August 2006, Cologne.

The 700th photo on this photoblog!

May 2009, Hyderabad.

March 2009, Hyderabad.

This is the fourth and final photo in a small series on children I encountered while making my way here. To see the first photo in this series click here.

March 2009, Hyderabad.

This is the third photo in a small series on children I encountered while making my way here.  

March 2009, Hyderabad.

This is the first photo in a small series on children I encountered while making my way here. 

September 2008, MV Foundation Hyderabad Camp.

To see the complete Children of MV Foundation Series please click here.

August 2008, Delhi.

The Hazrat Nizammudin Dargah is the mausoleum of one of the most popular Sufi saints in India, Nizamuddin Auliaya, who is revered by not just Muslims but also by many Hindus and even Christians. The same dargah complex also houses the tomb of Amir Khusro, the famous poet and musician as well as father of qawwali, who was a disciple of Nizamuddin. Fittingly, every Thursday there are Qawwali sessions organized in the verandah before the mausoleum of Nizamuddin Auliya. The above photo is of one of the qawaali singers, from one such session we attended, as he took a break from singing.

(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.) 

August 2008, Mussoorie.

Mussoorie is locally referred to as the ‘Queen of the Hills’. As such it has been a popular hill station from the time of the British Raj. There are great views from the top over the surrounding valley and on a clear day you can apparently see snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas but the day we went there a thick cloud cover descended over the region covering the whole valley below with a thick white blanket. While this eliminated any chance of great views it did offer interesting photographic opportunities of a different kind as can been above.

(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)

August 2008, Mussoorie.

Finally, the rain cleared after two days so we immediately set off for Mussoorie in the morning. The above photo was taken while waiting for the bus to Mussoorie to start. A lot of pilgrims visit the state of Uttarakhand as part of the Char Dham Yatra, one of the most important pilgrimages in Hinduism. The four dhams in the order in which they are supposed to be visited are Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. The incredible thing about this ‘yatra’ is that many of the pilgrims actually complete the whole pilgrimage on foot, which is a few hundred kilometers at least, across some of the toughest terrain in the world!

(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.) 

August 2008, Somewhere between Uttarkashi and Rishikesh.

Sorry for the lack of updates for a long time to the mini-travelogue but there has been no net access at home over a bill dispute with my ISP and to add to my run of bad luck my Mac also crashed! Regular updates should start pretty soon. And now going back to the travelogue…

We left Uttarkashi late afternoon for Rishikesh in a shared taxi. This was not a good idea as ver few travel across the mountains in the night. And this would be an eight hour drive at that. But staying back meant wasting another day so we decided to take the risk. The initial half of the ride was uneventful if a little exciting driving along ghat roads around and across mountains, the complete darkness in front of us only illuminated by the lonely beams of our taxi. Just when I was beginning to nod off we blew a tyre at the halfway stage. It was around 9pm, which is pretty late in the mountains.

Fortunately, this happened as we were passing through a small town and even more fortunately we found a shop that fixed tyres close by. It was closed though and the guy who owned the shop, who was talking to his friends nearby, was not too enthusiastic about reopening his shop in the night. But his resistance crumbled before the pleas of my fellow passengers and he got to work as can be seen in the photo above. Tyre fixed we resumed our journey and reached Rishikesh late in the night. We crashed in a hotel for the night and decided to head for Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, the next day.

(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)