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Hacks to make phone photography a breeze
We live in a visual world. Look at your social media accounts and you’ll realise they are pictorial journals – especially about food and travel. But with the pandemic curtailing movement, the reservoir of places and foods that can be photographed seems to have dried up. Or perhaps not. The lockdown has seen several of us pick up older passions or find new hobbies, some of them translating into business opportunities too! And in all of these cases, photographs and/or photography is a shining star! Photography has been used to chronicle the lockdown, share the stellar food that was whipped in the kitchen and draw the attention of potential clients…
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Memories of a first foreign trip
A few days ago, while going through my inbox to delete unwanted mails, I found a note sent by a friend. Mailed in May 2019, this note was an account of his eventful (and harrowing!) overseas trip in April 2019. It brought back memories of my own first foreign trip to Thailand – I accompanied my elder sister to spend a summer month on her university campus. She studied, I played, we both partied! Most of us remember our first, especially our first overseas trip! The excitement of preparing, the nervous tension as you step into the international terminal, butterflies in the stomach as the flight takes off and the…
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Winding through the Isle of Skye #2
In times of the pandemic, the Scottish Highlands have been in the limelight for… well, locals testing positive. And a while ago, there were news reports about an increasingly large number of people opting to live closer to Edinburgh rather than commute daily from far-flung corners of the Highlands. A rather obvious decision, isn’t it? And back in the day (circa 2017), there had been discussions about real estate prices in the Isle of Skye skyrocketing, hotels/homestays claiming six-month long waiting periods and even some mumblings about a tourist tax. Whatever the case may be, nothing and no one can deny the charm of the ruggedly handsome Scottish Highland. As…
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Winding through the Isle of Skye #1
It had been a cold winter in Ahmedabad, the winter of 2018, the minimum temperature hovering between 10°C-16°C. Huddled at my desk, feet tucked in thick socks, I shivered and bemoaned the ruthless cold over a telephone conversation with my best friend. Imagine my indignation when she burst into laughter rather than express sympathy over my frozen toes! “Rapti, if you are shivering in this excuse for a winter, how on earth did you survive the Scottish Highlands,” she questioned. Good point. But you see, at the Isle of Skye in Scotland, while my teeth chattered in the bone-chilling cold, my face was frozen into a big grin and my…
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Grit+Glamour+Culture = Glasgow
On March 6, 1989, a 44 year old and his colleagues boarded a British Railway train at the Edinburgh Waverley railway station. The group of six men – all town planners from developing cities of India – was headed to Glasgow as part of a government initiative facilitating knowledge exchange. Among them was my father who returned thrilled with the exposure to planning and technological advancement he saw in Glasgow. But it was the efforts to preserve the industrial heritage of Glasgow whilst creating sync with the cultural fabric that impressed my father the most. “Observe the buildings as you walk through the city. The urban landscape would have changed…
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Crushing on Edinburgh #Chapter2
Around the time I had been reading about Scotland, especially Edinburgh, I remember stumbling upon the statement “But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream.” Now I don’t know about mad gods and goddesses but I do know that it is a city of Good Samaritans. Do you remember where we left off in the last post? That bit about me having a near meltdown in the gift store of the Edinburgh Castle? (Read Crushing on Edinburgh Chapter 1) Well, while I do remember that nerve-racking anxiety, I also have a clear memory of a gentleman walking up to me. It seems he saw the visibly distressed me and want to…
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Crushing on Edinburgh #Chapter1
I confess. I have a crush on Edinburgh. I have been in love with Amsterdam from when I first set foot on that gorgeous slice of heaven on earth. But now Edinburgh, with its cobbled streets, mix of old-new structures and a skyline that gives off a broody Gothic vibe on a cloudy day, has found its way into my heart. Having experienced the colourful energy that takes over the city towards the end of the Edinburgh Festival, I want to return to Scotland’s capital – once to devote time (and money!) to the cluster of festivals that light up the ‘Festival City’ and again to walk through the city…
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Scotland: Why, When, How
Looking back, the year 2017 was like the craziest roller coaster ride in an amusement park leaving me, the rider, nervous, exhilarated and other things unfamiliar. But the Gods of Travel were undoubtedly kind to me. How else does one get lucky enough to have checked two places from their travel wish list in a year! Yes! Yours truly went on a three-day trip to Athens (with the elder sister and her husband) and a week-long solo trip to Scotland; the first in May and the second in August. Athens was a special treat because of the… hold on. I’ll come to that later. How about I regale you (I…
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Gift yourself a travel diary
A week ago, I did a few interesting things. I (finally!) started work on a ‘history journal’ project that had been gifted to me three months ago. I was supposed to have given it a long time back but then life happened, priorities changed and the project got delayed. That’s the first interesting thing there, finishing that long-pending project. The second exciting bit was attending a “solo female travellers meet” – here I met a bunch of interesting people, learned some lessons from more experienced solo travellers and answered questions of some planning to take the plunge. It was during the discussions here that someone raised the point of “clicking photographs to…
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Tips to get you started on a green life
Eco friendly. Environment friendly. Sustainable living. Green living. Organic. These are words we’ve seen around us for a while now, irrespective of a sector. These terms have made their space in our daily vocabulary, making way for concepts like ethical, sustainable, fair-trade, biodynamic, earth-friendly, ecological, free-range and the likes. Experts keep reminding us of the need to adopt and adapt an eco-friendly lifestyle. The need of the hour is much stressed upon. But I’ve always had one question – among several others – is HOW does one go about stepping into this lifestyle? And questions like…– What do these terms – eco-friendly, sustainable, organic – really mean and how are…
