Flux of Time

Humayun Mahal Have lived in Chennai for about a year and have made several visits to the city, but didn't know a thing about this beautiful structure called the Chepauk Palace. Only came to know about it after reading this news item  Another interesting link below: http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2022%20No%2022/index.html

This is a travelogue I wrote last year after a visit to Chikmagalur-Belur-Halebeedu. It has since been published in The New Indian Express It is to coffee land, Chikmagalur, that we finally head to, after much deliberation. The idea is to take long walks in the coffee plantations, breathe the fresh spice-scented air, and unwind. Far away from the Internet noise that everyday life has come to mean for us ‘city types’. So, we land up at a homestay, a 13-km drive from the heart of Karnataka’s Chikmagalur town, also the district headquarters. While we manage to take a stroll or two in the coffee plantations, the constant rain means no trekking, and no outdoor activities. No signal on the phone, no signal on the iPad – leave us tearing our hair out wondering what to do, unused as we are to the silence and the sound of constant rain. It is then that the manager at the homestay comes up with the idea of  Belur - Halebeedu . Why not, we say. The husband and I both vag...

The permanence of things, or the impermanence of things, whichever way you look at it. We shot this during a visit to Hampi several years ago. Hampi was once the seat of the mighty Vijayanagar Empire. The fabled city where gold and precious stones were sold on the streets. The Empire is now dead and gone, while the structures, symbols of the glorious architecture of the 14th century, still remain.

Time past and time present meet. Little India. Singapore, 2014. The colonial facades of Singapore stand testimony to its British heritage. A heritage India shares with Singapore. The juxtaposition of the past and the present is never so clearly evident as in the modern-day city state of Singapore. The past doesn't go anywhere. It is here. 

Chinatown in KL. A melting pot of cultures. 

A kopitiam in KL. They are Malaysian-Chinese coffeeshops where Malay food is also served. 

Indian exotica.  .  Fit for a queen:) Exotica. Get a henna done for an "enriching spiritual Asian experience".   Shaving bald errr....  All these at the Batu Caves complex. With Murugan lording over the hills.