Piccolo Posts

Chapter 1: Hum Kis Galli Jaa Rahe Hain Find the grape! I boarded the 9.15 am LTT-Lucknow Pushpak Express from platform number 4 of Kalyan station on a cold Friday morning. My day ahead was highly unplanned. The only thing confirmed was my seat and that my train would reach Nashik 10 minutes before 12 pm. It didn't though- I alighted at 12.15 pm at the Nashik R oad railway station. I almost had an entire day before I could meet my friend who would be coming from Pune. After having a heavy but not exactly fantastic lunch nearby, I caught a local bus to Nashik CBS. I had decided to go to Sula vineyards first. The rest of the things will be planned later. I started hunting for cabs which could drop me to Sula but I only got some super high quotes in return. The Nashik district court is just adjacent to the CBS. A rally in progress was approaching towards the court. Policemen were clearing off the road for the rally to march ahead peacefully. I crossed on to...

It has been around eight months here back in Mumbai and Mumbai keeps you busy; so busy that I didn't even care to write more on the Kerala Diaries.  A few weeks back, I was going through the notes in my phone and I found a note named Moonu. This note contained pointers to all the things that I wanted to include in the concluding part of my diaries. So, that got me started. I can never get the picture of the Cochin International airport out of my mind – it’s vintage. I did not pay any attention to it at first. When I boarded my pre booked taxi to the hotel and the taxi was on its way out, I just happened to turn back and I saw this. Isn’t it retro? The Cochn International Airport The airport was way out of the main city. It took almost 90 -100 minutes to reach Ernakulam. On the way, there were Mammoottys, Mohanlals and Vijays on huge hoardings, advertising gold, exotic sarees, scooters and also their movies. Mohanlal’s movie Loham was due that week and at a theatre ne...

One of the very first essays that we write at schools is ‘My Home’ - back then, I pondered on what is the difference between a home and a house.  I have many friends who have left their homes at a tender age to pursue better education; to get a job or for a healthier standard of living than their primary locations. Some keep moving throughout the country because their parents have jobs which require them to get transferred periodically. I never realized what it meant to be away from home till I got a chance to stay outside home for about two months in Kerala on a work assignment. It is tough to adapt to a new place away from the comforts of our home and its locality. A new place means finding a new vegetable market, a new doctor, the nearest bus stop, an ATM,  a new barber, a new cablewala, doodhwala, kiranawala, laundrywala and also finding new friends. I consider myself fortunate that the working hours would not last beyond 7 -7.30 pm – a general Kochi day will ...

We were here! Even on that rock. On a beautiful Saturday morning, it was time to board that flight to Delhi which would mark the start of a nine day full of a breath-taking experience. For me, there were many things on this trip that would be my debut; travelling through the clouds * , walking on the ice clad mountains,  trekking to heights as huge as 15000 feet,  seeing my own breath coming out as vapours in those cold nights and walking close to a 100 km in a 5 day span. * travelling through the clouds is an over-excited first timer’s representation of boarding a plane. Day 1: Potholes In The Air ! On the 18 th   of July, 2015, at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s Domestic terminal in Mumbai, the most happy and excited soul was probably mine. I was enjoying it all; collecting the boarding pass, security checks, and specially the boarding. When the plane left the ground; I could see the jam packed roads, the bandra-worli sea link,...

Mahabali at our Hotel Kerala celebrated its state festival Onam last week. It is celebrated over period of ten days. I was always indifferent abut this festival until I landed here during the festive season. It is believed that King Mahabali or Maveli as the malayalees say, visits them during Onam every year. Mahabali is an asura king who is good; the only bad thing in him marks Vishnu's fifth avatar - Vamana. The people under the good king's rule were happy and prosperous. The king soon developed an ego that he had everything he wished in the world.  The king had kept a yadnya where he promised that he would grant anyone with anything he asked for. Legend has it that Lord Vishnu in his Vamana avatar asked King Mahabali for three pieces of land equal to his feet. As soon as the king granted his wish, Vamana grew into the skies, kept one foot on the entire heaven; the other on the entire earth. When Vamana asked, where should he keep his foot for the third piece of land...

Two weeks after staying at a hotel with complimentary wifi and breakfast at M.G.Road in Kochi, I learned that every motorized vehicle here is a prospective killer. In these super small lanes, the vehicles go super fast. I have a new phobia now of crossing roads beacuse you never know which vehicle decides to surprise you. Even the government buses; they do not run, they fly. When I first saw a KSRTC bus, I noticed that there are only open windows; no glasses. Later when I boarded the bus to go to Allepey, I got to know that there are shutters inside the windows. There are no glass windows probably because of the heavy rains; the shutter type windows are easy to move up and down and need less maintenance. The big M.G.Road earlier known as the Seventy Feet road is reduced to half its size due to the Metro;  "work in progress". But the size of the roads do not matter here — everyone likes to go zooooom. KSRTC Buses:   Source Unlike Mumbai where people always run —afte...