The good folks over at 94.3 Radio One recently had me over as part of their #jobswitch and it was a pleasure being there. RJ Annie, who hosts Mumbai on Demand, was an absolute pleasure to work with and I could tell right from our first call, where she was excited about being on the water – …I can’t swim, so I will definitely need a jacket!! – RJ Annie, before we’d even met. For her jobswitch, she had to…
I leave Nitin with an unopened box and tell him to stitch things up while I get my gear ready. When I return I find the kayak trolley assembled, but missing the strap to tie a kayak atop it. He runs to get some rope. We never run short of rope. We have a car full of equipment. And everything has been over used. Including patience. If I looked closely, I could put someone on mars with what we have…
I think you can spot kindness in the eyes. It’s like a dam waiting to break. And shower you with the niceness of being. I’ve been spotting it everyday in Gujarat. Let me tell you how it’s been. We landed in Gujarat to the dusty streets of Dwarka. Past the twilight hour, we arrive in a city where the roads have taken a leave of absence and cows have filled in for them. The owner of the hotel is perplexed…
There is that old question – “If you knew where you would meet your demise, would you knowingly go there?” For 30 years, ships have been, like dogs sensing their end, retreating to Alang for their last rites. Huge giants of the sea tread softly in on a high tide, and as the water retreats their death toll is rung. It takes 3 months to tear apart a medium size container vessel. Says the guard, Prajapati. Two minutes back he…
Plots. There’s a line from the F1-racing movie Rush, where the protagonist*, James Hunt says – ‘I’ve always been one for showing up on the day(unprepared) and playing chicken with everyone else.’ It does seem to have an appeal to it. And people who know me might nod their heads silently knowing that I’ve been known to shoot and ask questions later. But expeditions are different. Expeditions are about planning, and accounting for the unaccountable. What are you going to…
Eddy. Back in the day, he was that Tekken character who with his Brazilian martial arts and colourful pants was never going to amount to much, and your best friend would chose him for his roundabout kicks. Dial it forward to today, and Eddy means a circular flow of water often caused by an obstruction such as rocks in the middle of the sea. Now why would anyone put a rock in the middle of the sea. This is ridiculous…
If there’s one thing we can all be happy about, it is that our borders are secure! The seed of the affirmation of our safety was sown in Okha when the GMB(Gujarat Maritime Board) head there, a superbly nice gentleman by the name of Captain Rakesh Mishra, told me that whatever I did in Gujarat waters would be tracked. Now that sounds fantastical, but he also told me how it was implemented. Shortly after the Taj attacks, the then Modi…
[Older post] I have archery in the morning. Yes, the bow and arrow kind. Someone asked me why I took up this sport? I told them it’s great for focus. Two hours of standing, pulling a bow & resting. It’s only half the truth. I’m grappling at poetic answers & my mind plays tricks with me and gives me one. The full truth is the wait. The wait is everything. That interminable pause between the conception of an idea and…
It’s always great to be on air. And being on air with a friend is even better. Took to the airwaves yesterday with RJ Pankaj on Must Radio 107.1 FM. and had a really lovely time. Pankaj took back the mike to play us some beats. Pankaj has dedicated a large part of his life to the pursuit of archery and is the main reason I took up the sport in the first place. He’s taken it to the next…
It is 9p.m. and I’m in a run-down corridor. In a crisp white adidas jacket and shorts, I’m literally rubbing shoulders with a rather rough crowd. Frayed shirts, if any, and a lungi or dust coated trousers. A jumble of sweaty limbs and hard worked faces. There is one light along this 10 metre alley way that you wouldn’t notice if not for the queue that emanates from it. As the feet shuffle along slowly, pressed between a second line…