Finally it was the day! We were off to the Kumbh Mela! 

This would be my 4th Kumbh experience, and the second time that I would be going to the Allahabad - now Prayagraj - kumbh. The first time I went to the Allahabad was a truly life-changing experience for me, and I had very fond memories of the experience. 

This time we would be going by train from Varanasi to Allahabad and staying in the Kumbh area itself. The UP government had invited hoteliers to create tented accommodation camps at the Kumbh venue itself, and had created a very spiffy Kumbh website as well. The individual tents were a bit expensive, so I had booked dorm beds for us for 4 nights. 

Bharathi was very apprehensive about the whole idea - she thought the trains might be overrun by rampant crowds and the dorms would be a flea bitten mess. And she was not the one who had booked the tickets! Oh the humanity! She was professionally insulted! 
'How dare you book tickets, you witless oaf?' she growled at me 'You are but a gnat or a cockroach compared to my glory!' 
'But you only said that you will only book international tickets  henceforth and India tickets are not worth your time!'
'Arre! Why should I book India tickets eh? I have seen all of India when you were still mewling and puking in your nurses arms! But how dare you book tickets? BE A MAN! Travel unreserved! Reservations are for wimps!' 

Be that as it may - I should first put it on record that the Government machinery in UP has done an awesome job! Whether it's the bureaucracy or IAS or Yogi or Modi or BJP - kudos to all of them! I take my hat off. 

Varanasi town and ghats were sparkling, the Ganga was clean and beautiful, and the Varanasi station was spotless! There wasn't even much shit on the railway tracks! The Indian railways is slowly but surely upgrading its train toilets from a hole in the floor to these fancy bio toilets which don't let the crap plop straight down on the tracks, but stores it away and treats it - and this has made a huge change to the stations. The train compartment was also clean and spic and span! 

The train was late though. Oh well - I suppose you cannot have everything. 

We took a rickshaw to the tent site, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the camp and the dormitory. It was quite a large camp, with umpteen tents and at least 10 dorms. Each dorm had 2 toilet+bath in it, and they were clean and functional and completely non-stinky. The beds and bedding were also fine - comfortable mattress, warm quilts and completely bedbug free! And they were (comparitively) cheap. The camp had its own restaurant where they served ala carte and buffet food - a fancy buffet and a cheap functional buffet! 

The next morning we were woken up noisy fellow guests playing loud devotional music and giving no fucks whatsoever for their fellow man. Indians can be real assholes. But never mind - we were at the Kumbh! 

We quickly freshened up and went exploring. We were close to the sangam point where the Ganga met the Jamuna (and the mythical Saraswati) and we decided to walk it - but when we were approached by a boatman who offered to ferry us there, we thought - why not? A boat ride would be fun! 

And it was! The waters of the Jamuna and the Ganga were extremely clean and looked really inviting - but too cold! Brrr. We decided to postpone the bath to the afternoon and just took a joy ride and got off at the Allahabad fort, where there is an ancient banyan tree. The legend is that in ancient times, pilgrims used to climb up this tree and jump down to commit suicide so that they would attain moksha! Akbar put an end to this by building a fort around it, and now its a Hanuman temple. I wanted to see it, but was scared off by the lines - it would take 3-4 hours in that line! 

We walked all over the Kumbh area, looking for the famed Naga babas - but was disappointed to see that we were late and most of them had left already. The organisation of the Kumbh was really remarkable - full marks again to the government. Modi/ Yogi had really pulled out all the stops to make this a showcase event. It was so organised, that the real complaint was that it was over-organised! There were food, water and lodging facilities for pilgrims and loads and loads and loads of public toilets, which were regularly cleaned and maintained! 

I cannot stress the hygiene of the place enough. It was a spectacular effort. There were enough toilets to cater to the millions and millions of people shitting and pissing out there. I remember the sad state of the Ujjain Kumbh when me and Bharathi had visited in 2005 - it was a huge mess. This was amazing. 

I don't know why our news channels are not talking about this more - to have crores and crores of people visit a place - that too uneducated villagers with no sense of hygiene - and create an experience with no trash, no shit and piss, no outbreaks of illness, no stampedes and no security issues inspite of all the high profile VIPs visiting - is a most remarkable achievement. Great job! Well done! 

