Through a haze

Snippet 1 It needs to be recorded that this was my third visit to the ancient holy city of Varanasi and this time around I was neither a tourist nor invited for a wedding ceremony. I was there just for the weekend to conduct 4 workshops in a school on the outskirts of town with my senior. We took the 4:50 p.m. Rajdhani Express from Sealdah station and worked on our presentations till dinner. After dinner and a short nap we had to disembark at Mughalsarai Jn. where we were met by representatives of the school. It was the dead of night, nearly 2 a.m. when we crossed the bridge on the Ganga and saw the panoramic view of the near empty Kashi ghats to our left. This view to me always signals the entry into Benaras.....familiar and strangely comforting. Snippet 2 Our accommodation had been arranged for at the Ramada Inn, a swank 5 star hotel. We were checked in swiftly and shown in to two adjacent suites....which was preposterous. Each suite was enormous and it felt like we were hou...

A visit to Delhi, even if it is a pitstop on the way to more exotic locales, is always meticulously planned. There are plans and then there are back-up plans to take the place of last moment fall-outs. Our initial twelve hours (8a.m. to 8p.m.) in the national capital, time was budegeted for shopping, eating and meeting people. We managed to do all three though with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. Kitschy India at New Delhi Sarojini yielded that diamond I had been coveting: a smart black woollen winter coat that my classmate, who met us at the market, haggled down to one-third of the asking price. I could not be happier! Other members of my party loaded up with trinkets, palazzos, socks etc. A typical girls' day out. Reeling under the weight of our shopping bags we headed to Nando's CP for a hearty meal only to be disappointed thoroughly by the dryness of the grilled chicken and the overall lack of taste in our meal. However, those who are travelling by ove...