Allegories of my life

Do you remember the walk to your school? Not breaking the pact was the golden rule In the hills, we are born The freshness of air, so warm Waiting for the sun god to come Under the mellow rays, to sit down Not wanting for evenings to arrive The cold was quite severe to strive Those little jaunts to our favorite Mussoorie A place of tranquility and warmth, it’s a glory I demand for those days to return back The Eagles and their famous sound track Do you remember the walk to your school? Not breaking the pact was the golden rule                                                    -Manika

The journey: We started off on the 1 st  October night from Delhi to Dharamshala without knowing the consequences of going by a private Volvo. The bus timing was 8:30 PM but we got the first blow of the trip in the very beginning by leave-taking 1 hour late from Delhi. All thanks to the extensive weekend the route showed the worst side of it. Our first holdup!  Meanwhile we got engaged in chit-chatting and realized it was already midnight. At 1 AM the bus stopped up at a local dhabha for dinner and we had dal makhani and Chapati. We took a nap and woke up to a massive jam at the toll gate followed by countless vehicles behind us. It was 5 AM already, after waiting for almost for one and a half hour we stepped down the bus in order to find out where the driver was. We walked for about 5-10 minutes and observed a queue full of drivers, in amidst the line up stood our driver all worn out. We came back to the bus to notify the uninformed aggravated public and after about two and a h

As we reached Tabo at around 7 PM, without wasting a second we entered in the monastery which is famous for being more than 1000 years old.  The Tabo undoubtedly looks different than any other Monastery Established in 996, considered as the holiest and is situated at approx 10700 ft. Prayer Wheels at the Tabo Monastery, Spiti The place is holy barren and desolate moonscape with no vegetation the supply of goods come from Kaza, the next famous village. We didn’t have any hotel reservation but found a budgeted small hotel named Dekit Norphel. Naturally formed clay mountain on our way to Tabo Due to some unheralded crisis we couldn’t go further to Kaza but after the overnight stay in freezing Tabo village we left for Dhankar the next morning sharp at 6 AM. However Dhankar was not on my list as it was a detoured destination but it is was a stroke of luck I happened to pay my visit to the remarkable Dhankar Monastery, situated at approx 12700 ft. It is

Before leaving from Kuppa I had a well culture learning session with a woman whose better half was posted in HP in JP Hydro Power Project. She told me about how the Panchali System is still practiced in the village of Kinnaur just like it used to be at the time of Mahabharata. I was firmly convinced and got pleasure from old tales of our previous ancient times. The not so smooth road to Kinnaur, the mountains cut out to make way Today's goal was to arrive at Nako but not before a swift halt at Reckong peo. We left at 7 AM and found that the road not very hazardous as the road to Sangla and Chitkul was. Our key intend to visit Rekongpeo was to do a bit of shopping and as Peo is the chief town of the district and one can get bountiful selections in local handcrafted shawls with utmost quality. The market was spread at a long stretch and had copious shops for everything. One can buy dry fruits mainly chilgoza/neoza, almond, dry apricot, and Kinnauri kidney bean which are c

We on the 8 th June woke up at 6:35 AM and got ready for the super long day jaunt but the cab driver got shoddily late so after a wee bit of waiting we left at around 9:00 AM bid my uncle good bye. So we happened to cross Jeori again and made sure to fuel up the car's tank full as the drive was going to be staggeringly stretched. The weather was not cool enough as we thought it to be. As we went through further more there started some humongous mountains all parched and looked all a stone’s throw away. Also some snow clad mountains at the back of these gigantic mountains. We crossed Bhabha, Nathpa, Wangtu, Tapari and halted at Karcham where we came to know that the road was confoundedly under grave repairs , we were asked to detour the road from NH22 through some uphill village named Urni  as the construction would take forever (I heard, it’s not going to get over till a year). OK. So there started some serious adventure of detouring thus I felt like a lost ball in the high we

A long awaited Kinnaur-Spiti trip was due for a long time ever since I bought Outlook Traveler’s guide for Himachal Pradesh. When I first bought it without more ado I had a bizarre aspiration to travel entire Himachal before resting in peace. I keep bragging this to all the people who would come up and ask me as why did I acquire that hardback. Thus I had this superb opportunity of tripping to hills this month with my mother, was time to explore some new places of which I’ve heard from few associates and comprehended about on web, travel magazines and videos, etc. I got myself into the scheduling and execution of the trip as I had to persuade that I could take my mother all by myself, some of my cousins were keen to join too but backed off before the beginning of the adventure because of their inevitable obligations. So I did a painstaking study about the place, lodging and routes. The itinerary was organized a week back and I kept a check on it regularly as I didn’t want to let

My allegories of lifetime must include this new blog and interest I have established over the period of time of clicking random pictures on everyday basis. To start with this blog there is something imperative which is ought to be showcased before writing up intensely about it.  This photo challenge was taken up for a casual cause of getting involved with photography which was on the verge of getting lost from my life and maintaining a blog alongside. It became an obligatory task in my routine for 100 days no matter how some unexpected events had barged in at some point in time but I accomplished on achieving a set target for me. I clearly missed posting photos sometimes due to unheralded priorities in these 100 days but I upheld to post for the missed ones post the bygone of the day.  And needless to say I learned forms of varied genre although wasn't involved to the hilt but this endeavor gave me an inspiration to have more of these tasks or moreover to get inclined

On 19 th  March I left for Bombay after a gap of 6 long years this time on a work trip as earlier it was a family vacation. Even though my work is not at all travel related and have only got to travel once last year in December to Ahmedabad for 3 days where I didn't get a solitary moment to step out of the whole work affair. Now this was the second trip so this time I was looking forward to go out or do something. It’s not a day-to-day in depth verse but moments, places and people I met in essence. I have always had a stereotype image about Bombay and thought it to be a bitter pill to swallow, always stayed at loggerheads with colleagues and friends about the clumsiness of the city but after having some wild quality moments of joviality and no ordeals I can profusely say that it's not bad to be there no matter if you have or don't have a company along. I spent my Bombay days preponderantly all alone. I can’t come over with the long on foot stretch of Marine Drive from th