Just about travels

In December of 2021, still living through a world where the pandemic's influence was palpable - working from home, isolation after flight travel, reduced outings - I ordered a jigsaw puzzle off of Amazon to better spend the winter. Something that I had enjoyed in my childhood, it had been a while since I had done a jigsaw puzzle. With no particular image in mind, I looked up some generic "scenery" images and ordered one that seemed grand. Noticeably rusty, it took me 3 weeks to complete it. It was only once I had framed it that, on a call with someone, I got to know what place the image was of. This was Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Canada. After realizing that the image was quite real and not an edited rendition, the eagerness to visit the spot only grew. Fast-forward to 2023, my wife and I had gotten our Canada tourist visas and the urge to visit strengthened. Social media and shorts only fueled it further by periodically showing stunning views of Banff, itinerar...

My first camping experience On a warm summer afternoon in Minnesota in the middle of a huge lake navigating aimlessly in a kayak, a sense of calmness descended upon me, soaking in the moment that I had often found myself visualizing. The quietness of that moment isn’t justified by a mere string of words. The relative serenity experienced is significantly higher when since it was my first time on a kayak. The complete journey of going out there, renting the kayak, dragging it to the water, shakily stepping into it and wading past the weeds on the edge of the lake to finally get to the middle is one that clearly had my heartbeat racing. This is my recollection of my first experience of camping, near Lake Itasca in the summer of 2019! The only other incident that portrayed a similar structure of adrenaline racing, exhilarating moments suddenly followed by quiet and peaceful moments was when I had gone skydiving a year ago, in the summer of 2018, albeit on a different scale. The o...

The transition from being a relatively carefree, 20-year old engineering student having lived within the protected boundary of his parents, to a determined, 21-year old master’s student living all by himself in a foreign country was a huge leap of faith for me. The first 7 months following the move to US went in a blur, balancing between enjoying the new environment, exploring new opportunities and meeting new people, and putting in more-than-ever efforts in courses, pushing limits to explore new ideas in research courses, and building connections in the academic setting. What lay ahead in the following two months qualifies for me as the most challenging period yet. That is a story in itself. However, as they say, the night is darkest before dawn. That was precisely how I feel that phase to be, now that I look back. Landing an internship gave me the opportunity to experience something new – a sense of freedom and responsibility of managing expenses from what you earn, planning...

THE EXPERIENCE My fascination for treks stemmed from the fact that my father was a trekking enthusiast in his childhood and teenage years. It took almost 20 years of my life before I developed a passion for it! Over the past 2 years, I met many people in college who shared this same interest with me. Mahuli, Sudhagad and Karnala were three treks I undertook with my college friends. Come October 2016, I was eager to plan a trek for December once our exams were done. To add to it, I wished to take along a huge group this time, and that meant adhering to a few limitations - trek duration of one day, distance from Mumbai not over 100 km, and a difficulty level of easy to moderate. Along with my co-planner Mihir, I chose Tikona fort as our destination for the trek. In hindsight, I now firmly feel that getting participants on board, planning each detail of the trip, and making people pay up promptly was the tougher part! Moreover, we ended up having a diverse group - 5 students ...

MUMBAI's FASCINATING TRANSPORT: The secret behind the title – Mumbai, ‘The city that never sleeps’ are the excellent all-time available public transport of which an integral part are the ‘local trains’. The Mumbai Suburban Railway system is a part of the public transport system of Mumbai. It was here where the first railway train in India was run (Mumbai to Thane in 1853). It has one of the highest passenger densities of any urban railway system in the world. They are a very important part of Mumbai’s common man’s life. This mode of transport, that has grown leaps and bounds over the years, carries more than 6.9 million people daily and also is a source of income for some. They begin at 4 am and continue running till the last local of the day from Mumbai CST at around 1:40 am past midnight. Beginning from the office-goers flurry in the morning, continued by the youth (college-goers), followed by the famous dabba-wallahs (greatly benefited by the punctual service of the railways ...

SOUTH-INDIAN FLAVOR: Another of my wonderful trips! This time it was even more fun – Dada and C dada, both were there! Dada was to come to India for the second time after he had gone to the US for his MS. Just like the time prior to his earlier visit, we eagerly awaited his arrival. Due to the volcanic eruptions in Iceland, their plane had to take a detour over the North Pole and got delayed by 3-4 hours. After already having waited for so many days, those few extra hours seemed negligible. And once we met, it was lot of fun for me. We had planned this Bangalore trip since a couple of months ago. I was as usual very excited of travelling by Indian railways which gives me immense pleasure though I sincerely don’t know the reason behind it! It was very kind of R mama to give us his car to reach till Dadar comfortably. We were at the station well in time. Being an AC coach, it was comfortable to sit and wait for the train to depart. I frequently kept checking the route and schedule of the...