Mission Impossible

Let me confess, this mission I am talking about is nowhere nearly as complex as the plot of a MI movie. Even then, Ethan Hunt has completed five missions, while I am still stuck on my first.

This happened at a home warming party recently. 

I joined the party late due to horrid traffic and was in a really foul mood. Immediately went to the make-shift bar and poured myself a liberal amount of alcohol. I had just downed a few sips of some rather potent gin, when the new home owner caught me and excitedly started showing me her home.

As we neared the end of the passage, I could hear loud voices from the bedroom. I was in no mood to socialize with this loud bunch and started making excuses to my friend. Drunk conversations need a different energy level and I was not up for it.

Paying me no heed, my friend pushed the door open. 

‘Have you read Snowman?’

‘No way, you need to start horror with Carrie’

They were discussing books! I guffawed in my head and with a rather goofy grin entered the room with her.

Quick introductions went around and I was just making myself comfortable at the corner of the bed - when this group asked me my favorite book.

I was stumped. Just one?

I could talk for hours to anyone about books. I have made friends at my library over authors. I can discuss characters, plots, twists in the plot - hours on end. But choosing a single book as a favorite? I had never thought of it before. Everyone was looking at me expectantly. It must not have been more than a few seconds really, but in my head it was at least an hour.

‘I don’t know. I can’t pick one’ was my honest answer.

It was not the duration of time I was given to respond. The discussion moved on to other topics. The heat was off me. And yet, I was highly distracted. I kept running through my favorite reads.

The Bone Collector? The Pelican Brief? The List? Shall we tell the President? Sherlock Holmes?

Through sheesh kebab and chips with assorted dips, I still kept at it.

Shogun? Little Women?

When I ran into my friend sometime in the evening, told her about my dilemma and asked her for a favorite book. She is as avid a reader as me.

‘Harry Potter’, she said without batting an eyelid,’ or could be Lord of the Rings’, she added cautiously a few seconds later.

She could not settle on one book either, but she had narrowed it down to two. My mind, on the other hand, was suggesting more books with each passing minute. 

Game of Thrones? The Bridges of Madison County? The Ten Kings? The Da Vinci Code? And how could I forget Harry Potter? Mental whack to self.

Though the conversation ended with the party, my mind was on a mission looking for the elusive answer. It has been more than a month since the question and I am none the wiser.

I could tell you authors I love to read – writing styles I enjoy reading. Maybe tell you a favorite in each genre? But no, I can’t choose one favorite book. It is mission impossible for me. 

The Making of a Bibliophile

I am not sure at what age I got addicted to reading.

Maybe it was the school library.

The school library introduced me to the adventurous world of Famous Five, Secret Seven and Hardy Boys (somehow did not manage ever picking Nancy Drew). Got introduced to the American school life through the Sweet Valley Twins franchise and also to the grown up world of Jeffrey Archer and Robin Cook. Jeffrey Archer and Robin Cook were my first encounter with pulp fiction. They were my favorite authors for the longest time. Today it is difficult to point to that one author who is my absolute favorite.

Maybe it was my parents. They read a lot.

My mother was a voracious reader – absolutely loved reading. She introduced me to Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes.

Somehow am certain, I would never have stumbled across the epic Erle Stanley Gardener if it was not for my mother. How I usually pick a new author: I randomly flip open to some page in the book and give it a read. If it felt good, I pick. Else drop. Given how old school Erle Stanley Gardener is, I am pretty sure I would have given him a miss. I have given P.G. Wodehouse a miss because of my highly evolved selection process. And I do not change my mind about authors easily – I have not read him till date. 

As a wedding gift, my mother had received a vintage “Sherlock Holmes collection” from her brother. I remember I used to read it off the table or the floor since it was too big to hold!

Maybe it was the smell of books – the intense smell you get when you enter a library. It was and continues to be as heady as petrichor for me.

I remember going to Ram Krishna Mission library with my folks. There used to be missionaries studying, reading or taking copious notes at the big wooden tables. And absolute silence - I remember hearing the pen scrape the paper that was being written on.