The Kumbh area was so huge that we were all fagged out by the time we came back to the dorm. We chilled for sometime and then went back to the sangam for the holy dip - by boat. Boatmen had come from all over with their boats - our boatman was from Chitrakoot - 250 km away - and his group had rowed all the way! It was extraordinarily pleasant to sit in that boat and see the river, and the fort, and the bridge over the Jamuna, the hordes of beautiful white birds on the rive and the people lined up for the baths. 
The bath itself was also amazing! The Ganga water was so clean! In spite of all the hordes of people around, the water was wonderful. I don't know how they did it - but I hope they keep on doing it. We were so refreshed by the dip that we decided to do several more dips. 
This was the pattern of our stay there - we used to go in the morning for a boat ride and dip, explore the kumbh, come back and chill till late afternoon, go for a evening boat ride and dip, come back to the dorm to take a hot bath, have heavy evening snacks instead of dinner and then go and sit by the Jamuna river side when it got dark. 
The main snaan day for us was Magh Poornima, when it was an auspicious day to take a bath. We had missed the major snaans - the Makar Sankrant and the two Shahi snaans - which was a great pity. That would have been a spectacle worth seeing! Chalo - next time! 
We discovered that there were a few naga babas still around at the Juna Akhara, but it was their last day there. So we went hunting for them, and finally found them! So that was done too! 
On our last day, we had a late night train from Allahabad station, so we took advantage of the day to take a look around the city. 
I was again impressed by how clean the city was! The place was spotless, disinfected with boric powder, beautified by wall paintings, and was not at all crowded! 
UP govt - take a bow. 
We checked out the Allahabad museum - one of the oldest museums in India - and the Allahabad cathedral - huge and impressive, but unfortunately open only on Sunday and Anand Bhavan - the ancestral home of the Nehrus. There was a really nice photo exhibit on the life of Indira Gandhi, with superb B&W pics. Those old time newspaper photographers were real masters! 
We still had time to kill, so we asked an autowala what to do, and he deposited us in the wonderful Chandrashekhar Azad park (formerly Company gardens) which is a real gem - one of the finest public parks in India! 
Finally, we went to the station area and had some chicken after a long vegetarian stint. Delzad was tempted by some roadside rabdi - and this had some unfortunate effects...but I anticipate! 
​

We had a day more in Kashi, and we originally planned to just veg out on the ghats and soak in the atmosphere and see the world go by. But just then I saw a sign at the hotel offering a taxi to Bodhgaya at a reasonable price. 

I was instantly interested. I had been curious about Bodhagaya for a long time and this was a good opportunity to check it out. We closed the deal and left early morning by taxi. Getting to a taxi is an interesting experience here, btw - we were staying right on the riverside itself, and the only access there was through tiny labyrinthine gullies, where there was no question of  a four wheeler coming through. Thus we had to walk through gullies and gullies till we got to the main road. I loved it - it was fascinating to see the life of Varanasi at such close range. 

As it turned out, it was fortunate that we decided to go on a road trip that day - because it rained and rained. We were comfortable inside the car - but we would have been cold and wet on the river. 
It was a long way to Bodhgaya - about 260 KM - and took more than 5 hours each way. The roads were amazing though - beautiful wide cemented highways - probably part of the golden quadrilateral. India Shining! Never thought roads in UP and Bihar would be so awesome! I would say that they are much better than Maharashtra roads!  Inspite of heavy truck traffic - must be part of a great industrial corridor - we made good time and didnt get stuck in any jams. 

At Bodhgaya the driver handed us over to an E Rickshaw guy, as petrol vehicles are not allowed to ply there. The E rickshaw took us to all the major points - the various statues, temples and monasteries built by all the Buddhist countries around the world. Japan, China, Korea, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Mongolia  - there was even one from Bangladesh! The whole place was clean and neat and orderly. 

The giant Buddha statue (Japanese) was clearly the main show - but each temple had its own nation specific charm. 

The piece de resistance of Bodhgaya is the place where the Buddha went click, and said - Oh, I see! That is the whole point! 
The 4 main points in the Buddha circuit are
1) Lumbini in Nepal - where he was born
2) Bodhgaya  - where he said 'Aha! Eureka!' 
3) Sarnath - where he have his first sermon 
4) Kushinagar - where he copped it
As you can see - Bodhgaya is no. 2. He sat under a peepal tree and meditated till he saw the light, and that tree is called the Bodhi tree. The original tree is long gone - this tree is the 4th generation of that tree. There is an ancient temple built by Ashoka and various Buddhist kings in front of it, and there are many other places around....
the tree was where the Buddha sat, then there is a place where he walked around for a bit, then a place where he stood for a while, then a place where he took a bath, then a place where he....well - you get the idea. 
Having come such a long way, the devotees want value for money, so they go around worshipping everything in sight. 
The interesting part about Bodhagaya for me was the international range of devotees - there were faithful from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Bhutan, China, Korea...all sorts...and also a handful of firangs. Each of them seemed to be praying in their own style, in their own language and with their own rituals. I found it fascinating! 
There was a tibetan yagna going on, with a whole bunch of robed monks sitting and one guy rumbling out prayers in a very deep bass. There were some guys who were prostrating their way around. They would stand, then prostrate themselves, stand where their head had been while prostrating and then again take a dive! There was a whole bunch of people on a package tour from Sri Lanka - all looking like Indians...but not exactly. I smiled at them and they smiled warmly back. 
It was a lovely place, and we spent a lot of time there. 
So much time that our E rickshaw fellow was cheesed off. We were not allowed to carry phones inside the complex and had put them in safe deposit - and when I redeemed it, I saw 40 missed calls from the poor guy. 
We had a bite to eat from a roadside rollwala and then left to get back - because it was a 5 hour journey back. 
It was lucky that we left in time, because we got stuck in some ridiculous jams on the highway, and had our driver not gone off the road and into some really deep detours in deserted dark places where I thought he was going to rape and loot us - we might be in the jam still! 
But alls well that ends well and we were back in the Palace on Steps and enjoying a last night looking out on to the Ganga. 

