Traveling is a solo art. But the truth blooms quiet late in life. By the time it comes our limbs would have run out of all youth it once was bristling with. Remember the first trips out? Parents chose our destinations at a time our language hadn’t ossified into intelligible whole. Either they or we played dumb. We pointed North, they took us South. The folks took our prattle for ice-cream to a demand for movies. They heard ‘schools’ when … Continue reading
I stood inside the shady hall blaring into a mobile phone. “But I told your manager Deepu that I would come early morning. And you say you don’t have any rooms?” “Sir,” Sibi said. “Our checking in time is 10 O’ Clock. You have to find some other alternative until then as all our rooms are presently occupied.” “Sibi, I have come from Trivandrum. Deepu had told me it won’t be a problem even if I come three hours earlier. … Continue reading
I lean into the wind as I lug myself uphill. But I must put my feet softly on the thin-skinned earth. This time I know I walk along a wound. It has healed only on the surface. There is a hilltop and a beautiful sundown waiting for me. But here I am closer to the earth, listening to her faint groans against a mocking wind. “People went through real hell,” says Syam K. Prakash, front office manager of Punarjani resort … Continue reading
My finger recoils. As if it has just touched an 11 kv line. “Do people take bath here?” I turn back and shout at Aji, my driver. “They are crazy over it.” He screams back pitching his reply above the loud roar of the waterfall, sealing my fate. I touch the freezing water again. Against this deafening scream of the water, even a cry for help would be responded by my driver with a wave his hand, greeting me back. … Continue reading