The silence felt strange then. But now I know better - people were busy reading! I understand that feeling today. I can get lost in the world of the authors creation – absolutely oblivious to the world around me. Since the library survived on donations, they did not have the most recent books obviously. But they had a big collection. The bonus was – you could keep the book for more than a week unlike the library at school. Was introduced to Leo Tolstoy, and Somerset Maugham here.

I sometimes wonder if I should read those books again – not sure what I would have understood then. Somerset Maugham still makes me run to a dictionary! But in hindsight, reading such heavy material probably made me look out for another library.

Imagine my delight when I chanced upon a circulating library near home. It was choked full with books from ceiling to floor, authors new and old and had a very avid reader as the library owner!

My life has never been the same. In a matter of weeks, the owner understood my taste and started recommending new authors and books. Discovered some really amazing authors here: Daniel Silva, Robert Tanenbaum, Harlan Coben, David Baldacci among a host of others.

I still visit the library and take the owner's suggestions on new authors and books.

The school had a return policy of a week. So did the circulating library. There was real pressure since I did not like leaving books unfinished then. The other alternative was to buy the book if it was so intriguing. But my parents did not encourage buying books: “You will not read them again. There are too many books you are yet to read”. So I ended up paying fines in case I took longer than the designated one week(which happened when the books got bigger).

I disagreed with them, somehow I thought I knew better (like every other teenager). I started putting together a little book for myself. It has a list of authors, along with their books I have read. Have a neat little marking system as well – green for WOW, black for DON’T BOTHER. The idea was: once I can afford to buy books, I would buy the books marked in green. I have slowly started buying those books I had so loved – it feels so good to somehow have them in your own home.

I am yet to prove my parents wrong about one thing though: I am yet to re-read the book collection I am trying to carefully put together. I hope to prove them wrong sometime – and chances are I won’t. I have stopped reading books midway if they bore me, I don’t waste time on stories which don’t hold me. Re-reading a book? Slightly unlikely as of today. The problem is there are too many books yet to read! 

My Travel Wishlist:3rd of Many

11.   Wish – list: Ukraine

Location: is situated in the south-eastern part of Central Europe and borders Russia, Byelorussia, Moldova, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland on land and Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey on sea.

The territory of Ukraine is mostly a level, treeless plain, calls "steppe". There are the Crimean Mountains in the Crimean peninsula and the Carpathians in the west. 

Swallow’s Nest, the sea Castle in Crimea:  “Swallow’s Nest” is a castle, built in the late XIX century near Yalta, in the South of Crimea. Situated on the steep cliff right over the Black sea, it has become the symbol of the South coast of Crimea.

Kiev, Ukraine

Tunnel of Love - Kleven, Ukraine

12.   Wish – list: Turkey

Location: it is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea is to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.

Anatolian Seljuk Mosque, Turkey: This is part of the Great Seljuq Empire architecture. this can be found in a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. The homeland of the Seljuk architecture was Turkmenistan and Iran, where the first permanent Seljuk buildings were built. Unfortunately the Mongol invasions and earthquakes destroyed most of these buildings and only a few remain. The greatest number of surviving Seljuk monuments are in Anatolia.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Natural Rock Pools, Pamukkale, Turkey: Pamukkale, meaning "cotton castle" in Turkish, is a natural site in southwestern Turkey. The city contains hot springs and travertines, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. It is located in Turkey's Inner Aegean region, in the River Menderes valley, which has a temperate climate for most of the year. Pamukkale-Hierapolis is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ephesus, Turkey

To be continued…

My Travel Wishlist: 2nd of Many

7.       Wish-list: Czech Republic

Location: The Czech Republic is located in Central Europe. It is surrounded by Germany to the northwest, Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the southeast, and Austria to the south.

The true crown of the Czech lands is without a doubt the capital city of Prague. This city of a hundred spires, which has been paid homage by the greatest characters in world history over the centuries, is literally a living textbook of architecture.

