Gypsy at Large

“Both the communities (Hindu and Muslim) love Hindi serials and movies; but whenever something happens in India, reverberations are felt here in Bangladesh.” This simple statement coming from the priest of temple in Sylhet underlines the intertwined fate of the people of the two countries that were part of the same political entity once upon a time. It was this intrigue that lured me to travel to Bangladesh in this sweltering motherless heat. After fending off the questioning looks of friends and family members, as I applied for visa I was confronted with the familiar question – “Why Bangladesh?” I said, “Tourism.” The official looked unconvinced but I was not denied the visa. Apart from tourism was motivated me to go to Bangladesh that I wanted to visit a land which was within India not even a century ago. And since a visa to Pakistan will be hard come by, considering my family’s history deeply steeped in Indian defence forces, I zeroed in on Bangladesh. The circuit of Shil...

The two cities speak the same language and have had a shared history. But fate threw them on different sides of the border. For Narva and Ivangorod – small towns in Estonia and Russia respectively- the history has been strongly tied to each other as both were part of the erstwhile Soviet Empire. But after Soviet disintegration in 1991 they have been going through different narratives spawned by their respective governments and still maintain sanity in their approach towards each other. The river Narva dividing the two towns. Another view of the border It was for the first time that I crossed a border by foot. Crossing the bridge between Ivangorod and Narva immediately brought the analogy of the border between India and Pakistan (which I have never been able to cross over) in my mind; or if we narrow it down further – that of Indian Occupied Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Having cross border ties between families, the two cities have not cut down th...

When I was amongst the people selected to go up to Gurudongmar Lake in North Sikkim I was exalted. I had to been to Gangtok many a times, but this was the first time I will go to one of the highest lakes in the world and the best part was it was located just 5 kms away from the Indo-China border.  Out of a group of 30 odd people only 15 were declared fit to go to Gurudongmar Lake, located at an altitude of about 17,100 feet. And I was riding high on my experience of having trekked all the way to Siachen Glacier in more inhospitable conditions. So began the journey from Gangtok to Lachen. We started around 9.30-10 am in a bus for our destination. The road was washed away in many places considering we were travelling in the month of September. But the rain had made the landscape amazingly beautiful. It was green and misty till where your eyes went. We stopped halfway at an army post to have hot Chai and Matthi!! It was the ultimate bliss in the weat...