We got into the Air India plane which had waited so graciously for bawa and he fell asleep almost immediately and probably dreamt of bawi temptresses, exhausted as he was by emotional tension, the unaccustomed physical effort of running in the airport and the mental trauma of getting shouted at by Bharathi SWMBO

Soon we were in Varanasi, and bawa didn't have to fly to Gorakhpur or jump with a parachute or sail down from Kolkata, so he was pretty chuffed with himself. 

The airport taxi was a rip-off as usual, and I booked an Uber instead. Uber and Ola is the BEST thing that has happened to travel in India, and if any slimy government stooge or gunda political party tries to nobble these two services, then they will die of leprosy via special curse from me. 

I was very impressed by Varanasi! This was my third visit here over the years, and I had never seen it looking this good! Wide roads, spic and span cleanliness, beautiful wall paintings - it was looking amazing. Yogi and gang have done an awesome job - Well done UP administration!  

We reached Dashashwamedh ghat and went around hunting for hotels. I had spent literally hours and hours researching Google Maps and Oyo and GoIbibo and Airbnb, much to Bharathi's puzzlement. 
'Since when did you start making bookings for backpacking travel, eh?' she asked 
'I....er....' I was quite surprised myself. What had happened to me? Oh god! I had got a communicable discease from Bharathi! After seeing her book hotels and tickets and trips and such stuff day in and day out for so many years, I was also infected! AAAAARRRRGHHHH! I was doomed! I was a booker! 
'Oh shut up!' she replied crossly 'I never book any acco for India holidays' 
'But what about the last time...'
'Oh, that was a one-off'
'And the time before that?'
'Oh that was because there are very few hotels there' 
'And what about...'
'Oh get lost.' 

Anyway, I digress. Where were we? Ah yes, Dashashwamedh ghat...
'So where are we going?' Bawa asked, fidgeting with his backpack. He had discovered late last night that he does not have a backpack and had gone running to Decathlon to buy one.
'Oh we will find one.' I said 'And today we will hit the jackpot.' 
'Eh? Why?' 
'It's your day man. the whole plane waited for you. We will definitely get an awesome room today because of your luck.' 

And we did! 

In fact, we got an awesome deal in the very first hotel we saw. He offered us his very best room at half price. But we couldnt believe it - it seemed too good to be true. So we shouldered our packs and tramped all over the ghats and saw multiple hotels, until we realised that the first deal was the best and we went back there. 
It was on Rana Mahal ghat and was in a palace which was apparently built for Maharana Pratap to stay in. We got the most amazing room overlooking the Ganga with a beautiful sit out, where we sat for a long time enjoying the night views.

The next day we went for a dawn boat ride and enjoyed it thoroughly. The weather was amazing and the river was awesomely clean. The Ghats have also been cleaned up and beautified and are looking the best that I have ever seen. Again, I must put this on record - an amazing job by the UP government. Well done dudes. 

We decided to take a tour of the city and booked the same from our hotel guy. Bawa fluttered his peepers at him (not his peepee...his peepers...his eyes!) and pleaded for a discount and the hotelier was so horrified that he gave us a 10% discount to make him go away. We went to see Sarnath - where the Buddha had given his first sermon - and it was quite a distance away through some terrible and horny traffic (horn blowing traffic I mean). Sarnath itself was quite pleasant, but we didn't have that much of time there and went running back through that horny traffic to see Benares fort. 
I had not seen Benares fort as yet and was quite eager to see it. But unfortunately there was not much to see there. There was a museum, where the guards told us sternly 'No photography allowed'. I wondered why - but it was clear when I saw the museum.
It was the worst, piece of shit museum ever! 
India is full of crappy museums, which look more like a garbage heap than a museum, but this would easily take pride of place. 
The Maharani must have told the Maharaja to throw all the old junk and crap out of the house, and the Maharaja thought that it would be fun to put all the trash inside a glass case instead and see how many mugs would pay to see it. 
It's so bad, that it's unmissable. You should go there just to see how bad it is. 

But when we got out of the museum and were about to leave, we saw a sign that pointed to some temple and went to check it out. That turned out to be a lucky break, because that path led to the walls of the fort, which were right on the banks of the river. Now we could see how beautiful the fort was, and how lovely the setting was! It was wonderful. A serendipitous discovery indeed. 

After the aarti, all the motorboats made a run for their respective hotels and looked very much like a bunch of spermatozoa in an orgasm. We were in a rowboat and enjoyed a night ride on the Ganges and enjoyed the beautiful illumination on the ghats. Again I will say it - an amazing clean up and beautification of the ghats! Well done UP! 