Astronomical Clock, Prague, Czech Republic: This dates from the 15th century. The clock is extremely intricate and is displayed to a crowd in front of the tower to observe the procession of the Twelve Apostles: on the hour, every hour, a small trap door opens and Christ marches out ahead of his disciples, while the skeleton of death tolls the bell to a defiant statue of a Turk. Below the Astronomical Clock are 12 medallions with the signs of the zodiac, added by Josef Manes in 1865

Zelená hora: gates, 5 chapels, 5 altars and 5 stars. The Church of St. John of Nepomuk on Zelená hora is one of the most original buildings in Europe, which still amazes people from all over the world to this very day. This UNESCO monument and work of the talented architect Jan Blažej Santini Aichel is a place which deserves to be visited by all those who appreciate its mysticism and unique architecture, interweaved with the powerful story of St. John of Nepomuk, the Czech saint.

8.       Wish-list: French Polynesia

Location: in the South Pacific Ocean, it is halfway between California and Australia

It is a set of islands that is an overseas country attached to France. I was surprised to know that Tahiti, Bora Bora  and Mangareva are part this…!

Bora Bora:

Tahiti:

9.       Wish-list: The Dead Sea

Location: It has Jordan to the east and Israel West Bank to the west

Actually, this is a salt lake and not a sea. The lowest point on the face of the earth, this vast stretch of water receives a number of incoming rivers, including the River Jordan. Once the waters reach the Dead Sea they are land-locked and have nowhere to go, so they evaporate, leaving behind a dense, rich, cocktail of salts and minerals that supply industry, agriculture and medicine with some of its finest products. Because of its extremely high content of salt and other minerals, the Dead Sea is devoid of plant and animal life.

10.   Wish- List: Lapland, Finland

Location: is situated in Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden to the west, Norway to the north and Russia to the east, while Estonia lies to the south across the Gulf of Finland.

It was quite exciting to know that this is the home of Santa Clausand his reindeers! Lapland is renowned as being the land of the northern lights, a place with winters where there’s always snow and harsh temperatures. Lapland can also be described as the land of 8 seasons: deep winter, late winter, spring, early summer, summer, late summer, autumn, early winter. As hilarious as it sounds, the ‘changing’ seasons bring remarkable changes also into people's daily routines.

A natural phenomenon known as The Northern Lights can also be experienced from Finland. The northern lights are essentially shafts or curtains of colored light visible on occasion in the night sky.They are  found in both the northern and southern hemispheres and can be truly awe inspiring.

And Hotel Kakslauttanen in Finland offers you the possibility to to experience this through a glass igloo...!

To be continued…

My Travel Wishlist: 1st of Many

I haven’t traveled much in the last four years. Not that I was a travel freak prior to that, but it’s been a really long time since I took a break and went on a holiday.

Looking for inspiration, I started following travel boards on Pinterest. For those who do not use Pinterest: it is a photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more.

My reason to use Pinterest was simple: the photographs of a place are usually the deciding factor in selling a destination to me. It was not that I did not believe what my friends told me. Just that people may describe a place to the finest possible details – but the fact remains that everyone looks for a different set of details. Hence, I had realized that for me a travel recommendation would work usually when accompanied by photographs.

In my free time, I found myself spending more and more time on these travel boards. It is captivating and I never tire scrolling over to the next board. Some pictures just call out to you and then there are some which are so dramatic you wonder whether they are real.

I found myself crawling through the internet to find more about some of the places I discovered, as the photographs were plain unbelievable. I essentially wanted to confirm whether such places actually exist. Sharing some photographs below which blew my mind and are definitely on my wish-list:

1.       Wish - List: Ecuador

Location: In South America and is bordered by Columbia on the north, Peru on the east and south and by the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Staircase at Pailón del Diablo waterfall in Ecuador: this is a fairly large waterfall located on the Pastaza River. It is a mere 30 minutes away from the town of Baños in Ecuador. It is considered to be one of the most popular attractions in the area. The name of the waterfall in Spanish (Paílón del Diablo) means”Cauldron of the Devil” in English. You can view it from the suspension bridge and also walk the path so you can get a closer look at the amazing waterfall…!

