Travel & Yoga Blog of an Indian Yoga Teacher
You know it’s going to be an interesting Yoga class when the teacher begins with describing her experience of dissecting cadavers – the sheer awe it evoked, the bright yellow of the fascia, and the certainty it brought: that our...
On our walk with the elephants through a Bodo village this woman stepped out of her home and made an announcement in Assamese, her hands gesturing all over to drive home the point. Not knowing a word of Assamese, I thought she was trying to shoo us away (these damn tourists) but luckily…
An illustrated map I made to help visitors orient themselves on this many-splendored island. Seemed fitting to pay an artistic tribute to such an artistic island. Distances mentioned are from Garamur Junction as the start point. Rented cycles from Majuli...
If I had to pick one travel resolution for 2019 it would be to travel s-l-o-w and slower than ever. And in the time-honoured tradition of new year resolutions, I did break it before the first week was up....
While flamenco is embedded in Andalusian folk culture, not many know that its origin is traced to gypsies from India who wandered into Spain a few centuries ago. This history finds a prominent mention in the Museum of Sacromonte (Museo Cuevas...
A Picturesque Corner of Italy’s Lake District Painted from a moment I captured on Lake Maggiore two years ago on a two-month trip in northern Italy. One of the most interesting places I’ve ever been. Off the standard tourist circuit and...
One of Europe’s most visited cities, Barcelona got its name from the Romans who named it Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. The name evolved to Barcinona in the Middle Ages and later to the current Barcelona. To break it down,...
Small-town tranquility needs to be bottled and sold as a mood. Back to my busy days now, it feels surreal to look back on these mountain villages where no one’s ever in a hurry. I had no idea that after...
Mid-July this year I began my 6-week Spain trip, my first stop being the Barcelona Yoga Conference as one of its official bloggers. A week full of various interpretations of Yoga, great live music, eating my weight in vegan gelato,...
At the Bali Spirit Festival this year I had the honour of meeting Mark Whitwell, author of Yoga of Heart, and a travelling Yoga teacher spreading the rare message of claiming your own direct intimacy with life and not pedestalizing anyone....
A cluster of diverse and dramatic natural spectacles huddled on three islands within hopping distance of one another is pretty much nature’s way of saying: Knock yourself out, kid. And that’s what drew us to Nusa Penida, Nusa Ceningan &...
A 16th-century town whose cobbled past stands preserved despite all present-day intrusions. A Spanish colonial town in central Cuba, Trinidad is both a slow dance with yesterday and a reggaeton party between stalactites and bats hiding from said reggaeton (thanks...
The most neglected part of modern Yoga seems to be the philosophy underlying it, the core of Yoga as expressed in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. As it turns out, profound aphorisms that delve into the nature of the mind...
With three weeks spent in Cuba this February, I gleaned a bunch of travel tips that will be useful for anyone considering a trip to this one-of-a-kind island. Here goes! My 3-Week Itinerary: The first 4 days I spent exploring...
A five-day road trip through five districts of Uttarakhand with six other bloggers and countless new memories. Honoured to have been part of Uttarakhand Tourism‘s first ever Blogger Bus with this bunch of mountain goats Upendra Swami, Amrita Das, Swati Jain,...
“Flirting is Cuba’s national game,” our retreat organizer Christine informed us as we turned a corner in Havana Vieja (Old Havana) one hot afternoon. Something I had begun to sense, having lost and found my way on the streets of...
The practice is an excuse to find out what is going on with the mind and the body – One of many nuggets of insight Yoga teacher extraordinaire Eduardo Pimentel peppered his classes with, during the Press Week organized by Mhai Yoga...
A visit to an ancient palace near Dhar, a town in Madhya Pradesh (Central India) inspired me enough to capture the moment in paint. Walking under the palace’s bat-occupied arches, it felt strange yet accurate to imagine its past as...
I’ve been saved by Poems and Poses more times than I could count. But enough times to sense a few commonalities between the two despite their seeming disparateness. Like two cousins who are chalk and cheese at first glance but...
