A Wandering Soul

My first experience with English winter made me realize why the English get so excited when the sky is blue and the days are warm and sunny during summer. The period of four months from November till end of February is cold, damp, dark and gloomy. The days are monotonous and if you are lucky you might have an hour or two of good sunshine in the entire day. The only thing that is good about the English 'Winter' is that Spring follows it, announcing itself with bright yellow-coloured 'daffodils' which seem to spring from nowhere, and pick cherry blossoms. The days become longer and the gloom of winter slowly ebbs away. The first long break which everyone looks forward to after Christmas is 'Easter' and during this extended weekend, I decided to visit Scotland, the northern country that is a part of the United Kingdom. Since the trip was only for five days and we had to cover a country which is known for its coastal routes, highlands, mountains and valleys a...

Any idea what 'Cymru' means? Or do you know if a road sign says 'arafwch nawr', what you are supposed to do? Well, we faced a similar conundrum as we drove towards 'Wales', a country in United Kingdom that is bordered by England to its east and the Irish sea to its north and west.  Although Wales closely shares its political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, and the vast majority of the population speaks English, the country has retained a distinct cultural identity and is officially bilingual. Over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. In the recent Common-Wealth games, I realized that 'Wales' has its own National team and they did pretty well in events like swimming where they won several medals. In Olympics, though, both Wales and Scotland compete as a part of Great Britain team. In cricket, England play against Scotland. I am y...

After coming to the UK, one thing that changed one of my fundamental beliefs which I have inherited from my Indian roots is 'life after 60'. In India when our parents are nearing 60, there is always a constant thought that lingers in their mind, 'What now?' So most of our fathers look forward to starting a second innings in their careers and our mothers continue spending their time in kitchen. This phase continues for some time and then once they are truly retired, they have officially reached an 'old age' or  they become 'senior citizen' in every way. Every sentence almost starts with, 'But what is the use of doing this now?' or 'I don't think this is possible anymore' or 'now is the time for you all to enjoy' and many more such stereotyped sentences. In the UK, I have found people who enjoy their life the most are the ones who have crossed their 60's. During summer time I found them playing outdoor games, biking ac...

Part 1 -  Chester After a wonderful life in Mumbai for 5 and a half years, our life decided to take a turn. My husband had to shift to UK in a place called Chester towards the North-West of this island country. So after thinking of all the pros and cons ( the only con that I could think of was leaving my stable consulting job) I decided to shift with him. There were lot of things that required attention as we had considered Mumbai to be our second home away from Kolkata and after of lot of wait and speculations had purchased a 2 bedroom flat in the Mumbai suburbs close to my work-place. Things were moving fine with cook and maid, our jobs and our parents visiting Mumbai for few months in a year and then came the sudden change. My husband moved to UK in Jan and bravely faced the first UK winter whereas I stayed back to wrap up things in Mumbai and finally joined him in June. That was a blessing in disguise because the first thing that I realised after landing in Manchester...

We are among those who wait for the entire year for a trip which will take us away from the hustle bustle of metro life. We plan for such trips months in advance and start day-dreaming about it long before we actually start. This year was no different and this time I was determined to steer clear of our favourite destination – the Himalayas. The first destination that came to my mind was Kerala, one of the most favourite tourist destinations in India. Though a little skeptical that this (first week of March) wasn’t the right season, I started my research and settled on a five day trip to Kerala, encompassing a hill station, a reserve forest and the backwaters. In order to be safe rather than be sorry (since my parents were travelling with us), we relied on KTDC (Kerala Tourism Development Corporation). Though a tad expensive, KTDC is one of the most professional and efficient Government tourism bodies operating in the country. They were very prompt in all their mail correspondence and ...

Sangla Valley (Sangla – Rakcham – Chitkul) Sangla: Since the journey from Sarahan to Sangla is only of 4 hours, we started around 9:30 AM from Sarahan. We took the same NH 22, traversing deep canyons, ridges, and some startling rock formations with the Sutlej River following us at every step thousands of feet below. The landscape turned barren as we reached Karcham. There are three hydro-power projects under construction in Kinnaur and the work there has taken a toll on the roads. There was a lot of dust due to the construction going on in this region and it added to the discomfort during the journey. The road climbed up continuously from Karcham (where the Baspa joins the Sutlej) and the many hairpin bends we came across were scary. Frequent halts to take photographs delayed our journey and we reached Sangla at around 3:00 pm. Sangla is a hill town situated at the height of 2600 metres. The first think that strikes you when you approach Sangla is that all of a sudden the mountains aro...