An Englishman living in the United States in the late nineteenth century wrote stories about an Indian boy that continue to captivate children and adults alike around the world. Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book when he was residing in Vermont. The house where he resided is now owned and preserved by The Landmark Trust USA. They hold an annual…
In my last post, I wrote about my visit to a few temples in Kyoto with my friend Ashish, and now, I’m back with a few more to share! Fushimi Inari Taisha is among the most important Shinto shrines in Japan. The Taisha, or grand shrine, is located in Fushimi and is dedicated to Inari, a revered deity or spirit…
The earliest lesson I can remember from any of my textbooks is one from my first-grade English textbook, “New Horizons.” It’s a tale of two frogs—one from Osaka and the other from Kyoto—who decide to explore the world. They journey toward each other’s cities and meet at the top of a mountain. As they raise themselves to peer over the…
It was the first day of my trip to Dublin with a group of wonderful friends. Fittingly, we were at the Teeling Distillery across the street from our hotel. We had signed up for a distillery tour and our guide Mark was holding court. Behind him was the enlarged facsimile of one of the maps of Dublin by the famous…
This post is the second in my series of posts on the Kanheri Cave Complex. While the caves are the main attraction, one cannot help but notice the cisterns constructed for rainwater harvesting. These cisterns are carved into the rock close to several caves. Channels cut into the rock help direct the water from the slope into the cisterns. The…
A group of saffron-clad monks climbed up the sides of a hill that stood prominently over the forested island. At the top, they were greeted by a massive outcrop of black rock from which the rest of the island could be seen. A seasonal rivulet gushed down the slopes during the rainy season. As far as the eye could see,…
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. By that measure, this post is going to be verbose! On my last trip to India, I visited Karkala and Mangalore. I set aside an afternoon to visit a heritage village called Hasta Shilpa at Manipal. Manipal is well known for its educational institutions and is approximately 40 miles by road…
When I returned from my visit to India earlier this year, a colleague requested me to compile a slideshow of my trip and present it at work before a meeting. “Five minutes should be good”, he said. That was a challenge. I can usually speak on a single slide for five minutes, so compressing the many places I visited and…
“I would like to visit the temple at Karkala,” said my dad when I told him that I had booked my tickets home. He was turning ninety and I wouldn’t miss that milestone for anything. Karkala is where my dad grew up and spent seventeen years of his life. He wanted to visit the Sri Venkataramana temple there. My high school…
My first trip to Mumbai (then known as Bombay) was in 1972 to attend my aunt’s wedding and I still retain hazy memories of that trip. Since then, I have made several trips to Mumbai, but these have all been social visits, primarily to meet the family. In fact, I’ve seen very little of Mumbai from a tourist’s perspective and…