ADHVAGATI

Being Vegetarian adds a unique ,but happy, dimension to travels abroad. Omnivores ,by and large, stick to itineraries worked out beforehand as they can satisfy their bellies with fare from any cafe or kiosk found near their tour trail. Vegetarians have to be explorers. We get to cruise into lanes never mentioned in guide books and see non-touristy humdrum street scenes in our endeavour to locate an address taken from experienced traveler/s. Had we not hankered after a rice meal for the kids, we'd never have discovered the beautiful Fiesole hill near Florence. Nor had the opportunity to witness a lovely wedding ceremony had we not hunted down a vegetarian serving inn in Denpasar . Nor heard about the plight of Srilankan refugees in Eastern Europe from the horse's mouth had we not gone looking for the rotis advertised in a Dutch handbill. Nor could we have met a colourful , chattering character of Pondicheri-Paris descent who made us dosas in a Roman cellar, but...

Visits to Places Of Interest are usually severely circumscribed by notified tourist trails and reduced to a meek following of the almighty Tourist Brochure. The Powers- That -Be who publish brochures assume dictatorial right over our movement, badgering us to Go There ,See That . and we, a mass of nerves, dare not rebel against Brochurocracy lest we return home to face the damning accusation : You went all the way there and dint see This !!!!!! A person who goes to Agra for the first time and does not see the Taj Mahal is logged into family annals as a certified freak. There's one in our family who has since become a sort of reference point to quirkiness. So one goes to SRIRANGAPATNA and faithfully sees The Gumbaz , the Ranganatha Temple, The Lal Bagh & Summer Palace, The Sangam , the Jumma Masjid , The Dungeons and the stone that marks the place where Tipu Sultan's body was found. ( I remember, as youngsters, we also used to go up to a breach in the fort wall...

Hearing even a snatch of our National Anthem brings up a lump in my throat. Always. Unfailingly. It wasn't always so. Though the walls of my father's house displayed pictures of Gandhiji and Nehru, and the library was stuffed with books relating to nationalism, i don't remember being too patriotic as a youngster. While in school (in the 60s-70s), one always thought of the National Anthem as one more oppressive school routine to be endured everyday after the morning assembly. Moreover, since we were only taught to sing it and not explained the meaning, the bengali words seemed like just a bunch of geographical names strung together. There wasn't the teeniest stirring of spirit as the Jaya-hey sounded off. Besides school, one other place where it had to be endured was in cinema theatres. We stood in attention alright ; accompanying parents made sure of that ! But mind would be either on the celluloid fantasies just witnessed or the promised ice-cream tre...

Too much expectation leads to disappointment. This i realised on my second trip to Tranquebar . The  very First trip   had been a voyage of discovery. And that was when the sense of wonder had still not traipsed away into the Realm of the Jaded,and the stock of stardust in the eyes was still not depleted.We were told nothing except that we were going to a nice beach for a picnic. Curiosity went only as far as the name : "Tran- ke - baar ". what kind of name was that for a tamilian fishing village ? The beach turned out to be quite a tame affair. Nothing like Marina of Madras or Kodikarai ( Point Calimere ) near Vedaranyam . Here it was narrow,gray and smelly. But soon, we " discovered " wonders. A massive,Norwegian fort called Dansborg ( Built 1622) An entrance archway to the hamlet, called " Landgate ", sporting a coat of arms like what we saw only on the castles in fairy tale books. Roads of compacted earth, named Kings Road, Queens Road, Gold S...

They had to bring politics into temples too. Pashupatinath in Kathmandu has been made a boxing- ring to decide who is stronger - Tradition or Change. Maoists, the current rulers,have just sent the Udupi brahmins, the traditional priests, packing. Unchanging Tradition was what i experienced in abundance on a short visit to Patan ( or Lalithpur near Kathmandu), the ancient capital of The Mallas, some years ago. It did look like a land that time forgot, just as the tourist brochure had promised. But it was not love at first sight for me. 'Getting into the skin ' of the place proved a bit unsettling. Embarking on a stroll around the three Courtyards of The Durbar Square ( The Mul Chowk, Sundari Cowk and Keshab Narayan Chowk), i was enveloped by an effect i was totally unprepared for. As i stood surrounded by the burnt sienna of aging bricks and strange multi tiered roofs, i involuntarily shuddered . Inspite of the milling crowds of camera toting tourists, there was a stra...

One goes to Siem Reap only to see Angkor Wat. But only after landing there does one start discovering the other treasures scattered all over the old Khmer kingdom. The travel planners dole out these treasures according to the time you have. The amazing Angkor Wat and the bewitching Bayon are fixed items and others are a-la-carte. I was overwhelmed by the lists. Reading up about each one made me rue the fact that we had apportioned only three and a half days for Siem Reap. It was like the proverbial kid- in- candy- store ; in my case, an archeology-nut me in a countryful of ruins. I had to give up Phnom Bakheng , the cradle of the Devaraja cult, the birthplace of the First Angkor Empire, with the huge presiding Lingam , Yashodhareswara, (established by Yasovarman I in 889 AD.) still standing, open to the sky, atop the hill. It rained on the evening of my plans for it. So, abandoned. But, as a compensation, i managed to visit Bakong in the old capital Hariharaalaya, now part ...

I have to confess that i am not the overly religious type that hits the pilgrimage trail with every waxing and waning of the moon. But, inexplicably, i end up visiting places known primarily for temples and tirthas . Rishikesh was another such. I went because i wanted to meet Ganga. I definitely wasn't looking to make an advance booking for moksha or angling to earn brownie points from divine account keepers. Nor was my longstanding, intense yearning to dip in the Ganga nourished by any concept of purification or merit-making or self- realisation. The river Ganga has always fascinated me because it has been the base-camp of a civilization from its infancy to its present state of confused debility ; a civilization whose essences at a molecular level permeates my own stem cells. Its like wishing to see my DNA. The river has run through much. And is cheerfully running on. Its alluvium is composed of the detritus of a million sagas, both glorious and inglorious. The...