Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Travel: Rainforest Resort, Athirapally, Kerala

Rainforest revels Cascades of white water, lush forest and a spiffy resort make for an ideal idyll. Also, Ash was here! Raavan shoot Okay. Bollywood preceded me to the Rainforest Resort at Athirapally. And by Bollywood, I mean none other than Mr and Mrs Abhishek Bachchan, when they were shooting in these parts…

Feature: Women in the Army

Women…they excel in the army too! As of 2004, the figures show that there are about 600 women in the Army, 420 in the Air Force and about 100 in the Navy. INCREASINGLY, WOMEN are viewing the armed forces as a good career choice. The attractions are varied. It could be that they have father,…

Travel: Medak Church, Telangana

A Gothic touch Did you know that the church in Medak is perhaps the second biggest in the world? Medak, about 90 km outside Hyderabad, is a beautiful place to be in the monsoons. The grey clouds lend a soft, diffused light to the impossibly green countryside; mango, guava, pomegranate trees host families of…

Travel: Bhimbetka Caves, Madhya Pradesh

Rock stars Sheila Kumar and her intrepid aunt Uma take off to view the Bhimbetka rock shelters near Bhopal “Why not Khajuraho? Or the Orchcha temples? The stupa at Sanchi? We could have chilled out at Panchmarhi, or gone tiger-spotting in Bandavgarh.” The person shooting off these questions is me….

Feature: Ilaiyaraaja, Profiled

Melody`s Raaja : Ilaiyaraaja Following a six-year hiatus, Ilaiyaraaja is composing for Hindi films again. And as Sheila Kumar discovers, the 63 year-old would rather let his music do the talking. If you’ve forgotten how love, the sensual languor of it, feels like, listen to the music of Cheeni Kam. Three of the four song…

Feature: Those Noises in the Head could be Tinnitus!

Tinnitus: Noises in the head Tinnitus could be responsible for the incessant noises in your head. But information and determination can help get things under control, writes Sheila Kumar. All of us hear noises inside our heads at one time or the other. For most of us, it is a fleeting phenomenon. But for others,…

Travel: Coorg, an excerpt

MADIKERI Coffee Nama By Sheila Kumar You’d think a travel agent dreamed up Coorg. Picture this: 2,564 sq km of undulating topography carpeted in every shade of green, wreathed over by a gauzy stole of thin white mist. Bamboo, sandalwood and rosewood forests. Murmuring streams and rivulets, children of the mighty Cauvery, herself born within…

Travel: Pykara lake, Nilgiris

You wouldn’t know it from looking at the blue-green expanse of water that makes up the Pykara Lake, 25 km northwest of Ooty. The lake looks unfathomably deep — in actual fact, it is 170 feet at its deepest point— a teal-blue expanse, lazy ripples disturbing the smooth surface here and there. Straight ahead, frail…

Travel: Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Orange jalebis in the winter air Bhopal. Of course, the point is: can one get past the unseen but very-much-felt Carbide shroud, that heinous, diaphanous, brown-stained winding sheet? Then again, it’s not as if Indra Sinha’s Animal confronts the visitor at every turn in the road; it’s not as if the city has forgotten…

Travel: The Todas of the Nilgiris

Where the buffalo roam I am scanning his face. Hard. Like everyone who is a temporary or permanent resident of the Nilgiri hills, I have heard all about the Todas. That they are a mysterious people, that their origins, obscured by the mists of time, point variously to the Aborigines, the lost tribe…