What was most immediately amazing about Hampi, seat of the medieval Vijayanagar empire and World Heritage Site that A and I recently visited, was its sheer scale—everywhere you turn there are hills strewn with stone doors, pillars, temples, walls… and it stays like that for miles in every direction. This is not some isolated temple or summer estate used rarely by a royal family; this is a sprawling metropolis. Keep reading…
Lavasa on the cover of The Times of India (on our first day there)
Before we came to Lavasa, I tried to research it online. Lavasa is a new planned community in the hills above Pune in Maharashtra, the brainchild of a billionaire industrialist in the first phase of its development. Unsurprisingly, the project is under public scrutiny for violating environmental building codes—or for not lining the right pockets. Lavasa is also, I later learned, the largest construction site in the world, a city literally being built from the ground up. 23,000 acres, 12,000 workers, 600,000 trees felled. Future population: 400,000.
The information was scant. All I could find were a few spun phrases about this new idyllic community and a photograph of one row of brightly-colored lakeside townhouses, their lights reflected in the water. Keep reading…
Terrible heat, Auntieji says, too much. The beads of my sweat so big they feel like fat ants slipping down my neck. My top is two shades darker with soak when I arrive at Ramuji’s house. The electricity is out, as it is every afternoon. He turns on the inverter and we sit under the ceiling fan, set to high. The blades are a blur and the center shakes, looking dangerously like it’s about to jostle itself loose and fall. We’re sitting on mattresses on the floor covered with block-printed sheets. There’s a curio-cabinet across from me. The bottom corner is stocked with Ayurvedic serums and pure attars in silver bottles. The rest of the cabinet is filled with images of Ganesh, of every imaginable shape, color, and size. Ramuji has made lunch, but I can’t imagine eating yet. It’s too hot to eat. Keep reading…
Guru-ji (second from R) and students, Holi 2010
Even before I became a part of his family, I often thought of my Hindi teacher, Virendra-ji, as my grandfather, simply because the two reminded me so much of each other. Both have dedicated their lives to the service of others through their respective ministries–Virendra-ji in the classroom and my grandfather in the church. They are men of strong and practical tastes, and shy away from anything that resembles indulgence or flattery. Keep reading…
I came back to Rishikesh to recover from Kashmir, to write, to bathe in the Ganga, to be left alone. The crowds for the Kumbh have long since departed; Rishikesh is easy now. It’s back to the way I remember it being when I first came five years ago–the heart of the “banana pancake trail.” Keep reading…
Late one night, in a rare moment when it was just the two of us, Sayma told me her story. I had only heard pieces of it before. She was the most modern in her family: she wore jeans, went out in public with her hair down, and talked on the phone with boys who were her friends. She’d even worked for a year in Delhi at a call center. At the time, she lived with her brother, who was then stationed in Delhi. When his transfer to Srinagar came in, she was called back home to Mussoorie. She pleaded to stay, but she was told Delhi was no place for a woman–a girl–on her own. Keep reading…
Srinagar is the Muslim-dominated capital of Kashmir, India’s northernmost state. Resting in a valley between snow-capped Himalayas whose peaks are visible even on cloudy days, local tourist paraphernalia boasts that the city is “Paradise on Earth.” Kashmir has been the center of periodic fighting between Pakistan and India since Partition as both countries claim ownership over the state. Beautiful as it is, it is thus also highly volatile, and prone to civil tensions that range from localized to crippling. Keep reading…
Over the last month, I’ve figured out two things about Mussoorie, the hill station in northern India where I’m currently staying. One: someone’s business is everybody’s business. The pastime of gossip here is as extensive and entrenched as the 94 viruses that were expelled from my laptop yesterday. Two: everyone has an opinion about everything. Keep reading…
1:30AM, Har-ki-Pauri Ghat, Haridwar
We set out from Rishikesh around 9pm carrying only shoulder bags with the essentials. Carrying no expectations. Keep reading…
“Don’t ask any more questions. Just decide that you’re going to go, and go,” our friend Yogi told us. We were trying to get to the same place as 15 million other people. We’d be able to get exactly as far as we truly, truly wanted to go. No further. Keep reading…
