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Showing posts from March, 2015

My love-hate relationship with Calcutta

You might have already figured this out from my last name, that I’m a Bengali. While I no longer live in Calcutta (yes, I come from a time when it still used to be Calcutta or Cal, not Kolkata), I can’t seem to stay away from it either. It has a strange inexplicable way of pulling me back.

Hoode Beach: My picture perfect memory of college

I did my undergraduate studies from Manipal. It’s a different story how I landed up in advertising after studying engineering. But in those four years that I spent tucked away in a corner of Karnataka surrounded by beautiful unending Arabian coastlines, we did our fair share of day trips. And the closest and the most popular amongst my group of friends was a quick ride down to the Hoode beach.

Travelling solo and safe: An Indian woman's perspective

Even as I started this blog, I knew I’d have to approach this subject sooner than later. The question becomes why now? Because now more than ever at the wake of of what happened to Nirbhaya in Delhi this year, the narrative behind what it means to be a woman in India is a sore discussion point for the country. While everyone is quick to point the dangers surrounding a lone woman these days - few lend any hope or help to assuage the fears. If we were to believe the people and what media says about these times - we are doomed to live in a perpetual victimhood. Scores of traveller-bloggers have tried to present a fresh perspective for women travelling solo in India; I have yet to meet a fellow Indian woman on the road. Maybe there are too few, too far apart to make each other’s acquaintance. Implying that the subject is still at its nascent stages of discussion. Having said that, I have indeed met countless foreigners (women) travelling alone. Getting used to the idea I was t