Bawa's brow furrowed, he sweated buckets, he held his head in his hands and he moaned and groaned. He was in a crisis. 
​
I had just given him a choice - either we can go for a ride somewhere, or we can go to see the Kumbh mela and explore a bit out there. I had won a stay at a resort in Panna Tiger reserve as a prize in a photography contest, and wanted to use that and see new jungle. Also, Panna was very close to Khajuraho, and I had been eager for years and years to see the great temples of Khajuraho. I had tried to get Bharathi to come to Khajuraho but she just sneered at the thought of an Indian holiday. 
'I have seen all of India when you were just pissing in your pants re...' she would say.  'Now I do only phoren holiday. I spit me on your feeble plans. How dare you make plans so late in the day? I have already made plans for 2019, 2020, 2021,2022....and you are making plans in Feb for Feb? Tchee...thooo...' 
An ugly fat bawa was not the ideal companion to see the sensuous carvings of Khajuraho....but hey, he must have been thinking the exact same thing. 

Anyway, I digress. What wasI saying? Ah yes...Bawa in an agony of decision, vibrating fit to burst... and finally he said 'Kumbh! Let's go to the Kumbh!' 
'Oh?' I said, raising my e.b.s 'Really? Are you sure? You don't want to take your Thunderbird 350....or your Thunderbird 500....or your Triumph Tiger...for a ride?'

'AAAAAARRRGHHHHHHH' he shouted, like a strong man in agony. 'Noooooooo...we can go on ride anytime! But Kumbh comes once in so many years! We will go to the Kumbh!' 

'Yeah?' I looked at him disbelievingly. 'In that case, YOU book the air tickets. So if you bail out, then you will pay for the tickets.' 
'Gah!' he was stung, and immediately pulled out his credit card, like a duellist pulling out his epee. (No...not his peepee...epee is a kind of duelling sword) and booked off 2 tickets for Varanasi. (or Benares. Or Kashi. They are all the same )

I flapped around doing a lot of bookings for the trip, which much amused SWMBO. It was like a small baby playing with his doll kitchen in front of Gordon Ramsay. She looked at me indulgently and told me that whatever i was doing was wrong, and what was the need to do any bookings in India anyway, and it was so amusing to see people making bookings a week before travel - but it was good that I was doing something at least, and not sitting on my gargantuan fat butt as usual. 

Finally the day dawned - D day. We were flying to Varanasi. Luckily it was not an early morning flight, so I had a relaxed breakfast, and Bharathi had ample time to tell me that I had overpacked and what was the need to carry such a big pack and that I was not carrying enough warm clothes and that I would freeze to death in the jungle and that I was WRONG WRONG WRONG...Oh, your taxi has come. Bye! Have a great trip! MUAH MUAH SMOOCH SMOOCH

I called up Delzad and told him to get moving! He is well known for cutting things extremely fine at the airport and rushing to the check in desk at the very last moment and demanding boarding and scaring everyone there. 
'Chill dude.' he told me smugly. 'I got this. I am already in the cab, and might even be there before you, enjoying a cooling drink and flirting with the pretty ladies.' 
'Yeah?' I replied, impressed. 'That's good. I have done a web check in for both of us and am carrying the boarding pass print outs.' 
'Not required bro....but thank you kindly.' he said 'I shall reach well in time. toodle oo now....I am going to catch a refreshing nap in this taxi.' 
'Tell the cab to come by bandra and not by SCLR...' I started to say, but he had already cut the call. 
'Go by Sion Bandra and the highway' I told the Uber driver. 
'But sir, Google is telling to go by SCLR Andheri...' he said
'Balls to Google. Google can be full of shit. They have dug up that road and the traffic is out of this world. Go by the highway.' 
'OK sir' 
I put on my headphone and went into screensaver mode. The ride was uneventful and fairly soon we were at the airport. 
I called up bawa 'Where are you dude? Should I wait for you outside to hand you the Boarding pass?' 
This time his voice was tense and funereal, like a bandwala on the Titanic. 
'No man....I am stuck in traffic...I am in deep shit.' 
'Eh? Where are you?' 
'Arre, I fell asleep in the cab and this idiot came by SCLR and we are jammed in traffic. I can't even open the door of the car, they are packed so close together!' 
'Shit! What will you do now?' 
'I don't know...You go ahead...I don't think I will be able to take this flight...Let me see what are the options.' 

Oh oh. 

I went ahead and checked in and cleared security and made my way into the security well and called again. 
'Where are you now?' 
'I haven't moved much....'
'Why don't you move out of that silly road and move into BKC and towards the highway...'
'Listen... is Aurangabad in Bihar?' 
'Eh?' the sheer inanity of the question caught me off guard. 'What?' 
'Aurangabad...where is it?' 
'Where...it's in Maharashtra of course. Ajanta, Ellora and all that...why?' 
'I am getting a cheap flight to Aurangabad.' 
I clutched my head. 'What?' 
'Yes...spot ticket to Varanasi is very expensive. flight to Aurangabad is cheap.' 
My head was reeling. 'But why would you want to go to Aurangabad?' 
'Google Maps shows that Aurangabad is very close to Patna.' 
'Abey IDIOT. That might be some other place. Some ersatz Aurangabad. Definitely won't have an airport. The fare you are seeing is for Maharashtra.' 
'Oh really?' I could just feel him deflating like a Chinese balloon. 'Are you sure?' 
'Of course I am sure. Anyway - why are you doing this? Call Bharathi and ask her for options. She will have a spontaneous orgasm at the thought of making a last minute travel itinerary and criticise you at the same time.' 
'OK'
After some time he called back, even more morose. 
'Bharathi laughed at me.' 
'Well...what did you expect?' 
'Then she told me that the best option was to take a flight from Bangalore to Gorakhpur.' 
'BANGALORE!' 
'Yes...she said that I take an overnight bus to Bangalore and then catch a flight from Bangalore to Gorakhpur, then take a bus to Kanpur and then take a train from Kanpur to Varanasi.' 
I started to laugh out loud.
'Don't laugh fucker!' 
'HAHAHAHAHA HOHOHOHOHOHO HEEHEEHEEHEEE' 
'Oh fuck off.' 

