Travel - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Travel: Singapore`s Botanical Gardens

In search of the baobab Chasing a childhood chimera, Sheila Kumar walks through Singapore’s beautiful Botanical Gardens I blame it all on Antoine de St Exupery and his “The Little Prince.” Ever since I read that classic, I’ve been wanting to see a baobab tree. And when someone I met at Singapore’s Tony Tanglin Club…

Travel: The journey back home

The journey back home When a professional assignment turned personal Photo: Anil Kumar Ezhuthachan/Palakkad Trails. As assignments went, it was a fairly routine one. I was doing the area map-makers termed South Malabar, comprising Palakkad, Guruvayoor, Trichur and thereabouts, for a travel book. The idea at HQ was to send people to cover areas they…

Travel: Andaman Islands

Paradise islands More than a year after the tsunami, the Andaman and Nicobar islands are seeing a new rush of visitors. Sheila Kumar is among them The tsunami of December 2004 savaged the Nicobar Islands, and did not spare the Andamans either. A series of unrelenting tremblers inflicted damage on roads and buildings, submerged lighthouses and…

Travel: Srirangapatna, Karnataka

In Srirangapatna, the evidence of grandeur and past glory is everywhere. Tourists invariably make Srirangapatna a transit stop en route to the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary or as an early stop before Mysore, just 13 km away. That’s good because it enables this quiet little town to retain its air of secluded privacy. But it’s also…

Travel: Burano, Italy

Drenched in colour SHEILA KUMAR drinks in the sights on the gorgeous Italian island of Burano The profusion of colour in Burano seems to follow no set colour codes; it just celebrates something intangible Sometimes, Venice tends to overwhelm with its sheer uniqueness, its grandiose, decaying beauty. You visit Venice and feel it’s a sort…

Travel: Venice, Italy

Photo: Yaj Malik Magic, pure and simple Venice is so breathtaking, it is impossible to be objective about it ALL of Venice is ablaze with lights at night. The dark emerald waters of the lagoon lap against decrepit walls. As our vaporetto (water taxi) glides past old palazzos, open windows permit us to look directly into…

Travel: Ross Island, Andamans

Where time stands still Ross Island is a jaw-dropping walk down the Raj lane. The Andaman group of islands has a lot to offer the visitor, from the Cellular Jail, where sadness seeps from the stones like something out of a Marquez novel, and coves and beaches where you find shells of rare and luminous…

Travel: Kanha, Madhya Pradesh

In search of Sher Khan Kanha National Park is where you can come face-to-face with a tiger, if you have the patience. In search of a tiger We are bowling over a horrendous road when I decide to put on record my indemnity bond. “Er,” I say, “I hope you girls know that not…

Travel: Kerala Kalamandalam

Distant drums Sheila Kumar visits the Santiniketan of the South, the Kerala Kalamandalam in Cheruthuruthy As we drive into the green hamlet of Cheruthuruthy, the first sound that wafts over the air, over the rippling waters of the river Bharatapuzha, is the rhythmic pulse of the chenda drums. A sound ubiquitous to all major temple festivals in…

Travel: Paris: Mogan, Montmartre, Madhu and Montparnasse

Madhu, Mogan and Montparnasse Sheila Kumar gets a rather unusual perspective on Paris, The City of Lights. Mogan Sue, Madhu and me meet Mogan-from- Tiruchirapally) one autumn evening in the foyer of our hotel, the Hotel Montmartrois in Paris. After Mogan spooks us with a slew of warnings about “being careful,” he insists…