May 222017
 
Varanasi Beyond Life - A Short Film By Aeyaz Hasn

 A Short Film On Varanasi by Aeyaz Hasn: Varanasi Beyond Life No matter how many time you visit Varanasi / Benaras / Kashi your heart longs to visit more. For the eternal city has a pull that has no logical explanation. From being the City of Shiva to welcoming Buddha ( who by the way referred to Varanasi as the ancient city 2500 years ago !!!). I have been to Varanasi a few times & I don’t think I have even explored leave aside understood the essence of Varanasi. While my next trip is planned soon, I try to [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Feb 202016
 
desi goes for  Varanasi Sunrise Boat Ride

  Varanasi Sunrise Boat Ride While most of us are busy debating traveler vs. tourist, I am caught in a dilemma of checking the night life or the early morning activities of a city irrespective of being a tourist or traveler. Taking the debate further focused there are people who click sunsets and then there are people who click sunrises. It is an altogether different thing that you cannot tell the difference between the two if you look at the picture. Unless you know the city very well and are aware of its monuments and where the sun sets. [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Dec 242015
 
Baby Steps To Learning Instagram

Most liked pictures on Instagram by desi Traveler I am a novice and not very active on Instagram, though I joined the same last year, I have not been active in updating my Instagram feed for almost a year after creating the account. But 2015 was a good year to learn a thing or two about Instagram.  Today  Instagram has become one of the most popular social sharing sites for sharing your images and there are more than 300 million active users of Instagram. Although there are some inherent shortcomings in Instagram that I do hope they take care in future. [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Dec 042015
 
Remembering Paris in Varanasi

  Eiffel Tower Replica in Varanasi to pray for peace and Paris Travel keeps on surprising me, sometimes pleasantly sometime emotionally. I was in Varanasi last week to click pictures of Dev Diwali festival,  a celebration to pay respect to river goddess Ganga and a few other Hindu beliefs. As I mentioned in earlier post Dev Diwali festival is the original festival that is now also celebrated in Thailand as Loi Krathong  Festival which finds its roots in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  As I walked from Assi Ghat towards Sant Ravidas Ghat where Ganga Mahotsav is celebrated, I saw [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Nov 302015
 
Bansphatak Flower Market Varanasi

Colors of Varanasi : Bansphatak Flower Market If there is one city that truly echoes a mini India minus the attempts to scale the walls of modernity clinging to the roots that go deep in the fertile alluvial Indo-gangetic planes then it is Varanasi aka Benaras aka Kashi.  As good old Samuel Langhorne Clemens said – “Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”. Well who am I to disagree with Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who has spent some good time in Varanasi and is [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Jun 202015
 
International Yoga Day  - June 21st

Some pictures of people practicing Yoga – Celebrating the International Yoga Day June 21st is International Yoga day and India has reasons to cheer up for the same. As Yoga originated in India and with help of various evangelist today is most popular form of exercise practiced by millions of people worldwide.  From Bareily to Brazil from Nanded to New York from Ram Nagar to Russia you will find people practicing yoga every day. For yoga is considered to be the only form of exercise that nurtures your mind body and soul. While the sutras that govern various asanas or [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Jun 222014
 
Lassi in Varanasi: A cool desi drink with many benefits

   Lassi in Ramnagar near Varanasi Monsoons are getting a bit delayed leading to continuous desire to gulp something cold, to quench the thirst. But we desis always love a jugaad and love to hit two birds with one stone hence we invented Lassi. Now those of you reading it from outside of India and are not aware of what Lassi is, fikar not as I am about to give the synopsis of one my friend’s PhD thesis titled “ Uses of  Bovine fluids and Cane Sugar in the Indo Gangetic Plains for nutritional benefits, overcoming heat strokes and  management of intestinal [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…]

Jan 282014
 
Colors of India: The Homes In Indian Villages & Small Towns

Beautiful Colors of India in Villages and Small Towns Whenever I travel, one of my aims is to click pictures of homes, not houses but homes.  You cannot just walk into anybody’s home and click pictures; you would need to be invisible for that. As I am yet to find my invisibility cloak ala Mr. India, I am just happy clicking pictures of homes from outside.  You see for last many years we have lived in an apartment complex, where you do not have much choice on the color of exterior, but one can play with decorating interiors with [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]

Jan 112014
 
Statue of Shree Lal Bahadur Shastri - 2nd Prime Minister of India

    Lal Bahadur Shastri: An Idol of a Leader Almost every city in India has statues of political leaders, with Bapu Gandhi taking the lead in the same, closely followed by Mrs. Indira Gandhi.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find a statue of a true son of the soil and 2nd Prime Minister of India Shree Lal Bahadur Shastri in outskirts of Varanasi, very close to Ramnagar Fort.  The statue still had a few withered marigold garlands from some function some weeks back, perhaps from his birth anniversary. Later I did some research and found that Shashtri [Continue Reading By Clicking Here…]