I felt that my return to Dehradun and Mussoorie after 17 years was destined. But I had never imagined it would be during the monsoon of 2011. Living in the city, I had lost the charm of the monsoon season. Apart from welcoming the showers after the scorching and sweltering summer, there was no other reason to rejoice. The romantic and poetic inspiration brought about by this season, the beautiful aroma of damp earth and the clean and green look of the trees had been almost washed away by the slush and waterlogged streets, longer traffic jams and delayed travel time everyday. Today, having witnessed the rains in Dehradun during dusk and the floating clouds in ever-lovely Mussoorie, nostalgia and love for the monsoon was re-kindled, ...

Parked at a comfortable corner at the waiting area of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, I was awaiting my flight to Dhaka along with other passengers headed to different destinations. As far as my vision went, I could see a myriad of colours, faces, heads, people, luggage, and hear a multitude of announcements, voices, squabbles, tongues and noise. It seemed like I was in some cosmopolitan country, where being an Indian felt strange. There were many Indians, correction, NRIs around who only resembled that they once belonged to my beloved India. Of these, the older generations might have even spoken in a familiar tongue and accent, but the current crop looked, behaved and spoke completely foreign. It made me wonder whe...

The cruise firms want to make positive that all of their cabins are filled and if in the lead up to the cruise departing they uncover that they are going to have vacant cabins they will then offer you discounted rates to make certain that they have enough passengers on board. It can be a time consuming procedure to consistently search via every single cruise company's discounted cruises so one more alternative is for folks looking to get last minute bargains is to join a travel club who will then alert you when unique prices are released for cruises which meet your person specifications. For those looking for a last minute cruise vacation bargain their greatest selection is to search the cruise businesses on line and search through the d...

Have you ever gone against the will of a group and stood by your beliefs, despite the pressure that is being put on you? My dad has just left after a relaxing afternoon of catching up and I'm left here to sit and reflect on what has just happened. Three and a half years ago my grandad, David Shaw, died, aged 94. Two years earlier I sat down and chatted with him about his life and recorded the conversations. For the first time since I have just sat down with my dad and listened to them again. It was as though he came down to join us one more time, bearing some powerful lessons. He lived in a different time, almost a different universe. With no money, he joined the RAF, in 1940. He had to go and train in the USA and then in Canada....

ALARMING FACTS ABOUT THE HUMBLE STEERING WHEEL. My thoughts sometimes meander on how many times I touch and handle my car’s steering wheel and that of other motor vehicles I use. I often drive with both hands-firmly on the wheel when driving the school mini-bus or my friend’s cars but in the back of my mind where had their hands been before touching this wheel? Imagine you can fit 4 million bacteria on the end of a pen, add the usual breeding conditions and a little time you have a nice little bug-farm ready to join hands and be a part of you!       Goodness knows what other germs may be lurking on the wheel when men are driving because according to most women ‘They all pick their nose’. The steering wheel may be a good breedi...

Have you ever driven along a highway, particularly one weaving through the mountains and wondered what kind of trail passed this way a century ago. I remember crossing the desert from Arizona to California and thinking about the settlers moving west. What took us a day must have taken them a week or more. The only water was what they carried with them on the wagons. I think about the thousands, mostly children, who died in the desert. Their graves now lost with the shifting of the sands and the earth. I'm sure their families marked them with a piece of wood or a pile of stones, meaning to come back someday and remove the remains to their new home. Many became so caught up in their new lives that they never came back. Even if they had t...

TRUTH OR SIMULATED ILLUSION Humility and the part it plays in your life Humility and gratitude are both sides of the same coin It is a coin that you inherit as you go higher in conscious states. Humility is what lets you Hear and Gratitude is another coin that has on the other side Happiness. Gratitude for what you might ask. Gratitude for the life within you that grows and evolves you to higher and higher states of profound peace and joyful love without boundaries. States where we see that the idea of a separated world is all in our head and has never has been a reality outside of our head. We helped create that world because the real reason we ever inhabited that physiological dimension of separation is so that you cou...

When I went into London today I picked up a copy of the Metro. I very rarely read anything other than the sports pages on any newspaper as it is usually bad news. Being a Liverpool fan means that even the sports section is bad news at the moment! Though the exit of Hicks and Gillette has provided at least a silver lining! Today I was intrigued to see on the top of the front cover: "Caught between a croc and a hard place. Astonishing revelation about plane crash that killed British pilot and 19 others.....flight was brought down by a crocodile." I was curious enough to read the story. It turns out that on a flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo one of the passengers had managed to smuggle a crocodile on board in a sports bag. Before ...

If you are hearing any of these- “Cutting Chai”, “vada paav”, “Khaoo gali”, “jhakkas”, “Boss”, “ Aye Aunty zara baju hat na”, “Saab (Sir) yahan se left maaroon ya right”, “ abe chalta hai re” you have definitely landed up in Mumbai. - The Indian financial capital city. “Aye dil hai mushqil jeena yahan …zara hatke zara bachke yeh hai Bambai meri Jaan…”( Oh, My dear Heart, please be a little cautious, its difficult to sustain in this city, so please be careful as this my Mumbai my Dear) is how Majrooh Sultanpuri, one of the greatest lyricists of all times superbly described Mumbai in the year 1955. What Mumbai was then is no different now. Perhaps far more complex to be understood! Ironical but true- it is a city which is mesmerizing...

Here in the US we drive on the right hand side of a two lane road and the steering wheel is on the left side of the car.  We have what we call freeways that are not free because we pay taxes to build them but they are not toll ways except when they are attached and you have no choice but to pay the toll.  The rules of the road are that the far left lane in a multi lane pathway going the same direction is the emergency and passing lane most places here.  Most often many use this lane as an unofficial fast lane and go over the speed limit both civilians and emergency agencies and law enforcement.  The only people I see getting speeding tickets are civilians. On the way home listening to the radio there were two view points about those wh...