Just for you !

  We left the Prayagraj hotel early in the morning and headed to the Sangam, where the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati (the invisible or underground river) meet. Only my son and I went and took a boat ride—it was extremely cold. We did not take a dip in the Sangam; instead, we cupped the water in our hands and sprinkled it on ourselves. This was partly because of the cold and partly because we didn’t want the hassle of changing out of our clothes and wearing them again. This was just a week before the Maha Kumbh. The crowds would have been overwhelming once the Maha Kumbh began. The boat ride itself was pleasant, with good views all around, though it began to feel a bit monotonous towards the end. I asked the boatman and then dipped my leg into the water for part of the journey and the water felt warmer than the air. After Prayagraj, we headed to Kashi (Varanasi). We were quite apprehensive about the hotel, but it turned out to be good. It was located at Assi Ghat, one of the nearly ...

We booked a cab through MakeMyTrip to Ayodhya. It was supposed to be an eight-hour journey from Brindavan, and we started around 10 am. However, by the time we reached our homestay, it was already 10 pm. On the way, we found a good restaurant called Curry Leaf —which later turned out to be a chain specialising in South Indian food—and had dinner there (or possibly packed it; I don’t remember exactly) before reaching the homestay. This place was also a homestay, essentially a few houses rented out to guests, with the owner living on the ground floor. The approach road close to the property was in poor condition, with a lot of mud and water flowing, which made the family quite unhappy. However, the room itself was large and good, with a hotel-room feel and two big beds, though it did not have a TV. It also had a sit-out or balcony-like area—without a parapet wall—and this was on the second floor, which felt a bit risky. We visited the Ram Mandir early the next morning. It was a good expe...

Before the main blof,  On the second day, I got up early walked a bit near our place of stay. It felt good that I was walking the streets where Krishna had walked. Even took some of the sand from there and smeared on my forehead. It was very cold early in the morning, and I managed to find a tea vendor. But he and his wife had to make tea from scratch which meant it would take more time than a regular tea shop. But no sooner did she start making the tea, some other customers appeared and lined up and even got their tea before I did. Second day onwards we realized that our place of stay is attached to a resort and hence we could order our food from the resort waiters who were walking around, and we could get resort-quality food and service. For the second day, we headed to Prem Mandir again having failed to make it inside on the previous day evening due to the crowd. This time, we could enter easily, and the temple was good. It was big, spacious and had a big sculpture depicting the...

Dear Readers,  Good to meet you after a very long break. Last week I took my first vacation in 4 years, with my last vacation plans to Tadoba in 2020 cancelled just as Covid had started peaking. This trip was kind of extensive and long with 4 of us visiting Vrindavan, Ayodhya, Prayagraj and Kashi (aka Benares / Varanasi) for over 8 days. First, started with our Pune- Delhi flight and caught a cab to Vrindavan. The Delhi-Vrindavan flight duration was around 3 hours, and we reached Vrindavan by around 3 pm. The driver spoke to me and got to know of our plans and was keen to drive us to Mathura and mainly Ayodhya which is a drive of 8+ hours from Vrindavan. But we managed to keep him at bay. One of the novelties for us in this tour is that we had booked home stays instead of hotels which was beneficial from a cost point of view but also gave some uncertainty on the quality of the stays. It was cold in UP in all the places where we went. Stay in Vrindavan was in a Home Stay flat and th...

 Ad taglines give a lot of life lessons. There was one which made a big change in my way of thinking. It was not exactly a tagline, but in an ad a person says, " I think ..." and before he completes the other person says, 'Thinking... It is such a waste of time". It opened a new perspective for me to hear someone say thinking is a waste of time. Being an over thinker, it really changed my perspective. Some other Ad tag lines that made an impact on me... Just Do It. It's your life. Make it large. Let other men do other things. Not a life lesson, but a caption I liked . More car per car ! Comment with the ad tag lines you liked or that which changed your life!

I think it's a very common problem for people that they do not fall asleep after going to bed even if they were dozing off in their previous activity before going to bed. There are many techniques people follow to fall asleep in bed such as counting numbers or try to stop thinking. I earlier used to listen to the audios of Kapil Gupta MD whose calm tone and delivery makes one feel serene and fall asleep. Before that, I used to follow a technique followed by the US Military which involve sitting up and  twitching the muscles of our face and relaxing repeatedly to make your face muscles tired and then take some deep breaths and think of some peaceful situation like you are in a very scenic place lying on a hammock or if you are unable to visualize just keep saying to yourself "Dont Think... Dont Think..." . And you are supposed to fall asleep in a few seconds. It used to work OK but not as well as I desired. Now the way I am following is to think of God! It is working reall...