Contrary to its press release and what Instagram may have you believe, being a Yoga teacher isn’t all inner peace, endorphins, cartwheels, Yoga pants and Savasana. Navigating the waters of your own practice and its daily repercussions while being in charge...
Climb high enough and turns out you’ve walked right over the clouds 🙂 Sanskrit for ‘snow bowl’, Hemkund sits at an altitude of 15,197 feet (4328 meters)...
Those mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to camp between The campsite in Ghangria, a small hamlet which comes alive from June to October every year. We got here after a 14 km trek from Govindghat, the starting...
That how-on-earth kinda beauty from an underground window at Cafe Sherpa enroute Tsongmo Lake. Where we stopped to hire some warm clothes and get a hot beverage or two. There’s not enough caffeine in the world to pack in a kick...
In a world where a butterfly doesn’t flap its wings without it being tweeted, whatsapped, snapchatted and instagrammed about – basically contributing its own little tornado to an already turbulent world – let 6 days in the Valley of Flowers...
Join me this August on a Yoga retreat in the Himalayas! Dates: 26 to 31 August, 2017 Cost: Rs. 24,500 + Applicable Service tax (revised tax rates under GST regime with effect from 1st July) More details on : Valley of Flowers Yoga...
Yoga teacher, dancer, actress, model, oenophilist, author, peace activist, revolutionary and a wonderfully antique little girl who (in her own words) ‘refuses to grow up’. Just some of the hats the 98-year-young Tao Porchon-Lynch has juggled in her 3-inch high...
Balance is … … an ode to stillness sung by all the movement it took to get there … the sea of patience that goes into creating one exquisite wave ...
At Ukanc, meaning ‘the end of the world’ in Slovene. Locals once believed this was the furthest anyone could ever reach, there being an insurmountable wall of mountains ahead. Everyone knows better now, but the innocence still hangs in the...
I’m often asked how one can maintain a steady home Yoga practice between work stress and tight schedules even at home. Here are 4 tips that have worked best for me over the years: Keep your Yoga mat rolled...
Exactly 13 years since I painted this. An oil pastel re-creation of an oil painting by an artist called C Loft, known for his Mediterranean seascapes. A raw beginner at age 19, all I had for reference was a postcard-sized greeting...
New years compel new beginnings, and perhaps more so when 2016 is the year being left behind. An exceptionally intense year for most of us. Making it more imperative than ever to step into the new year with a big...
“Oh I can never sit still!” – the commonest response whenever I make the outrageous suggestion that meditation might be worthwhile. To many, meditation implies sages sitting still, lost in some exclusive mystic realm. But what if you don’t need...
“My first day of work today,” he shrugged as he clasped my harness onto the cable. Words you do not want to hear from your ziplining guide when you’re 120 metres above the rainforest floor, looking down on a sea...
If I’ve been missing here of late it’s because I was away having the maddest, wildest time exploring Chiang Mai, Thailand for a week and I’m still reeling! You can read about it on this link: How to Make the Most...
A moment long awaited I’ve often been called ‘lucky’ for being a traveller, as if all my trips just fell into my balcony like rainbows and all I had to do was dance into them. I’d like to...
I’ve often been called ‘lucky’ for being a traveller, as if all my trips just fell into my balcony like rainbows and all I had to do was dance into them. I’d like to debunk that myth and explain how...
Off the standard tourist circuit and along the rim of Italy’s boot lives its Lake District, named after glacial lakes formed at the end of the last Ice Age. For all the massive tourism and consequent pick-pocketing in its big...
The Germans have a word (don’t they always) – Schilderwald – which means a street crowded with so many road signs that you feel lost. Quite like the fitness industry today, whipping up newer and fancier workout systems, machines, ideas, acronyms, websites,...
By Namita Kulkarni on May 1, 2014 While I’m the last person to...
I’d gladly live inside a box of paints if I could. Spend my days on a squishy sofa of phthalo turquoise and the nights curling up in the warm crevices of a sunset orange. Might sound a tad unrealistic, but...
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