By this time I reached the departure gate. It was now less than 20 min to the flight, but the gate was closed and everyone was just standing around morosely. 

Hey, what's going on? 
I went and checked and sure enough, the flight to Varanasi was delayed. Very interesting. I went and caught hold of the Indian Airlines guy and asked him. he admitted that the flight was delayed but we should be on our way in a few minutes. 
'No no no..' I said and explained the situation to him. How long would the flight be delayed by? Was there enough delay for my friend to catch the flight? 
The dude pursed his lips, unwilling to commit himself. But then he told me 'Look at it this way...the incoming flight has just landed. It needs to deboard passengers and luggage, get cleaned and serviced and then load all the passengers. Say half an hour. could be a bit more.' 

Well! Looks like there is hope! 

I called up Bawa 'Where are you?' 
'I have just gotten out of the jam and am heading towards airport.' 
'Listen...the flight is delayed, so if you can make it here - as in to the boarding gate - in under half an hour, you can still make it.' 

The poor guy sounded like the guy with his head on the block and the executioner saying that he has to go and take a pee before the next chop. A stay of execution! 

In the meanwhile Bharathi was in hog heaven, churning out idea after idea. Every 2 minutes she would call me
'Arre...Tatkal ticket available for Mumbai to Varanasi on train. only 8K.' 
'Ah.' 
After 2 min. 'Arre... tell him to fly to Ahmedabad and then take train from Ahm to Benares'
'Ah.'
After 2 min 'Arre - Tell him to fly to Delhi, open the emergency window and parachute down to Varanasi.' 
'Oh' 
After 2 min 'Arre...Tell him to fly to Dubai and take flight from Dubai to Benares' 
'Ah'
After 2 min 'Arre - there is a horse and cart here...' 

I had a relaxed cup of coffee, while the bawa nearly gave himself a heart attack sprinting through check in and security and what not. It's a good thing the CISF guys didn't shoot him or something. 

But his karma was strong! He made it! 

Gasping, purple faced, winded and mortally chastened - but he made it in time for the flight!
​Just then Bharathi called. 
'Arre - tell him to fly to Kolkata and take a boat to Benares...' 
'No no...It's alright. He made it for the flight.' 
'He did? Oh Damn! Er...that is to say... I mean...that's great!' 

All praise to Air India! May they always be late at the right time! 

Baba Vishwanath ka bulawa aaya hai! We are on our way to Kashi. 

bawa showing off his boarding pass

Thank god for Air India. May they always be late. 

By wee2books.blogspot.in
Three Amigos Ride to Spiti by Ketan Joshi
I have to say, I have been waiting for this book. I read everything written by Ketan Joshi who slowly but firmly cemented his position among the English language writers of India. He has written short stories, detective stories and even books on marketing, but his travel stories are just magical, awesome and filled with the most innocent, the purest form of fun. Three Men Ride Again: Three Amigos Ride to Spiti by Ketan Joshi is the second book in the series of Three Amigos travelogue. I read the first book in this series. It was called Three Men on Motorcycles: The Amigos Ride to Ladakh. I liked it immensely. So I couldn’t resist the temptation of downloading the second book, that I found buried under stacks of other Kindle books.

Ketan Joshi’s second book is even better than the first one. The most important improvement being the brevity. When it comes to writing travelogue, Ketan Joshi is simply a genius. Other travel stories that I read over last few years were serious, dreamy-eyed type descriptions of places and people. There are plenty route charts, information on hotels and must-see places. But all these voluminous details and painstakingly laid out travel plans kill the joy of reading the book as a literature. Ketan Joshi’s travel stories are not meant for dry tourist handbooks. They are humorous stories about three friend going on distant places and having a real blast. Read it and you’ll find yourself giggling every now and then.

