Travel Chasing Tiger So many wild creatures appeared, creating a sublime setting—but what's its use when the tiger is missing in the scene?
Travel Why Should I Travel? There's a part of me asking, in defiance of Montaigne, "Should I travel at all? Should I leave my home, really?" I'm pitting the Maharshi against Michel de Montaigne.
Travel Bowing In, Bowing Out I remember the scene because it reminded me of the preliminary rituals of the Indian arranged marriage.
Travel A Sorry Episode at the KLCC Could he be armed? I thought. He was not big, but he had youth and was wiry, and he had an energetic stride.
Travel Penang Post Not one revealed a hint of xenophobic resentment toward alien people arriving from all kinds of places to settle into a life of leisure in sea-facing homes. Nobody I met expressed envy at the class of accommodation the expatriates were investing in.
Travel How Old Is He? For eighty odd years the only times the old man’s hands have rested is one day each Chinese New Year.
Travel Whiling Time Away in Convivial Kuala Lumpur The movies. Morning walks in the KLCC park. Looking for vegan restaurants. Reading wherever I’ve found shade. That’s all I’ve done in KL through the year.
Travel Celebrating My Birthday Solo, in Rainy KL Evenings, I could see in the far distance the approaching rain, the dark clouds that had opened up, and were steadily closing in, shrinking the world.
Travel A Very Short Trip to Korea An account of a very short business trip to Panjo and Wonju in South Korea. We managed a quick side-trip to the Guryongsa Temple.
Travel Singapore: A Walk in the Padang Area I stay a distance from the monuments. This is work-hard-play-hard Singapore, and I need a moment to contextualise these sacrifices.
Travel At Hanoi's Old Quarter At the Hanoi Opera House, locals have massed again and again to mark momentous events. In 1945, Uncle Ho proclaimed a sovereign Vietnam to them.
Travel Paris and Milan: Some Shows and Sights While On Business Before the Picassos, it was possible to linger before each display, lose oneself in it, read descriptions unobstructed. Most tourists were out at the Duomo.
Travel Putting Aside Some Thoughts Before I leave For Paris I'll go to the Picasso Museum, and the Louvre Apple Store. I can't take the rainy, windy cold anymore, so I'll leave the Parisian streets to themselves.
Travel Dolce Far Niente "We are simple people," Leonard said in his soothing voice on our way back. "Our approach to life is dolce far niente."
Travel Salim Ali, Maa, Salim Ali! Many birdie questions came to mind at The Leela Goa. How far over the sea can the crow fly? What was that golden, hawklike bird that landed by the greens?
Indian Journeys Before Aurangzeb’s Tomb As for Aurangzeb himself, to die asking to be buried so far south from Delhi, from the seat of his empire — how did it feel? Where lay his heart? In Delhi? In the Deccan, where he’d honed and proved himself when young?
Travel Indian Christmas In the small world I move around in, Hindus appear to have appropriated Christmas.
Indian Journeys Saru Maru, Sanchi, Satdhara, and Stupas and Stupas There’s the wind of the plains about the monuments, but the sun bears down hard on the place, and the few trees around don’t help so much the crowds of tourists and devotees. As regards the stupas, they aren’t designed to offer shade.
Travel On Business in Paris During Midsummer There was time to go about Paris, watch Parisians enjoy Midsummer's Day on June 21, and listen to music by buskers who'd taken every available public space.
Indian Journeys Tagore and Shantiniketan At Shantiniketan, sunny winter had turned the soil dry, and there was dust in the air, and haze, and acres and acres of chiaroscuro carpeting.
Indian Journeys A Short Stay at Pasumalai in Madurai The animals, having always owned the hill, have their own scheme of entrances and exits. The back of the hill is wild and closed to man.
Indian Journeys Rajesh Vaidya at the Brihadisvara Temple in Tanjore The man tossed his head up and about a lot, sending his long hair flying, adding drama to mastery. The style was Carnatic, the sound of the veena as always was sweet.
Indian Journeys The Chola Temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram The form of the Chola statue is lean, slender, its pose delicate, and the features of male and female are so sharp you can cut with them.
Indian Journeys The Cellular Jail in the Andamans The Andaman Island’s Cellular Jail, the jailer settlement of the British on Ross Island, and the son et lumière at both places.
