We had already crossed the visible stretch of the Sambhar Lake from railway station to the refinery close to dam. Charmed by the Pink Salt we were on the next part of our evening trail. While crossing the lake bed, we were slowly and cautiously following the path created by jeep tyres, as any attempt to deviate would have been dangerous for our bikes in that slushy mud. Winter sun was quickly moving westwards and I was now getting anxious for some sunset shots in the vast expanse of the lake bed. After pink salt, was it the turn for a pink sunset? You would see for yourself- I somehow believed that sunset would be splendidly beautiful and quite different from sunsets that I have experienced so far at other places. Colours in the sky and on the land had started changing. The a
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It was long overdue. And, I was actually ashamed of myself for not having being there till now, despite being so close. Of late, it was almost decided in my mind that I would be biking to Sambhar, most probably alone. And it happened so. Almost 750 kms of biking in two days made it possible and enjoyable. Every minute was worth it. Sambhar is between Jaipur and Ajmer cities of Rajasthan. Lake basin is spread at the confluence of three districts- Jaipur, Ajmer and Nagaur. You can call this place as one beyond imagination. It is, "a place where horizons stretch to infinity, water and sky merge in a shimmer of gauzy blue and civilisation goes back a long, long time and legends abounds it" (quoted from- 'Conservation of Sambhar Lake - An important Waterfowl Habitat and A Ramsar Site in ...
Read MoreSO finally the cliché of the visit. Earlier four accounts- Bhangarh, Kankwari, Neelkanth and the Birds were quite fascinating and actually different from usual routines of visit to the national park. But then what about the wild inside you? Bhangarh might not haunt you but not sighting a tiger in the tiger reserve is certainly going to haunt you to a certain degree for a considerable duration of time. Purely on that terms Sariska has been third time lucky for me. My first trip to Sariska was almost thirty years ago when tiger safari was not a fancy idea, and second one 17 years ago when tiger was always second in my thought. (What was the first?) But then as I have always said that though its always fascinating to watch a tiger in the wild, but not watching it doesn't creates a sort
Read MoreI am not a birder specifically, but being interested in wildlife I love bird watching as much as I love sighting tigers. Both give you equal chance to play with your camera. All the tiger reserves and national parks per say (other than specific bird sanctuaries) too have rivers, lakes, ponds and other water holes which are shelter for waterfowls and migratory birds. Jungle themselves are best places to see the birds. Having been to few bird sanctuaries, this was first time I specifically kept time to see birds in a tiger reserve and I was certainly not disappointed. Hence, comes this fourth post from Sariska visit. Sariska is a big national park and has many perennial sources of water which in turn become good harbouring ground form birds. Hence, when you are close to a water body, ...
Read MoreImmediately after Bhangarh, I landed to this place. And, I am sure that less than 10 percent of people present at Bhangarh would have heard about this temple and among those who would have heard, less than 10 percent would have ever visited it. As a day later at Kankwari fort, here too, we were the only travellers. There were some locals to pray, although. Besides, we also came to know that there were many tourists a day earlier (on first day of the new year). Well, this is all about Neelkanth Temple, how it is commonly known. The board here says its name as Neelkantheshwar Temple (not any difference in the meaning of both words). Actually, if you go on searching online, all the pages will lead you to Neelkanth temple near Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. You would have been lucky enough t
Read MoreBetween visits to Bhangarh and Kankwari forts, I had other three notable experiences. All are worth independent posts, that would certainly be in coming days. But, to me it seemed rather more appropriate to write about Kankwari fort immediately after Bhangarh. It helps more in drawing comparisons and parallels. Although the visit to Bhangarh fort had its worth because of all the stories attached to it and I was impressed by the fortress city as a whole, but I was largely disappointed by upkeep and ruins of the Bhangarh fort. In that context, visit to Kankwari fort right next day was a huge surprise... a pleasant one. I had read about Kankwari Fort sometime back but never had chance to visit it in my earlier trips to Sariska Tiger Reserve. Even the information available about
Read MoreSO much has been written and told about Bhangarh fort in recent times as the most haunted place of India (some claim to be in Asia) that if you just blindfold somebody and take him or her to a place and whisper in ear that- you are in 'BHANGARH' and that person will just get spooked and run out of horror. We did something similar. We didn't blindfold but kept telling all the way that we are going to some other place (fort) and kept all hints of Bhangarh out of the view of that person. Once we entered the fort and the person came to know about the truth that we were in Bhangarh, we could see the horror written on the face. But with no scope of running for anybody, we continued. Rest all is history and we came out laughing on all the spooky stories of Bhangarh. With extent of writings
Read MoreIt is indeed one of the reminiscence of India's glorious past- one which has been largely well-documentated and one which is largely intact, as is the case with most of the Mughal-era structures of that time. The beauty of this place is that every time you come here, you learn a few new things about the old times, just like sort of revising the history. Every time, it gives you a new perspective in current situations. Well, we are talking about Father Sikri, near Agra which was the capital of great Mughal emperor Akbar. This architectural wonder is located right adjacent to the tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti, who was the guiding soul of Akbar throughout his life. Both the structures, often visited together, have different identities and different architectural values as well. But both...
Read MoreMandala is a art, a design. But it takes different forms in different references. Mandala is said to be one of the richest visual objects in Tibetan Buddhism. Even on purely art terms it needs high concentration and precision to create such fine and intricate design. The mandala represents an imaginary palace that is contemplated during meditation. Each object in the palace has significance, representing an aspect of wisdom or reminding the meditator of a guiding principle. The mandala's purpose is to help transform ordinary minds into enlightened ones and to assist with healing. Monks at Dalai Lama temple at Mcleodganj near Dharamshala busy in creating a Kalchakra painting through sacred Mandala. Monks rarely like to get photographed during this moment. This is a sand mandala being
Read MoreHonestly, I had high hopes when I went to Kadalundi. It was one of the places which I had planned to visit during a very small leisure window on my visit to Kozhikode (erstwhile Calicut). It was late November and I could not have missed watching and photographing a few migratory birds. But, it was a disappointing outing. Spread over a cluster of islands, this sanctuary is said to be the abode for more than a hundred species of native birds and 60 species of migratory birds. The area where Kadalundi river flows into the Arabian sea is surrounded by hillocks. These hillocks besides creating a scenic environment also give a splendid view of the sanctuary, river mouth and the sea. Even the main railway line to Trivandrum passes through the sanctuary. Kadalundi also has a mangro...
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