In Three Men Ride Again: Three Amigos Ride to Spiti by Ketan Joshi, fun starts right from page one. It is not the serious and twisted kind of fun that writers often use to make their works look incredibly smart and polished. It is the boorish, imbecile fun that can only be found among best friends on their intimate moments. I’d kill and maim just to get a moment like that in my life.
Bawa gets airsick easily, so we tried to tell him horror stories about air turbulence and accidents and roller coasters to get him to puke or at least get dizzy; but he was on to us – and stuck his fingers in his ears and shouted ‘nananana’ to drown out our stories. Everyone in the plane stared at us, but we told them that he was a harmless lunatic and we were taking him to Punjab where he would fit in easily.
When the three friends like Delzad, Adi and Ketan are together they hardly need anyone else to have unmixed, consummate fun. The ability to mock oneself is what I consider the most effective form of humour and Joshi’s book is just stuffed with it. The sentences are simple, quite straight-forward yet when you read them, your belly starts aching from laughing hysterically.
Our tummies were so full that bending over to tighten the straps was sto risk apoplexy or a sudden bowel movement.
Who writes like that? Most of the books I read nowadays are so grim and serious, they keep me sad and moody for days. Not that they are badly written, or not interesting, but the problem is that they were too truthful in mirroring the darkness of contemporary society. The writers may be actually good humoured in person, but they have seen too much of the dark sides. That might have choked the fountain of fresh water inside them. I don’t blame them. The world has gone to that direction. A world like this amounts to intellectual asphyxiation. So at times we need to stick our head out of water, inhale fresh air and live a little. Three Men Ride Again: Three Amigos Ride to Spiti by Ketan Joshi is a book just about that.

There are also ocassional mention of historical facts or little details about the Geography. But they are not the text-book kind of facts. The information is presented in a way that even the most absent minded, passive aggressive backbencher, with little or no respect for studies will find it entertaining.
Chail had an even cooler history than Simla. The legend goes that Chail was built is a ‘Fuck you’ gesture by the Maharaja of Patiala to the British.
That’s dry, binary data blended with unique storytelling. If Ketan Joshi had written a text book it would be a superhit among college goers. Education would be fun rather than a burden as it is now felt. Joshi also toys with popular mythology. He tells the stories in different lights.
The story goes that Hidimb was a ferocious demon living in the forest, and Hidimba was his equally ferocious demon sister. They used to go around doing various demon things – eating people and disturbing sages and stuff.
Then one fine morning Bheema comes to that part of the forest and kills Hidimb, the demon. That’s too mainstream.
Demon meets hero, Demon attacks hero, Demon dies.
But what happens after that was rather strange.
On Seeing that her only brother is dead, beaten to death by this fellow Bheema – what does Sister Hidimba do? Does she attack him? Does she bay for his blood? Does she try to kill him?
No! She gets horny! She basically says ‘Ooh... you killed my brother ... that was so hot... Lets fuck!
Adi on these riding trips is on perpetual motion. He doesn’t stop every now and then to admire the sceneries. He loves rough ride like Delzad – the rougher the road, the better. However, he spends huge amount of time taking pictures – not of the places he visits – but of himself and his bike. Delzad, an absolute foodie, shows severe withdrawl symptoms if he doesn’t get to eat Tandoori for a few days. The mix of Ketan, Adi and Delzad often reminds me of another very famous and well-read travelogue – Three Men in a Boat.
The canyons and gorges had been created by the force of the fast running rivers, which, over the eons, had cut right through the soft sedimentary rocks like a string through a boiled egg. The Himalayas are not solid volcanic rock like the Sahyadris – they are made up of sediments of the sea floor which were pushed up when the subcontinent of India crashed into the mainland of Asia and threw up the plateau of Tibet and the giant ripples of the Himayalas.
That’s one piece of Geography lesson, minus the text-book style bombastic and rigormortis like formality.

Ketan is a nature lover and like any true nature lover the slow destruction of all good tourist spots makes him sad. It is not that he is running some propaganda material on ecology or something. It all comes with observation of a clear and unbiased mind of a naturalist. Ketan Joshi is often critical about the unmindful and wholesale destruction of nature.
... what would you expect with a place in India which is holy to two religions? Its twice as ugly and dirty, obviously.
Three Men Ride Again: Three Amigos Ride to Spiti by Ketan Joshi is a book everyone should read. It is not just a good travelogue but also a fairly nice piece of contemporary literature. In the present time of emotional and intellectual deprivation, I find his books strangely soothing. I will be eagerly waiting for the next book in Three Amigos series. The Amigos will ride South - promises Ketan Joshi. This gives a hint on what the next book is going to be about.

​https://wee2books.blogspot.in/2017/10/three-amigos-spiti-ketan-joshi.html

By wee2books.blogspot.com

Three Men on Motorcycles: The Amigos Ride To Ladakh
Three Men on Motorcycle: The Amigos Ride to Ladakh by Ketan Joshi is the funniest travelogue I've ever read. The other two travelogues that I read and found exceedingly humorous were Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad and J. K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. The Innocents Abroad had some serious doses of History, that as an Indian I didn’t find much interest in. The same goes with the description and histories narrated in Jerome’s classic.

Unlike the two classics I just mentioned, Ketan Joshi’s Three Amigos Ride to Ladakh made me feel at home. There were pilgrims marring the scenic beauty, the indecisive and adamant officer at a border check post, tourists polluting mountain lakes, the lazy and incompetent goods clerk, and not to mention the police trying to find an excuse to extort money – all these make us Indians feel very much at home. Then comes the most important part: the destination is Ladakh.

