Month: August 2025

Travelling through Rural West Bengal in Blazing Indian Monsoons- I

Published by

Monsoons are going on, Or are they going? They say that this year it’ll not only rain but the skies are going to weep. Clouds arrived four weeks early. And they have mostly stayed. Even the universe knows, that the monsoon times most children are angry or show their displeasure. They are told to not go out as it will rain, yet many go and whirl even at the expense of catching cold. Because only they know that cold does not exist, what does breathe in them is the joy of dancing with nature’s music. Few years ago, I travelled through Rural Bengal during the majestic Indian Monsoons. Being there it felt like my soul grew while only seeing the earth showing her abundance, her happiness. So many emotions churned within me then that I had to write a letter to a friend who sat far. Not to tell her as such, but to learn myself what was actually happening, to me. Many years later as I read this letter, I am taken back again to …

Walking Through Time- Exploring Prehistoric Lakhudiyar Cave Shelter and Paintings

Published by

On my way to Jageshwar Temple, at a curve I came across a board and behind it a big Rocky Mountain that pulled me to inspect it. Upon reading I was surprised to learn they were a Prehistoric Rock Shelter that had paintings and shapes of men and animals drawn by men of different period. It was an amazing and compelling short visit that took me by surprise. I filmed and posted it on Road To Nara YouTube channel this week. It’s my second video and slowly I shall find my rhythm to post more frequently there. Also there is a ‘caption option’ as I am creating these videos in Hindi(majorly) + English = ‘Hinglish’ as we call it, for anyone who is living anywhere outside Indian Subcontinent. If you haven’t yet come over to the channel, please find it as an invite and be kind to subscribe it. I will make sure you have as good a journey there as you have had on this blog. Sharing some images of that day and a …

The Cure for the Mother Spirits

Published by

A Short History of Folktales in India Folktales are Oral stories that are passed down by the elders to the younger generation. For centuries, folktales have been a crucial medium for preserving cultural traditions and teaching the youth to understand the world around them. Tenali Rama or Tenali Ramakrishna (born Garlapati Ramakrishna; also known as Tenali Ramalinga was born as ; 22 September 1480 – 5 August 1528) was a Telugu poet, scholar, and advisor in the court of Sri Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire. Hailing from Tenali, he earned acclaim as one of the Ashtadiggajas, a group of eight celebrated Telugu poets in Sri Krishnadevaraya’s court, and is best known for his sharp wit and humour. A Folktale From Rural Andhra Pradesh The queen mother lay dying and she said, I have one last wish. I would love to taste a sweet mango before I die. But alas, it was not the mango season. The King sent messengers far and wide, and it was weeks before they could bring back one measly little mango. It was too late. The king’s mother had died meanwhile. The …

If it Isn’t You, It Must Be Your Father

Published by

A Short History of Folktales in India Folktales are Oral stories that are passed down by the elders to the younger generation. For centuries, folktales have been a crucial medium for preserving cultural traditions and teaching the youth to understand the world around them. A Folktale From Rural Karnataka Once a lamb was drinking water in a mountain stream. A tiger came to drink the water a few yards above him, saw the lamb, and said, ‘why are you muddying my stream?’ The lamb said, How can I muddy your water? I am down here and you are up there.’ ‘But you did it yesterday,’ said the tiger. ‘I wasn’t even here yesterday!’ ‘Then it must have been your mother.’ My mother died a long time ago. They took her away.’ ‘Then it must have been your father.’ ‘My father? I don’t even know who he is,’ said the desperate lamb, getting ready to run. ‘I don’t care. It must be your grandfather or great-grandfather who has been muddying my stream. I am going to …

11 Greatest Indian Circus Photographs of the 20th Century

Published by

I have been a Photographer in this lifetime. And I feel I have been a photographer first than being anything else later. And one thing that a photographer does for a lot many hours is only seeing. And if seeing gets him closer to nature, he then starts studying seeing, observing, reading and doing everything else when not taking photographs. Photography carries a rich history and we can imagine that now when we have got all the equipments and technology by our side where we can just delete an image right after taking it. This could not be even imagined 30 years ago. And through that period came courageous, motivated people who took up camera to pen their observations. If this post is being read by anyone who is born after 2000, you may feel at home and open yourself up to take some time out to study some of the most brilliant minds who took up image making, who made images when no one was watching. Their documentation changed the ways of seeing. Their …

One Bengali Monsoon Wedding and a Rare Feast –III

Published by

After I experienced the most dramatic Orchestra by the Frogs and Company, drunk Kaushik later that night told me to rethink leaving for home instead consider this as a mystical invitation for a tribal wedding that he will be attending later that week. I was already on an extended journey here in Bengal, but incessant downpour set me up for long at Kaushik’s home in Jhargram. During one of those rainy nights Kaushik received a phone call, where his friend invited him a day prior to his sister’s wedding . I got excited and we decided to leave, with a condition. His friend asked us to reach by the daylight. We started from his home on time, but rain and bad roads took whole day to reach that place from where we had to take the last jeep for the wedding home to his friend’s village. It was a strange place. There were many people but I felt there was no one talking. Like at any crossroad in the world, people were walking, buying things, …

ROAD TO NARA now on YouTube- Welcoming you on the Channel

Published by

As Writers our responsibility has evolved multifold in last one decade and all the more after Covid. World seems to be on the move even as we speak and Read. We are more busier than Ants and somehow it always feels today that ‘Life is Elsewhere’, at least for a major some. But if you ask me, Life is within and we are the creators of it. It might be hard and grinding but a lot of Grit and little discipline can see us engrossed in the most beautiful ways where time feels like an illusion. Writing comes to me as water to Well, in ancient times at least but today, less people seems to be happy with just water. Reading is giving way to watching. And watching is the new eating. We are eating with our eyes and we want even more. But I do not wish and never desired to start something which felt like a commission either a necessity. Like writing here on the ‘Road To Nara’ Blog has become nature and …

One Day Under the Dark Monsoon Clouds Of West Bengal- II

Published by

Once a football field where i had played on the first day of my arrival five days ago had nature-d, transformed into a full filled country pond. It was unrecognisable. Dark was taking over the orange and the blues. But down here in front of me something seemed awry. Something revealing in the way the frogs were gathering. They were so many, so many in front of me that i could have kept.