Whatever your religious leaning, if any at all even, a visit to these two towns is not the run of the mill ‘temple’ visit. It is journey to time long past and the chance to experience and appreciate what some would consider to be amongst the greatest artistic achievement in South India.
15 kms from Mysore lies the town of Srirangapatna, the old capital of the legendary warrior king, Tipu Sultan. Despite its past as one of the great capitals of South India, Srirangapatna is today a town in anywhere India. The old fort walls stand cheek to jowl with concrete boxes of the new India, with…
We are 38 days into our travels around South India, and in Coorg, Karnataka. Staying at the lovely Berry Lane homestay, with a cook we’d love to steal and take back home, we are spending time walking the spice and coffee estates and wandering in the forests. We have learnt many things about travelling in…
After 17 blissfully laid-back days in Kerala we head into Karnataka, the land of coffee plantations, Tipu Sultan, and the seat of many an empire. We start up in the hills of Coorg, where we will spend a few days in a beautiful plantation homestay in the village of Ammathi, away from the crowds of…
All around is there is silence, even the coconut trees are waiting. The drummers begin, creating a tempo that increases quickly, whipping themselves and the air around into a frenzy. The ‘god’ then appears and begins his dance, moving around in circles, at once quickly and then slower, swinging his sword in slow deliberate movements.
Perched high up in the Nilgiri’s and straddling the Tamil Nadu – Kerala border is the British era Kolukkumalai Tea Estate, the highest organic tea gardens in the world.
Kathakali is a form of dance and story telling, practiced in southern and central Kerala which takes its roots from ancient social and religious theatrical forms dating back over 1500 years. The preparation for the dance is as elaborate as the dance itself, and getting the performer ready involves hours of intricate makeup, something we were…
But what is most striking about the state, is its myriad shades of green. From the dark green leaves of the forests that surround the backwaters, to the lighter shades of the tea leaves; from the blue green waters along the coast to the yellow green of the paddy fields, the state has it all. It is almost as if the colour green was made for the state of Kerala, and everyone else got what was left.
After 3 odd weeks of travelling down the eastern coast of India, we make our way up the western coast from Kanyakumari into Kerala exploring all the places to visit in Kerala. After wandering the capital city of Trivandrum, where we had possibly the best meal of our trip so far, and lazing at the…
The dark grey skies and slow drizzle adds to the sense of melancholy as one reflects on the unpredictable fury of nature. What must it have been like to live here, so far from anything else, so close to the edge of land, at the mercy of the ocean. What would have possessed the inhabitants of Dhanushkodi to persist, on this thin sliver of land, surrounded by salt water, braving the elements, with what would surely have been an omnipresent threat of annihilation hanging over their heads? Could it have been the faith that they would be protected by their lord, or was it simply that they had lived there for centuries and it was home.
As many of you know, Hoshner is a Parsi, and I am a mixed breed of Tamilian Brahmin, UP and Himachali descent. Having grown up in Madras, I can still read Tamil and speak a smattering of it. My husband, who is of Iranian descent, is, outside of Bombay, Puna and Delhi and perhaps the…
But the red dust and eerie silence is quietly watched over by some of the largest, most beautiful, stately mansions one has ever seen. They fill this village, and all the others in the region, reminiscent of a bygone era, when the rich and enterprising Chettiar community, financiers of the royals, lived like kings.