I’ll tell you how I came across this book. I first borrowed it from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, read it and then decided I should have it in my collection. So I bought it – not the ebook of course – but the hardcover. There are a few books that you read a number of times in your lifetime. You had a terrible day in your office, you had a break up, you’ve shifted to a new town and missing your old buddies – all you need is a book that can make you love your life again. That book shouldn’t be an ebook. Hell, no!
The first thing you notice about Three Men on Motorcycles is its intimate style of narrating things. The whole thing is extremely informal. Though it certainly comes under the travel genre, this book is more about the kind of relationship you have with your best friends. You swear at each other, you insult and make fun of each other, you are downright mean to each other, but despite it all, you can’t live without each other. Three Amigos are just like that. They drink rum together, smoke weed together, but most importantly, they ride their Royal Enfields together. If you have even one friend like them, you should consider yourself extremely rich.

Alright! Now there is a fourth person, Bharathi, who though physically not present with the amigos, keeps guiding them through cellphones, emails and sometimes when there’s no network, through her minions. “UTHO REY. UTHO REY.” They say. That drives them into ‘perpetual motion’ besides driving them crazy. I must mention something here though. The idea of Bharathi taking possession of humans and animals and controlling them remotely, her getting inside Ketan’s mind and making suggestions therefrom – they were doubtlessly funny. But I also found them interfering into and sometimes obstructing the smooth flow of the story. The idea was good when it started, then it was used again and again. By the time I reached the end of this book, it became so dull that I actually started to skip anything written in all-caps because they were supposed to be related directly or indirectly to Bharathi.

There is hardly anything that’s still or static in this book. It’s like a motion picture. It’s like The Motorcycle Diaries, only less philosophical. But that is because the three friends are in ‘perpetual motion’. There is history, there are descriptions, but they are brief and humorous. Even reading the history will make you smile. There is hardly a paragraph in this book that you read without laughing out loud. The literary style is lean. There is nothing that is unnecessary. If there’s anything that isn’t related to Three Amigos, then probably it’s never mentioned in this book. I read a lot of contemporary literature. The verbosity scares me. Not even once in this book had Ketan Joshi overridden the law of brevity. Comparing this book with The Adventures of Dipy Singh Private Detective by the same author, will give you some idea about the giant leap he has taken in quality of his compositions. 
Do present Three Men on Motorcycles: The Amigos Ride to Ladakh to your son on his 18th birthday.

​https://wee2books.blogspot.in/2017/05/three-men-motorcycles-ladakh.html

Check out this fun podcast on motorbiking life created by a friend.  She made this for a school project and I think she did an amazing job 

https://m.soundcloud.com/eisha-nair-262251274/diary-motorcycle/s-n9sBq

I was flattered to receive a mail from leading Indian travel site www.ghumakkar.com saying that they have heard about my book 'Three men on motorcycles' and asking me if I would like to be interviewed for publication in their site. 

Well, of course I would!  They interviewed me via email and the interview was published online on 1st July 2017

You can check it out here 

 The portuguese era in India is something that is not much talked about nowadays, possibly because the British had no love for them and were happy for them to be forgotten. But they were the first western power to visit and colonise India in 1498 - and for that matter, were the last power to exit India.. Well after the British left, all the way till 1961!

They ruled a vast swathe of land, and had forts starting from Diu in Gujarat and all the way down to the Kerala coast. They had an extensive presence on the Eastern coast as well - with forts from Tuticorin till the Hooghli, and also ruled the island of Sri Lanka. They could have easily been the dominant power in the subcontinent, but got bogged down in royal politics and were ultimately outmaneuvered by the British East India company.  

The main capital of Portuguese India was Goa, of course - but the Northen capital was Vasai - or ‘Bassein’ as they knew it. It was an extremely rich fort - the centre of a flourishing kingdom and was the dominant power in the region - much bigger than the small outpost of Bom Bahia, or Bombay island.

But now the fort is ruined and abandoned, and Vasai has been relegated to a sleepy backwater. It was to this place that I decided to cycle to on Sunday morning. If you drive down to Vasai then you have to take a circuitous route, but if you go on cycle you can carry the bike through the subway under Naigaon station and save a few Ks.

A 2000 thousand year old rock carved cave temple right in the middle of Suburban Mumbai...and no one seems to care very much about it!
I have been doing Mumbai exploration this year, and while researching online for places to visit, I stumbled on Mandapeshwar caves in Borivli. I found it simply incredible that we have an ancient almost pre-history rock cut temple right here and no one seems to know or care about it.
I read about it on Ashutosh Bijoor's blog, and found that it was carved in 550 AD, around the same time as the nearby Jogeshwari caves (which also is an unknown treasure) and the Kondivate or Mahakali caves, and was carved in the same style as the Elephanta caves or the Ellora temples.

Well, I simply had to see this, and one rainy sunday, I cycled from chembur to Borivli to visit the caves. It was a about 40 Km each way, and passed through or by many things that make Mumbai amazing ( a forest, a lake, hills, ancient temples, modern highways and urban sprawl)
​

I found the caves tucked unobstrisively away in Borivli bylanes in an overwhelmingly christian area - it was near the IC colony and just below a church - the church of our lady of immaculate conception. It seemed that it would have been on church lands before the ASI took ownership of the area.

