Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Travel: Versailles, France

Viva Versailles! The Palace of the Sun King continues to dazzle, reports Sheila Kumar Most tourists visit Versailles with a view to upload some drama-filled history into their brains, aided by a montage of truly stunning visuals of the chateau, the palaces and the park. However, we were there for a different reason. Chasing history Being aficionados…

Travel: Verona, Italy

City of love We are in Verona, it is a sunny day and we are set to go gawp at Juliet’s house. Gulietta, daughter of the house of Capuleti, who happened to fall unsuitably in love with a certain Romeo, remember? Even as I try and call to mind lines from the play dealing with…

Travel: Paris from the River Seine

Down by the river… Sheila Kumar gets a different perspective of Paris as seen from the glinting gray waters of the Seine Tomas, all of twenty-six going on sixteen, is our guide aboard the neat little vedette, the passenger boat. It is a moot point whether Tomas is a good guide: he speaks fast and…

Travel: Nelliyampathy, Kerala

Beyond the cloudy mountains Where I chance upon Nelliampathy, an idyllic hill station tucked high up in a fold of the Western Ghats above Palakkad. The whole area is jaw-droppingly beautiful, even for a typical Kerala landscape. Navy ribbons of road, red-tiled houses, topography in all possible shades of green, the emerald of the trees…

Travel: Marble Rocks, Jabalpur

The white cliffs of Bedaghat The Marble Rocks (Bedaghat), just outside the mining town of Jabalpur in Central India, arguably rates alongside the Taj Mahal as one of India’s most awesome sights. It isn’t marketed as one, though and that is indeed unfortunate. I began my journey with a boat ride on the emerald waters…

Travel: Kadavu Resort, Kozhikode

Beyond the backwaters….. How much can you have of a good thing? A true blue Malayali sets out to bust the beauty myth, and fails. Whatever was Outlook Traveller doing, sending a Malayali into the Malabar hinterlands? Most ‘Mallus’ suffer from a surfeit of natural beauty and now view the backwaters, the ‘kettuvalam’ boats, and…

Travel: Kanha, MP

Into the wild Sheila Kumar goes trawling in Kipling country where she sees a magnificent tiger and much more The Kanha Tiger Reserve is not as lush as the Corbett Park. It does not have a brooding fort looming over it like in Ranthambore. However, what it does have is 940 square kilometres of bamboo…

Humour: Yes, this is English, too!

Yes, this is English, too! “In his masterpiece “Leaves of Grass”, Walt Whitman says: “The English language befriends the grand American expression….it is brawny enough and limber enough and full enough….it is the medium that shall well nigh express the inexpressible.” One wonders. One really wonders. All the more when one reads sentences that –…

Humour: Husband`s Nite

A night for the hubby The night itself was balmy, stars twinkling in the sky and a cool breeze blowing. The shamiana in the Officer’s Mess was all lit up, the army wives, dressed in dazzling finery, were lined up to receive the officers. The men walked up the drive, talking in deliberately hearty tones,…

Humour: Her Kampf

Her Kampf The great author was having a book reading. The great author looked a bit tired but clear-eyed. His wife sat by him, playing protector-comforter-guardian angel to perfection. She liked what she saw, a huge crowd hanging onto her husband’s august words. The great author started reading from his new book in his characteristic…