mumbai’s ancient rock-cut cave temples

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Rama Arya

“Let’s explore the rock-cut cave temples of Mumbai this Sunday,” a friend suggests excitedly.

“Caves? I have been to Elephanta and Kanheri. Even written about them! Read my post. 🙂 ”

“Hey, there are more, a lot more in the city itself.”

More? I am confused. Where can there possibly be caves in Mumbai. The city is packed with concrete and people, with little space to walk, least of all millennia old caves to have survived. I am wrong.

Hidden within the crevices of Mumbai’s urban jungle is a pulsating vein of its ancient past. A series of rock-cut temples, connected to each other with tunnels and hidden passageways, lace the city’s basalt bed rock. Continue reading →

global travel shot: sani pass, from south africa to lesotho

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Aah, that adrenalin rush! That sense of adventure in exploring unchartered, gruelling terrains and then coming back to tell the tale. For many travelling to South Africa, and to me, it simply means the Sani Pass. Continue reading →

mount poinsur, mumbai’s marian sacromonte

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Rama Arya

There are advantages to being an insatiable traveller, even when amidst the obvious and familiar. One is always searching for the road less travelled, the site less seen, the experience less had. And rarely have I been disappointed. This day was no different. 🙂

Perched atop a 45 metre high knoll in Mandapeshwar, Borivali is Mumbai’s least known and most delightful slice of eclectic heritage—Mount Poinsur, an ode to the St. Francis of Assisi order in India and Marian devotion, the veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism. Continue reading →

learnings from a non-violent communication workshop

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Rama Arya

A dear friend and I have been having lots of conflicts this past one year—we have been friends for over three years now. Three years is a long time. Gruesome secrets revealed. Memories made. Familiarity bred. Currently we are at the ‘if we can have an argument free’ conversation, it warrants celebration.

Friendships, like all relationships, have a life of their own. They keep evolving, either into higher exalted versions of themselves or more often than not dissipating into a faded recollection. They need hard work. But what exactly? I must confess I am clueless. We are all different. My friend and me even more so. Continue reading →

art focus – masquerade and other apologues – anant joshi

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Rama Arya

It is as if a rainbow had burst and spread its colour, both over vast mounted canvases and minute egg tempered paper boards, alike. I stand in the grey walled halls of Chemould Prescott Road and blink. And then gawk.

As I step closer, yet another world unfurls—a satire rooted in broadsheet cartoons morphed into the artist’s personal commentary on recent social and political events and personalities in India. I recognize Arvind Kejriwal, Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi. I see athletes and war zones, Jesus Christ and Hindu priests. Continue reading →

britannia and company : parsi food at its best : south bombay

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Rama Arya

[This post is not a food or restaurant review, and has not been commissioned either. It is a place I have eaten at and fallen in love with, at times for the food, at times for the ambience, and often for both. And like me, countless others have been smitten by it too. Such, that it is today part of the very fabric of Bombay’s history and culture.]

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Ninety-three year old Boman Kohinoor comes to our table to take our order. Charming, suave and gentle, he is the owner of Britannia and Company, a Parsi restaurant founded by his father, Rashid Kohinoor, in 1923. His son, Romin, is the chef.

Britannia and Company has remained virtually unchanged from when it was set up 92 years ago. The peeling paint, crystal chandeliers and Polish Bentwood furniture within are evocative of another era; the Iranian flag draped across the side wall a proud acknowledgement of the restaurant’s heritage.

It would be fair to say that the restaurant is driven by emotion rather than profit. The nominally priced meals could easily go for small fortunes apiece, taking the restaurant’s global repute and heritage into consideration, but the Kohinoors are happy selling them for a few hundred Rupees instead.

The family-owned eatery on a quiet street in colonial Ballard Estate opens only for fours every day to a packed house and long queues. If you are not eating you have to leave. Its patrons come from far and wide, from the office crowd in the Fort District to Parsi NRIs on holiday yearning for a taste of home.

I am charmed, to say the least. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – street art and dharavi

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Rama Arya

“Bhaiya, Dharavi chaloge?” (Will you go to Dharavi?)

After being turned down twice, a rickshaw finally agrees to take me on the condition, “I will drop you off at the main road. I won’t get a return passenger from there… You will have to walk to 60 Feet Road by yourself.”

Dharavi is not the usual jaunt or destination for a Mumbaikar, least of all a Hindi speaking woman on her own who quite clearly does not have a clue about the ground realities of the place itself! All I know is some statistics, historical details and that the main road is the 90 Feet Road, and perpendicular to it is the 60 Feet Road which I want to explore for its street art. But more on the art later in the post. 🙂 Continue reading →

uncut: road trip to kutch

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Rama Arya

“Sometimes it’s not about the destination, but about the journey itself.” ~ Anonymous

This is my last and final post on my 5-day road trip to Kutch taken in December 2014; a road trip full of personal 1sts that I would be happy to turn into 2nds. Uncut, here are some images which did not make it to my eight blog posts on the region but summarize my journey just as eloquently. Continue reading →

palaces of bhuj and mandvi

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Rama Arya

Think palaces and royalty in Kutch. Think Bhuj and Mandvi. They are (sorry, were) almost synonymous with each other till the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake which brought much of the region to dust. Yet a few structures still stand, recounting an era that whispers to the traveller.

Kutch was a princely state till India’s independence; the walled city of Bhuj dating back to 1510 the state’s commercial and administrative nerve centre. In 1548 Rao Shri Khengarji started work on the Darbargadh or palace complex. Over the next 300 years, subsequent rulers further added to it, reflecting prevailing cultural and artistic trends. Continue reading →

than monastery of the slit ear yogis, and fossils of kutch

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Rama Arya

Deep in the rolling hills outlying the Great Rann of Kutch, some 65 odd kilometres from Bhuj, is a centuries old Hindu monastery, the Than monastery, steeped in medieval traditions and customs, its actual age disputable. There is not another soul for miles; the only sound heard being that of the peacocks singing in the surrounding forests. Within the monastery’s thick limestone whitewashed walls a sole yogi, with a handful of companions, keeps an exclusive tantric monastic order alive—the Kanphata (slit ears) sect founded by the sage Dhoramnath. Continue reading →