2.       Wish - List: Iceland

Location: is a Nordic European island country situated at the confluence of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

Frozen waterfall Oxarafoss, National park Thingvellir, Iceland: this is a small waterfall which flows from the river Öxará. The base of the waterfall is filled with rocks and is often very icy in winter.

  

3.       Wish - List: Venezuela

Location: officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America.

Mt. Roraima, Venezuela: Roraima is the highest tepuy (spanish for table mountain) on the triple border of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. It is around 2,800 metres tall. Its name is derived from 'Roroi-ma,' which in Pemon means 'big blue-green.' The only way visitors can climb to the top is from the Gran Sabana side, in Venezuela.

4.       Wish - List: Norway

Location: It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The country shares a long border with Sweden; it is also bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark.

Fjord, Norway: The fjord is one of Norway's most visited tourist sites and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Lysefjord is located in Ryfylke in the county of Rogaland, near Haugesund and Stavanger, south in Fjord Norway.

5.       Wish - List:  Ladakh

Location:  in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south.

Phuktal-monastery, India: the monastery is a unique construction built into the cliffside like a honeycomb. It located on the mouth of a cave on the cliff face of a lateral gorge of a major tributary of the Lungnak (Lingti-Tsarap) River. A massive cave monastery located in Zanskar, Phuktal is located atop steep mountains, giving it a unique charm. Built in the 12th century, the foundation of the monastery is made of twigs and mud and serves as home to 70 monks. The main attraction of the monastery is the cave that has a hollow which holds what is believed to be healing water.

6  .   Wish - List: Jaipur

Location:in state of Rajashthan in India

Chand Baori - Abhaneri, India: Abhaneri is a small village in northern Rajasthan. 'Abhaneri', is believed to be a mispronunciation of 'Abha Nagri' or the 'city of brightness'. Though the village is in ruins now, tourists throng the village to see 
Chand Baori which is a huge step well, a unique idea conceived by the natives to work as a water reservoir.

 

To be continued…

Travel Tales: Fairmont Hotel - Jaipur

This year, valentine's day was special. This year, unlike every year, there was a work conference on the most hyped day of the year. We were headed to Jaipur, the Pink City. I was a little disappointed since the year before the same had been held at Goa(and I had missed it) and people had not stopped talking about it. So as excited as I was about Jaipur, I wished we would have gone to Goa instead.

But all thought of Goa or any other destination flew out of my mind with one look within the mammoth gates of our hotel at Jaipur.

We had been put up at the Fairmont Hotel. There stood a majestic elephant, decorated very royally, awaiting our arrival. Just beyond the gates, there was a lady dressed in Rajasthani clothes to welcome us with a "saffron teeka". 

As you are about the enter the hotel, you can hear some very melodious Indian classical music being played. It wasn't a recording - there was actually a musician who strummed a sitar right at the entrance...!

Given that this hotel is part of a global chain, I was quite taken aback by just how authentic everything about the place felt. What was remarkable about the hotel was how they are integrated technology into  an architecture which was completely inspired by the Mughal dynasty. The lifts and rooms operated on swipe cards which also added a sense of security to the guests housed there. 

The staff was dressed in Jodhpuris, spoke impeccable English and gave us all the most amazing customer service experience throughout the two days there. 

Sharing some photographs of the property so you can see what I am talking about.

What I especially loved were the little little things that they had done - the paintings, the lights in form of "mashals", very artsy looking lights that had been installed all over the property. 

Being a book lover, I especially loved the library room...!I managed the time to nestle myself in the cozily appointed reading area with "A Walk to Remember". If my stomach hadn't rumbled, I am pretty sure I could have been there overnight.

The Le Meredien was right next door and believe me, they are going to face some very serious competition. A sneak peak at the Meredien next door:

The Fairmont hotel has a motto of 'Turning moments into memories for our guests'. On their website, they also claim to offer experiences which are authentically local and genuine hospitality through engaging service and attention to detail. 

Believe me, they do. Every single word written there is actually something that can be noticed and/or experienced. Am a total fan - unequivocal. The two days spent there were one of the most memorable days of my life. It definitely sets the bar very high for future conferences to follow.

I hope I get an chance to go back here again...!