Author: bratislav

D1 – The lights from Pankhabari

On By bratislavIn India, TravelLeave a comment

Cold is an understatement. My feet are numb. This internet connection sucks. That said though, I’m more than happy to be back here – back in the Darjeeling Hills.

I sit in a lively internet cafe set unsuspectingly in the middle of a subzi mandi (vegetable market) in Kurseong. Music ranges from Pink Floyd to Himesh Reshamiya and the friendly folk in the booths adjacent to mine sing along regardless. This is the end of Day 2 of 5 of my Darjeeling trip and as you can see I’m a day late in blogging. Let’s pretend though that this is still day 1. Hopefully I’ll get to a faster internet cafe tomorrow and will be able to update 2 and 3 together. Till then, a very warm welcome to Darjeeling!

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Cortelyou on the Q

On By bratislavIn Home, NYCLeave a comment

So it’s been over a month since my last post and this isn’t quite turning out to be your everyday blog. Nor have I undertaken any more travel, journeys on trains or had any real adventure. Not a very exciting life I know! Nevertheless here’s another blog entry and one in which I hope to share with you all aspects of my recent move away from Manhattan.

Yup, I’m now in far and distant Brooklyn or ‘across the river’ as people in Manhattan refer to it. Been living here for a little over 2 months since my return from India in the summer. Brooklyn is a huge borough as you can imagine and I haven’t had the time or inclination to explore most parts of it. So I shall keep this discourse limited to the little neighborhood that I belong to. More specifically Argyle Rd which is just off Cortelyou Rd which is in between Flatbush Ave and Coney Island Ave which is south of Prospect Park and in relation to ‘the city’, southeast of Manhattan !! And if you’ve had it with all those names, this should make it easier for you..

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The Mountain, the Moose and the Moccasin Man

On By bratislavIn Travel1 Comment

Welcome to my first blog ever! Hopefully there will be more 🙂 Thought I’d start one after all since I end up sending out mails with photo attachments and accompanying captions. Sometimes this does get painful – not only for me but also for those viewing it am sure. So here’s where I hope to give everyone a chance – to decide for themselves whether or not they’d like to go through the monotony all over again..

Meet Ashwin – 29, single(?), banker based in nyc. Ashwin’s sister Shivani and I were in college together and that’s how I know him. I leave home a little later than planned (what’s new?) and hope that Ashwin gets to Fungwah before me and more importantly with enough time to secure seats on the 7 pm departure for Boston. He doesn’t disappoint. ‘Good going Ashwin’ I think to myself as I see him waving frantically at me from his perch inside the bus. The bus leaves 15 minutes earlier for some reason and apart from an F1 like turn somewhere in Brooklyn its a fairly uneventful ride (by Fungwah standards) to Boston south station which is reached only a little later than scheduled (again by Fungwah standards) at 10 past 11 at night.

Meet Bhavjit er sorry make that Dr.Bhavjit Ghumman (PHd), polymer engineer based somewhere in Mass. Makes for good matrimonial column stuff no doubt! Although he’s supposed to pick us up from south stn, he awakes only at around the time of our arrival so comes up with an ingenious plan to pick us up from north station instead. No big deal we think – that’s only another 30 minutes and 2 train rides away from us – exhausted as we might be!! At midnight we pull out of Boston for what’s going to be a 3 and a half hour drive to Gorham, New Hampshire (NH). Uneventful yet again except for NH cops pulling us over at the respectable hour of 0215 am for doing 75 quite blissfully on a 55 mph zone. Bhavjit gets away shaken but not stirred (read no ticket!) We crash for 4 hours at this overpriced Mt.Madison Motel in Gorham town..

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