In 1953, a British led expedition to Mount Everest included a New Zealand bee-keeper and a Sherpa who had settled in Darjeeling. There was rather a lot at stake. Ever since the discovery and the naming of the mountain, it had been identified with the British. Or so the British themselves liked to think. They…
If your hotel has the mud walls and back-to-basics furniture of a traditional Indian home, and the electricity comes from a high-tech windmill, chances are that you’re staying in a Gujarat Tourism Holiday Resort. Chances are too, that you won’t find a better introduction to this multi-faceted State, where it’s quite in order to go…
As symbols of normalcy go, the all-glass front of Pick n Choose on Residency Road, Srinagar, is as telling as any. Five years ago, you couldn’t find glass doors in Srinagar – they’d be a sitting duck for a terrorist’s bullet. Five years ago, you wouldn’t even have wanted the transparency of glass. Thick wooden…