Escapade: Enroute Jaipur to Agra

Its been a year and three months since we have been locked at home in Ahmedabad, except for our brief escape to the Polo Forest (see 5 posts on this blog here). So escaping to Jaipur by air and then by road from Jaipur to Agra was a great adventure. Here I record life on …

Boat crossing at St. Pancras Lock, Two levels at Regent Canal, London

Regent Canal in Central London is this two level canal and we witnessed this amazing boat crossing from one level of water in the canal to the other level! Take a look at the videos of the crossing!

Unni-Verse

One Friday afternoon while we were casually strolling around King Cross area we came across this amazing boat crossing across the Regent Canal which was at two levels. There were boats parked on both sides of a Canal gate which was at two different levels. While we were wondering how this was supposed to work we saw this amazing feat accomplished manually, A gatekeeper opened the gate to allow water to flow out and level the two parts of the canal. As the boat at the higher level slowly came down to the lower level, the gates opened and the boat crossed over. Surprising only one side of the gate was opened and we wondered how the boat would come through. To our delight the boat was skillfully manipulated through the single open gate by the boatman!! See video of the crossing.

St. Pancras Lock, Regent Canal, London

Yeah, Boat…

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Visiting Pittsburgh: Unusually Picturesque City!

I travelled to Pittsburgh a couple of years ago. Pittsburgh is very different from other cities in the US. First its topography is undulating and it has three rivers Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio. The Allegheny River and Monongahela River unite at Point State Park to form the Ohio River. It is an amazing site from the top of a hill on …

College Friends reunite: Peermade, Kerala

We were a Gang of 10 in Stellamaris College Hostel in Chennai, India, a few decades ago. We continued to keep in touch and met one-on-one often enough. But with WhatApp becoming popular we formed a group online. Soon the conversation turned to meeting up. With everyone so busy we never thought we would make …

Polo Forest: Maharana Pratap’s Hideout

This is the fifth in the series of posts on our visit to Polo Forest. See the earlier four posts on the Heritage Palace, Vijaynagar, the natural beauty around the forest, the ancient Shiva Temples and the Jain Temple ruins, Angkor Wat of Gujarat here. Polo Forest turned out to be a dream for exploring fascinating sites. After our …

Polo Forest: Ancient Jain Temple, Angkor Wat of Gujarat

This is the fourth in the series of posts on our visit to Polo Forest. See the earlier three posts on the Heritage Palace, Vijaynagar, the natural beauty around the forest and the ancient Shiva Temples here. Exploring along a not very clean path at the back of the Shiva Panchayatan-2 we discovered a wonder …

Polo Forest: Ancient Lord Shiva Temples

This is the third in the series of posts on our visit to Polo Forest. See the earlier two post on the Heritage Palace and the natural beauty around the forest here. The people of Vijayanagar, Sabarkantha and around the Polo Forest seemed to be bhakts (devotees) of Lord Shiva since ancient times. In our …

Escape to Polo Forest: Trees, River and Beach!

As in my earlier post on our escape after 8 months of sitting at/working from home, we arrived at the Polo Forest! Forest, in Gujarat? We were incredulous when we heard about it and I assured my daughter that it would be few shrubs and a lot of wasteland! After all we are close to …

Escape to Polo Forests, Vijayvillas Vijaynagar

After 8 long months of being confined to the campus due to the unprecedented pandemic 2020, we escaped to the Polo Forest, Sabarkantha, Gujarat, India. I will describe our amazing trip to this area in a series of posts, this being the first. In the many decades we have been in Gujarat, we had never …

The Remarkable St. Teresa of Avila

This post on St. Teresa of Avila has received tremendous response, particularly from the students of this wonderful school in Kolkata, from all over the world. It has helped me reconnect with some of my classmates, no small deed! Some were kind enough to comment, appreciate and also correct some of the facts. Thank you dear friends. So a small correction from the earlier version on Unni-Verse

Unni-Verse

I went to St. Teresa’s Secondary School, Kidderpore, Kolkata. (See here for my earlier post on nostalgia for Kolkata.) I felt a link with St. Teresa as October 15th, the day the school celebrated the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila, happened to be my birthday. This post has received tremendous response particularly from the students of this wonderful school from all over the world. It has helped me reconnect with some of my classmates, no small deed! Some were kind enough to comment, appreciate and also correct some of the facts. Thank you dear friends. So a small correction from the earlier version.

St. Teresa was  canonized in 1622, that is declared a Saint in the Catholic church. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970, when her writing were recognized as mystical literature of the church. There are very few women declared as saints by…

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