वे गोरे नवाब

(यह  लेख  टाइम्स  ऑफ  इंडिया   के  1968  के  वार्षिक  अंक  में  प्रकाशित  श्री  आर. पी.  गुप्ता  लिखित    ‘The Nabobs and Their Servants’  पर  आधारित  है.) कभी  ‘सोने  की  चिड़िया’  कहलाने  वाला  हिन्दुस्तान  विभिन्न  शासकों  की  आपसी  लड़ाई  के  कारण  उस  ईस्ट  इंडिया  कंपनी  के  आधीन  हो  गया  जो  सत्रहवीं  शताब्दी  के  प्रारंभ  में  …

Ariel plays a prank

It has been a long time since I wrote and published. There was nothing to write about. There is no pleasure in writing about routine, which my life has been these last few months. Writing about routine is dull and pleases neither the author nor the reader. Too boring to write about the days the …

Shahjahanabad, the seventh city of Delhi

We; a group of a dozen brothers, sisters, cousins and their spouses; boarded the Metro at Patel Chowk and disembarked a few minutes later at Chawri Bazar. Stepping out of the state-of-the-art station we landed in a bedlam of motor cars, auto-rickshaws, peddle-rickshaws, bicycles, pushcarts and pedestrians, to say nothing of the stray dogs and […]

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Situated in a narrow lane, Ranveli Beach Resort is a modest hotel in the outskirts of Colombo on the main Galle Road. Sparsely furnished, its rooms boast of a double bed, a wardrobe of sorts, a stand to hang your towel on, a chair, a table which doubls up as a dressing table, an air …

Madu River and Induruwa Beach

Bentota, our next port of call, is almost midway between Galle and Colombo. We were booked in Induruwa Beach Resort, a few kilometres short of Bentota. After a leisurely breakfast at our hotel in Galle Prabhat, our driver-cum-guide, drove us to Balapitiya for a boat safari on Madu River. The Madu originating in Galle, although …

Galle, Sri Lanka

The Flower Garden Hotel, Galle is hidden behind other properties surrounding it and can be reached only after negotiating a busy narrow street with small shops and eating places on both sides adding to the confusion. In spite of its nondescript approach, the hotel turned out to be best we stayed in during our sojourn …

The Tooth Temple, Kandy, Sri Lanka

We had reached Kandy from Anuradhapura around 9 PM and checked in at the Kandyan Arts Residency. Too tired to have dinner (thanks to a very-very late lunch, we were not hungry anyway) we hit the bed straight away. But not before taking a few snaps of  twinkling lights of the hill-station.Kandy is a hill …