Sep 152015
 
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - Travel Tuesday Picture

Gadhe ke poot yahan mat moot : Travel Tuesday picture for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan   Well I will not say much and let this picture talk. We all had great hopes about cleanliness in the country specially public places when the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched.  I specially want our tourist places to have good toilet facilities as it becomes impossible to find toilets leave aside clean toilets no matter where you go.   It is not uncommon in small town India to find it written on the walls ” Gadhe Ke Poot, Yahan Mat Moot”  ( Don’t piss here you son of  a Jack Ass [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Sep 082015
 
Lot's Wife-A Pillar Of Salt Near Dead Sea in Jordan

  Pillar of Salt That Was Once Lot’s Wife In The Bible  Salt plays a very important role in our lives and in India it played a very significant role in the freedom movement also, when Mahatma Gandhi led the freedom fighters on Dandi March to oppose the tax on Salt. But salt stories are almost as old as civilization.  I am not sure when I first read about Lot’s Wife, but my guess is it was a story about an archaeologist finding a beautiful statue of women in the desert.  The archaeologist carries the statue in the back of a [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Sep 012015
 
Travel Tuesday Picture: Nihang Soldiers

The Nihang Warriors : Torchbearers of a glorious Tradition   In today’s  Travel Tuesday picture I bring to  you  Nihang Sikh Soldiers / Sadhu from the land  of golden fields -Punjab. If you are not aware of the Sikh history, then you may wonder why I am mentioning the Nihang as both Soldier and Sadhu. Well during the middle ages, the Nihangs were the brave soldiers in the Sikh Army first raised by Guru Hargobind jee In later years the Nihang Soldiers played very important role in various battles, more so when the enemy was in larger numbers. No wonder  Guru Gobind Singh Jee said Chirian [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Aug 252015
 
Travel Tuesday: Hanuman and Priest

  Hanuman & Priest  So we return to  Travel Tuesday picture after a long time.  The image was clicked at Sitaram Bagh Temple in Hyderabad when I visited the same on the 180th anniversary of the temple. The temple is dedicated to Lord Ram and was actually built by Marwari trading family from Rajasthan, who still are trustees of the Sitaram Bagh Temple.  I have totally missed all the craze around Bajrangi Bhaijan the super hit Salman Khan Movie but brwosing through some pictures when I came across this picture of Hanuman ji and a priest, I could not [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Jun 242014
 
Philadelphia Chinatown

  A Picture from Philly Chinatown  desis or the diaspora from Asia and Indian subcontinent are one of the most widespread ethnic groups in USA, but for some reason they are just clubbed as Asians or in some cases South Asians.  But while desis started migrating en masse to US mainly after 80s and more so in 90s with the IT boom, Chinese diaspora has been in US for more than a 100 years in a large number. I had no knowledge about the same till I watched the Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson movies with absolutely crazy plots [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Jun 032014
 
From Bisons to Birds of Pench National Park

  Common animal and Birds of  Pench National Park For this week’s Travel, Tuesday Pictures let me share some wildlife from Pench National Park that I visited some time back. Please don’t expect anything exotic in the post as I am one of those photographers who are happy to click the normal day-to-day birds and animals also. Like most tiger enthusiasts, when I wrote the last post about Pench National Park and Tiger Reserve, I just talked about the female tigress who had cubs with her and totally ignored the other flora and fauna of the park. Well, the flora [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

May 202014
 
Evening Ganga Aarti at Varanasi Dashashwamedh Ghat

 Ganga Aarti at Varanasi: In praise of the River Goddess In Travel Tuesday post today we will talk about Ganga Aarti at Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Banaras as the city is known locally is now in limelight because of political reasons due to a very well publicized electoral battle between Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. Of course, now this is old news and Mr. Narendra Modi emerged victorious in what turned out to be a no contest. But desi Traveler is not a political blog, so we will restrict our discussion to our topic of the post the evening Aarti on Dashashwamedh [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

May 062014
 
Travel Tuesday Picture: Jogi Mahal Ranthambore

Where Tigers Rule: Jogi Mahal Today’s travel pictures is from Rang Rangeelo Rajasthan, the state equally famous for Royal Palaces, and the most Royal of the beasts -The Royal Bengal Tiger in Ranthambore National Park near the Sawai Madhopur town.  Here I am giving the picture of Jogi Mahal, on the bank of Padam Talab inside the Ranthambore National Park. This picture was taken from the top of Ranthambore Fort on a sunny afternoon. From the top of the fort Jogi Mahal looks as if trying to hide in the dense jungle, thanks to always full Padam Talab, who [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Apr 292014
 
Travel Tuesday Picture: Village Life in Art of India

Life and Art of Rural India in Batik Print They say beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so what is beauty to me, may not be good for you and vice versa. So browsing through some old pictures I found this simple bed sheet, that I find beautiful both for its art as well as for what it depicts in the print. For today’s picture I have chosen a picture of a bed sheet from one of the hotels I stayed in Pondicherry to attend an international marriage in a resort. Now on the face of it this bed [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Apr 082014
 
Travel Tuesday Picture: Holi in Kerala

Holi Hai :  International Travel Bloggers Play Holi in Kerala Holi is one of the most colorful festivals of India.  Countless poems, paintings, songs can be found celebrating the joy of Holi. There was a time when no Bollywood movie would be complete without drenching the heroines white sari in colors of Holi.  Even latest movies like  Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani, had the mandatory Holi song,  even though they are in the cold mountains of Manali, which was actually Gulmarg. Anyways this post is not about the movie or Holi in movies, it is about how Holi is considered  an [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]