Travel - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Travel: Ranganathittu, Karnataka

Wingtips on water makes for a lovely picture and that`s what you get at The Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary Once upon a time, there was water aplenty, in and around Bangalore. And where there was water, birding sites came up, with a host of birds big and small: pelicans, herons, black kites, white-breasted kingfishers, red-wattled…

Travel: Tipu`s Fort, Palakkad

Silent sentinel In the heart of Palakkad town sits Tipu’s Fort, a majestic edifice with a chequered past. Sheila Kumar takes a ramble. It is Tipu’s fort but it was built by his father Hyder Ali in 1766. The sizeable fortress is a striking feature of Palakkad town, one which most locals take entirely…

Travel: Kadavu Resort, Kerala

FOOTLOOSE Riverine reverie As you sit gazing enthralled at the swollen Chaliyar river near Kozhikode, you discover anew the many simple pleasures of life. The next time you want to get away from it all, really get away from it all, do a spot of lotus eating, write that long overdue Booker-potential magnum…

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…

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….

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…