The Vision Of A Broken Wall.
A very long time ago Tennyson wrote, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” As the people of Germany celebrate the fourteenth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall on November 9 th , many will remember with a sense of pride, the...
A Day At The Hague.
Most tourists to Holland are content with touring Amsterdam the bustling modern metropolis of ‘infinite variety', with its exclusive shops and restaurants on one hand, and its Bohemian ambience of garbled houses overlooking a network of waterways. But a visit to the...
The Bridge At Remagen.
Cruising down the Rhine from Bonn to Koblenz on a lazy afternoon, the twin towers of Remagen bridge rose like black ghosts through the treetops on the west bank, making me sit up with a start. We were about 22 miles north of Koblenz . “Hey, what's that? “ I asked a...
Stonehenge -After Midsummer’s Day.
The first Summer Solstice (June 21 st ) of this millennium is over, and once again, the stark forbidding boulders of Stonehenge , are forgotten till the next year. The Druids and the New Age travellers disperse after a night-long frenzy of dancing among the megaliths,...
Man Behind The Vienna Waltz.
Johann Strauss the “King of Waltz” has given back to Vienna the intoxicating city of his birth, almost four hundred widely acclaimed waltzes. One of these is “Tales from the Vienna Woods.” Yet most tourists limit themselves to Vienna , and seldom venture into the...
Of Tulips And Windmills.
As the train sped across Germany to Holland , the gradual change in landscape became evident. No mountains, no fachwerke houses, no vineyards. The Netherlands are really 'lowlands', and most of the country lies below sea-level. Criss-crossed by canals and rivers, this...
Christiana – Paradise For Losers
Hidden away from Copenhagen 's tourist attractions, is a homeless encampment called Christiana. This is a city within a city, peopled by the impoverished and the weird; a mini-United Nations where black, brown and white live together in an incredible Utopia of their...
Murdeshwar By The Sea
Murdeshwar is a lovely place to visit in any weather. Luxury buses ply overnight to Kundapur. And from there, it is a 70 km drive on the NH17, which runs alongside the Arabian sea . The relentless roaring breakers create a strange restlessness within. The waves are...
Medicine in Khurdistan
I arrived in Teheran in the thick of winter. It was January 1977 and the Shah of Iran was still on his throne. I was to work among the Khurds of Iran for a year. But I would first stay in Teheran for a week to get acclimatized, and also prepare for the cultural shock...
Dresden – Florence On The Elbe
In the summer of 2002, four adventurous senior citizens set off to see Europe in a camper. We were particularly interested in visiting the erstwhile East German cities of Dresden and Leipzig . At night, we camped at caravan sites on the outskirts of the cities, where...
