I first met Sanjeev Bhargava during our college days at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, in 1978. Even then, his creative spark was undeniable, whether it was through his sharp perspectives in class discussions or his passion for the arts. Over the years, that spark has grown into a full-fledged flame, making him a torchbearer for…
This article appeared in the Vistara Inflight Magazine, August 2024 edition. You can see the original print here. There’s something about travel that brings with it an inherent sense of breaking free from the conventional and opening oneself up to exciting, new experiences. And when it involves the added lure of wide, bountiful spaces, where one…
This article appeared in Condé Nast Traveller on November 18th ’23. You can see the original digital print here. On a sunny autumn day, our little convoy of SUVs drives out of Srinagar. We skirt the sparkling waters of the Dal Lake and set course for Sonamarg and the Zojila Pass, the narrow chicken’s neck connecting the…
This article appeared in CNN Travel on September ’23. You can see the original digital print here. In the long history of colonial rule in Asia, the shadow of Denmark does not loom large. It would be fair to say that few Indians and even fewer Danes are aware that this northern European nation had a…
This article appeared on the April ’23 issue of Outlook Traveller India. You can see the original digital print here. Spanning the greater part of four centuries, the reign of the Chola dynasty was one of power, stability, and endurance. The Chola Empire, whose reign stretched for 460 years from the beginning of the 9th…
All images courtesy of Sundeep Kumar. When I first visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of Jetwing Hotels in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit and turned the world upside down, my wife and I stayed at the iconic Lighthouse Hotel in Galle. It is one of those places that sticks in one’s memory,…
Being fortunate enough to have gone to Princeton University whose mascot is the tiger, I am proud of being a Tiger alumnus, but I’ve never seen the animal in the wild. A timely invitation to visit Bagh Villas, a luxury jungle camp on the edge of Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, gave me a…
Meghalaya prides itself as a place where people live at one with nature and probably the most powerful example of that is the amazing phenomenon of the living root bridge. These bridges created out of the secondary roots of the rubber fig tree by Khasi villagers have to be seen to be believed: they are like something…
The twin beams of the Innova picked out the narrow concrete road as it snaked its way to the top of the hill in this far western corner of Karnataka. As we rounded a final bend, our destination came into view, like a ghostly haunted mansion, with the chill wind dispersed the gathering mountain mist…
In late 2020 when Covid was at its awful height, I bailed out and traded Gurgaon for Goa for six months. It was the single best move I made during the entire two years of the pandemic. I made lots of new friends, I discovered Goa from the inside out as a tourist-resident and I…
