choose to do one trip a month for the whole year, that is 12 short trips in an year. When Mid-day asked us to give us an all-year itinerary in Maharashtra for travel lovers to explore, we were only happy to do so. It was late January and so we came up with a 11 month schedule. Here it goes. The full text February: Koyna Valley (Koyna Nagar) Why should be here: Far away from the maddening crowd. Without the trappings of any hill station. Spend a quite weekend in the MTDC resort or a couple of other…

  • Places - Sanctuaries

    The Real Land of Tiger – Tadoba

    The year 2010, hopefully augurs well for us in travel. After the good start in the new year week, one of us had a solo trip to Bangkok, while the other had a solo to Coimbatore and Kerala. But the most awaited trip of January was to Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra. The planning had started in November itself. The tourism/forest department calls Tadoba the real land of tiger. Perhaps rightfully so. For the first time, we spotted the big cat. Albeit for a short while without giving us enough time for clicking. With multitudes of…

  • Places

    Orange Country & Orange Gods

    The history of orange says that the fruit has its origins in India. And perhaps most of India’s oranges come from its centre – Nagpur. So somewhere in back of our minds we knew that a trip to Nagpur cannot be complete without a visit to an orange farm. While planning for trips, we provide for on the spur changes in the itinerary and explorations. Yet visiting an orange farm was not part of our Pench plan. While we had some intention to peek into some farm while returning to Nagpur, we did not expect that we almost could go…

  • Places

    Love in the Times of Ram Sene

    A Ram temple that looks well protected by a Mughal fort. And some one who will solve all your ‘love marriage problems’ advertising in a Ram temple. At a time when Ram Sene wants to change the world! Ramtek was not in our initial itinerary, while we planned the Pench trip. Like it happens in many of our trips, Ramtek turned out to be an interesting detour. We do not have much historical information and background of the place, though we tried gathering some from the information boards inside the temple. The story goes that Lord Ram rested at this…