Over 2000 Km by road, in around 10 days. Stunning landscapes, wonderful people. That sums up our Ladakh trip. But how did it actually work? How did we make it happen? Read on to find out! Leh, the capital of Ladakh , is accessible by air and road. Flying into Leh is the easiest, and time-saving option, while the road is the time consuming one, but with the added advantage of driving past some of the most beautiful landscapes in our country. Each option has much to recommend it, and we chose the road for just one reason – altitude sickness. Altitude sickness was one of my biggest concerns, since I suffer from motion-sickness. Yes, I do travel a lot, but that is despite my condition, and, over the years, have learnt how to handle it. I struggled with it when we visited Nathu-La in Sikkim, and wondered if I would be able to manage a week at the even higher altitudes that we would encounter in Ladakh. This was the reason we stuck to a basic plan, of only 9 days in Ladakh, thoug...
Have you ever seen this? In Tamil, we called it 'Pinnal Kolattam'.
Each of us held a different coloured ribbon, and then, moved around in sync, as the ribbons wound themselves into a beautiful plait...
When was the last time you played Hop-scotch? Of course, you
might have called it by another name, such as ‘paandi’ or ‘tappri’ as we did.
When was the last time you skipped?
Or played snakes and ladders without a board?
And this one, played with small shells or cowries, was simply
called ‘chozhi’….
This game varied from place to place. We called it ‘Delhi
Bombay Calcutta Madras’ and Samhith calls it ‘Bomb in the city’. We simply ran
around as someone clapped hands, stopping at different cities when the clapping
stopped. The clapper called out a city name and all those who stood there were ‘out!’
Do these take you back down memory lane? If you, like me, grew
up in the seventies and eighties, before the advent of TVs and Computers,
chances are, you would have played these games too, and many more.
This weekend, the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum at Byculla, Mumbai,
gives us a chance to go back down memory lane, remember all these games, and
re-learn them…. Introduce our kids to show them just how much fun they are!
These games are on at the Museum over the weekend…. Tomorrow is
the last day, so if you are in Mumbai, do not miss this chance.
And in case you do miss the chance, you can download a book I
collaborated on, with my fellow writers from Pocket Cultures. Titled ‘Gamesfrom around the world’, the book will surely give you some ideas!
While you are the museum, you have other things to feast your
eyes on… The museum of course has some fascinating works of art – ivories,
metalwork, and representations of culture and myths. There are stories galore
always on display. But, at the moment, there is another story too being
displayed – a story told through photographs and reproductions of letters. Ghiora
Aharoni’s ‘Missives’ is inspired by love letters written by his mother
as an adolescent in the 1950s. Accompanied by thousands of vintage photographs,
and reproductions of fragments of the
letters on delicate Japanese paper, the installation is a delight to
experience. This is on display till the 30th of November.
And then, there is also the exhibition of photographs of
properties in Bombay owned by David Sassoon. Most of us have heard of the
Sassoon Docks and the David Sassoon Library, but the photographs show us a
legacy so much bigger than just these two. The beautifully preserved and
displayed photos show us Bombay as it must have been, and make me wish I lived
then. It made me want to explore more of the Mumbai today, and see what has
become of those buildings today. The exhibition is on till the 24th
of November.
great stuff, i'm going to go tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteThanx to your blog, i finally visited this awesome place and i am already planning to visit one more time ! Keep it up :)
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