2Tripping Feet

I should confess upfront: I am not a natural pilgrim. As a solo traveller — and an Indian solo traveller at that — I have always been wary of religiously driven tourism. Faith, in my household, was something you carried on the inside and wore lightly on the outside. Being respectful was considered the highest form of spirituality, full stop. I was taught basic mantras to keep the nervous system in check, and that in moments of crisis you turn to prayer rather than to less constructive alternatives. But never at the cost of your fundamental responsibilities. I was allowed to skip temples. Never school. Never the library. And yet, for all of that, I have a persistent habit of ending up in places saturated with what I can only describe as deva energy — places that hum with something older and larger than the present moment. Perhaps, as I have come to suspect, they simply like it when I drop by. Kashi was next. The City It was Christmas of 2017. A direct flight from Mumbai to what...

When your daily rhythm is dictated by the relentless, frenetic pulse of a metropolis—where the clock acts as a merciless taskmaster—the sheer, unhurried ease of Udaipur is baffling. You arrive bracing for the typical, chaotic thrum of a developing Indian urban center, but instead, you are greeted by a cadence that is deliberate, calm, and deeply nourished. There is a version of Udaipur that exists in wedding films and travel brochures: all sunset silhouettes and marble archways, the Lake Palace floating on still water like a mirage that forgot to dissolve. It is, of course, entirely real. But the city underneath that surface—the one that reveals itself slowly in narrow alleyways, temple courtyards, and the sharp scent of marigold garlands at dawn—is the one that stays with you long after the photographs have been filed away. Rajasthan is famously a dry, torrid state, yet it holds within its arid borders some of the most magnetic, vibrant cities on the subcontinent. Its true charm lies ...