kasmenon

A TRYST WITH LONDON PART 3  Get down at The Tower Bridge station on the tube and a few blocks away , as you walk, the first tower of the Tower Bridge comes into view. Soon you see part of the river Thames on both sides. Get across to your right ( if you have not crossed the road ) and the full bridge comes into view. While you walk towards the bridge , you will notice on your right , a large castle , which was once made of white stone but now is  less white. It dominates the whole area and is  very imposing,   looks very mysterious and sinister. Before you go to the Tower you can walk down the steps and get close to the castle called the White Tower . This place witnessed a history of kings who occupied the place. It also served as a prison and a extraordinary place for executions. Over six Queens have been executed in its courtyard and so have many prisoners. The place does, architecture wise, look like a prison. The King's chamber is said to be impressive. The W...

A TRYST WITH ENGLAND : PART 2 After a good night's sleep and a typical English breakfast of muffins, poached eggs , bread , hash browns ,fresh orange juice and coffee , we imaginatively used the red " hop on hop off " open top bus to take us to where ever we wanted to go. That was our strategy to be where we wanted , at our own time , without the limitations that a London cab or any public transport would have imposed on us. It worked perfectly well. All you need is to time your visits . it does not matter if you do not stick to it,  in a sense. Not unless your objective to to cover all the places. Ours was not. We soaked in each as much as we wanted and then went to the next. There was history to be immersed in and silent conversation to be had with Kings ,  likes of Shakespeare , Newton and Charles Dickens. Fortunately for me , my son , too felt so,  more out of curiosity than a  sense of history I guess! As the Big Ben's  chimes sounded out the hour, ...

THE TRYST WITH ENGLAND : PART 1 We were on our way to an Empire which had spread across the globe and where the Sun never set , about half a century ago. Having  born after independence  and tutored  well about  Indian history ,that spanned few centuries since the establishment of the East  India company , I have had a mixed feeling of love and hate about the British. The hate obviously was due to the  excesses  like the Jallianwala  and the probable disdain they had of Indians in general. The admiration was due to their immense administrative  abilities, the establishment  of marvels like the Indian railway, the beautiful structures they built and in making a nation out of us. Literature , science and the arts , that one was exposed to, had a predominant British slant to it and hence the   overwhelming anticipation of being able to witness ,in person , some of the places and monuments , so far experienced only through books, was...

ThMost of my leisure travels overseas have been dove-tailed with official tours. This meant all little details can be attended to as help from colleagues  and the organisation  is available. When my son and me decided to travel to Europe and London, the factor that kept me tensed was the fact that the management has to be done by me or my son.  We researched well and he slowly took the lead . Things like hotel bookings, internal travel and decisions on the local itinerary    was finalised after evaluating various options using the world wide web . Mostly by him. Since he worked for the airline , I had a seat which was a 2 seat config . and both of us quickly settled down as we travelled light. The A 380 is a nice aircraft, thoughtfully designed and provided for WiFi access through the flight and offered good entertainment and information channels. Morgan Freeman's absorbing episodes of "Through the wormhole" kept me occupied and then after some lovely old coun...

ON THE TIGER TRAIL Patel , a short stocky man in his mid-thirties, turned up in the forest department's green fatigues , much before sunrise , on a pleasant morning  at 5 am sharp. He turned out to be a knowledgeable  and experienced forest ranger. As we jumped onto his eight seater bottle green jeep, aptly dressed for a tryst with Collarwalli, deep into the forest, I sported a smile, satisfied that JIm Corbet would have approved. After some quick paper work and casual but firm scrutiny by the forest guards, we quickly made ground. We sighted the Pench river far off. Patel stared  into the horizon ,deep in thought and in a in a voice that  reflected a sense of  gratitude  , informed me that the Pench river , a tributary of the Kanhan river , flows through the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh  and provides drinking water to the thirsty inhabitants of Nagpur city in Maharashtra, courtesy two dams. Nature, I noticed, pay...