The other point that struck me was that it seemed to be really obscure and unmarked. There were some building materials outside which indicated that there are plans to fence it off, but as of now it was open and and nameless. There was no indication that a unique rock cut temple was nearabouts.

But when I entered the caves and looked around, I was entranced! What a wonderful cave temple! And it was reasonably well maintained as well. 
It was originally built on the shores of the Dahisar river, but now the river has changed its course and the temple has become inland. But you can just imagine the temple as it must have been - in a jungle, along the riverside, on a small hill, the most talented artists and sculptors had created a beautifully carved temple out of the living rock. 

The idea of rock cut caves was started by the buddhist monks, but the hindus also liked the idea and also started making the same. Possibly the same sculptors who created the buddhist caves started making caves for the hindus as well - depending on who was signing the cheques. The Mumbai area was a big trading area due to the many big ports in the area - Thane, Sopara, Vasai, etc and there must have been a lot of rich seths willing to finance cave making in the forests of Mumbai. We have Buddhist caves and Hindu caves in Mumbai - Mahakali and Kanheri are Buddhist, and Jogeshwari and Elephanta are Hindu. 
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The golden age of cave temples ended about 1500 years ago, and India and Mumbai went through many epochs and empires since then. The importance of the Mumbai area dwindled and the big traders went off to other areas, and the whole area went into obscurity. The muslim waves into India started, with first the persian gulf muslims and then the Mughals from the Mongol lands swept over India, and big temple building went into decline as the Hindu kings were swept away.  But they were not too interested in this part of the world, and kept away from it.
But the portuguese came to India in the 1500s and they were extremely interested in this area because of the access to sea lanes. They rapidly built up a formidable presence along the western  coast and established a string of forts from Diu right down to Mumbai and were the rulers of the sea. They took over the sea shore lands as there wasnt anyone to oppose them. 
Along with the conquisadors came the priests who were licking their chops at getting so many heathens to convert to the word of the lord, and they went around converting all the villagers they could find. As the Portuguese military hold tightened, they could use harsher and harsher measures to get converts. One of these was was to deface local temples and use them as churches. As we can see here - there is a bas relief of Shiva which had been carved down to a cross. They built a monastery on top of the temple, whose ruins can still be seen today. 
As an article in the Hindu notes - 
"The Mandapeshwar caves perhaps have the most tumultuous history of all the Mumbai caves, or so it would seem from the scars the walls still bear. A Hindu temple, it was targeted by the Portuguese, who asserted their religious beliefs over it by literally building a monastery and a church dedicated to Our Lady of Immaculate Conception on top of the cave temple. Fr. Porto founded the monastery and church in 1544.
A visitor in 1804 noted: “The good priests had covered [the carved Hindu figurines in the cave] with a smooth coat of plaster and had converted the whole into a chapel.”

The time of the portuguese was limited though, as they were faced with a wiler enemy - the British. They teamed up with the Marathas and persuaded them to go to war with the Portuguese and destroy them. Under Chimaji appa, they besieged and defeated the huge Portuguese fort of Vasai and then wiped them out of the Mumbai area, which included Borivli. This was of double advantage to the British, as the Portuguese were thrown out, and the marathas were fatally weakened at the same time, enabling the British to defeat them within a few years. 
"In the 18th century the church was desecrated after the Battle of Bassein in which the Marathas defeated the Portuguese. They uncovered and worshipped the rock-cut sculptures again, but towards the end of the 18th century the British defeated the Marathas and the caves once again functioned as a place of Christian worship. After the end of colonial rule the church fell into disrepair and the caves gradually reverted to the worship of Siva. The church, including its roof, has been destroyed, but older local residents recall playing among the aisles and the nave of the church when they were children."

I saw that this place was becoming a live temple again, with people praying there and offering flowers and stuff. I have mixed feeling about this - on the one hand, I strongly believe that ancient monuments should be left alone and properly preserved, and we tend to mess up temple areas very fast. On the other hand, it brings the old temple to life when people pray a bit and offer bright flowers. It gives you a little glimpse of what it must have been in the old days. 

The funniest part of all is the fact that people apparently know about this cave, but do not care about it. I told my mom about it, and she remembered the location as she had lived in Borivli many years ago. But she had never been there, and didn't seem impressed with the idea of a 2000 year old rock cut temple. 
I spoke to various friends living in Borivli, who either had no idea about the existence of the place, or if they did - then had not been there - or if they had been there, were not sensible about the importance of the place.
In Europe, every small thing is celebrated as a Unesco world heritage site - an olive plantation, some obscure town and watchtower, some small road, anything.

​This is a national treasure, and even the locals dont know anything about it, and care even less. So weird. 

The church of Our Lady of immaculate conception - which must be an offshoot of the same church which was built on  top of this ancient temple - was full for Sunday mass, and I couldnt help but notice the difference in the fortunes of this temple and that church. 

I wouldnt want it to be locked up behind ASI fences and rendered inaccessible, but definitely we should nurture and protect this place and make more people aware of this. 

Mumbai has a great history, and hopefully we will protect and enjoy it in the future as well.