Ponto de Vista

Can we blame Mamta? For our not so CILEAN trains that are rubbish when they’re running or when they’re stoppeR. This was the legend on EVERY loo door up and down our train, I kid you not.

I guess warmth is welcome wherever. Taken at the platform of Haridward station at 4 in the morning, when it was wet and cold outside. As I watched, this stray approached this sleeping family and then snuggled up on their temporary bed…

Rourkee station, a sudden storm of freezing cold rain. The mendicants and homeless huddle. And this magnificent Brahma bull with them.

I spent Independence Day weekend in Pune, away from the madding crowd. Friends and I drove up to Sinhgadh on one day and the next was spent mostly wandering around Old Pune resisting all the tempting street food (damn, no matter how hard I try, food always comes up. And I was making a special effort to focus on our motherland’s natural beauty for this post-Independence Day post!)
I took the train back to Mumbai the next day (avec drama, of course), and though I had work to do, I resisted pulling out my laptop until the last tunnel was crossed and the crepuscular light made phone photos impossible. I’m amazed my little Nokia got such a clear shot of the waterfalls, less grand, admittedly in 2 megapixels, but still – not bad through the grimy glass of the Koena Koyna Express!

Last month, Ma and I traveled by train to Amritsar — my first train ride since last January, when V and I went to Agra (and I left a trail of vomit all over the city and station.) I did get a headache on the way back, but was still charmed by the fact that while the colors have changed, we still get served tea in thermoses on the Shatabdi. And a ‘tea kit’ with sugar, dairy creamer, a tiny stirrer and lots of sugar.