• English - Travel

    The Homecoming

    September 29, 2025 - By 

    Arvind Sen Part 1 – Boarding from the West October in New York is always sharper than one expects. The cold doesn’t announce itself in long winter winds but slips in with small betrayals—the sting in the air when you step out of the subway, the sudden bitterness of coffee that seemed warm enough just yesterday, the leaves crackling underfoot before their time. On the morning of my departure, I stood by my apartment window in Queens, suitcase zipped and waiting like an obedient child, and watched the early commuters hurry past in coats and scarves. Their world was turning…

  • English - Travel

    A Foreigner’s Durga Puja Journey in Kolkata

    September 22, 2025 - By 

    Sujoy Roy Chowdhury Chapter 1: Arrival in the City of Joy Alex stepped off the plane at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport with a sense of excitement buzzing inside him. He had read countless travel blogs about Kolkata’s Durga Puja, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him the moment he arrived. The terminal itself was decorated with banners showcasing the festival—bright reds, golds, and oranges, images of the goddess Durga in all her glory, and the words “Welcome to the City of Joy” beaming from every corner. Outside the airport, the humid October air…

  • English - Travel

    The Colors of Kinnaur

    September 19, 2025 - By 

    Suparna Joshi Chapter 1 – Farewell to the Familiar Aarav sat by the window of his Mumbai apartment, staring at the grey skyline that had become both home and cage over the past decade. The hum of traffic outside, the incessant ringing of his phone, and the never-ending emails that demanded his attention had all begun to weigh on him in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Each day felt like a loop—wake up, rush to the office, attend endless meetings, deal with deadlines, return home exhausted, and sleep, only to repeat it all the next morning. The thought of continuing this…

  • English - Travel

    The Red Silk Trail

    September 18, 2025 - By 

    Ira Sen Part 1 – Arrival in Assam The plane dipped low over the wide, lazy sweep of the Brahmaputra, and Devika pressed her face against the oval window. The river spread like a sheet of molten steel under the September sun, streaked with islands and sandbars, its surface broken now and then by the speck of a ferry or a line of fishing boats straining against the current. She had read about it countless times—this river that carried myths and nations on its back—but nothing prepared her for its vastness. It looked less like water and more like time…

  • English - Travel

    The Last Train to Sapporo

    September 12, 2025 - By 

    Leena Kapor Part 1 – The Postcard The postcard arrived on a wet Thursday morning, slipped through the letterbox of her narrow London flat like any other piece of mail, but it felt heavier than its paper weight suggested. Meera bent to pick it up, brushing raindrops from its surface. The picture side showed a winter street lined with red lanterns, snow settling like ash on tiled rooftops, a kanji script curling down the right edge that she couldn’t read. She turned it over, pulse tightening, because on the back was handwriting she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. Her father’s.…

  • English - Travel

    Wanderings Under the Sky

    September 1, 2025 - By 

    Maya Sen Part 1 — The Departure The morning I left, the city was still half-asleep, a pale wash of yellow light stretching over cracked pavements and shuttered tea stalls. My backpack, slung awkwardly over one shoulder, seemed heavier with every step I took, not because of the clothes and notebooks packed inside but because of the invisible weight of hesitation. I had never truly left home before—yes, there had been short trips to the mountains or the sea, always with family or friends, but never like this, never with no return ticket, never with the open road stretching like…

  • English - Travel

    Postcards from Patagonia

    September 1, 2025 - By 

    Ira Sen Part 1 The bus rattled across the endless stretch of Patagonian steppe, its windows clouded with a thin film of dust that the wind seemed to scatter and replace in equal measure. Mira pressed her forehead against the cold glass, staring out at a world that felt larger than any she had known before, a land stripped bare of pretence, where the earth and sky met in an uncompromising line. She had been divorced for six months, though the word still felt sharp on her tongue, and this journey—half impulsive, half deliberate—was meant to be her own form…

  • English - Travel

    The Last Caravanserai

    August 30, 2025 - By 

    Drishan Desai 1 The road to the caravanserai seemed endless, a ribbon of dust unraveling between the pale, desolate mountains. The solo traveler had been driving for hours, his jeep groaning under the strain of altitude and gravel, its wheels kicking up fine sand that swirled like smoke in the thin air. He had expected only silence here, a silence so vast it might collapse upon itself. Yet when he finally slowed before the ruins, the silence seemed heavy rather than empty, as if it were filled with the residue of countless footsteps, voices, and lives that had once passed…

  • English - Travel

    Clay Lamps of Joy

    August 27, 2025 - By 

     Part 1 – The Departure The train screeched out of Howrah station, its wheels clattering like a restless animal tugging at chains. Rhea pressed her forehead to the cool window glass and watched the sprawling iron bridge dissolve into a maze of warehouses, smoke, and rust-colored walls. Behind her, the compartments were thick with the smell of fried luchis, boiled eggs, thermos-tea, and the constant drone of people talking, bargaining, gossiping as if no one on the train was a stranger. She hugged her sling bag tight, inside which her camera and notebook waited. A photo-essay project, her professors had…

  • English - Travel

    Under the Tuscan Rain

    August 25, 2025 - By 

    Karan Sehgal Part 1: The Smell of Olive Pits The rental car smelled faintly of olive pits and cold metal, like someone had bottled last summer and left it under the seat to ferment. It was a squat white Fiat Panda, dented on one door and stubborn in second gear, the kind of car that looks offended by hills. The clerk at the Florence airport, a woman with a swift smile and a tattoo of an anchovy on her wrist, handed me the keys and said, “She hates rain but loves radio.” When I asked what station the car preferred,…