• Arts & Culture - Heritage - History - Places - Publications - the great driving challenge

    Pick Your Escape Route (Mid-Dday Feb 02, 2012)

    February 11, 2012 - By 

    If you choose to do one trip a month for the whole year, that is 12 short trips in an year. When Mid-day asked us to give us an all-year itinerary in Maharashtra for travel lovers to explore, we were only happy to do so. It was late January and so we came up with a 11 month schedule. Here it goes. The full text February: Koyna Valley (Koyna Nagar) Why should be here: Far away from the maddening crowd. Without the trappings of any hill station. Spend a quite weekend in the MTDC resort or a couple of other…

  • People

    Humility @ Heights. Meet Pradeep Kelkar

    April 4, 2009 - By 

    At first glance he would pass off as an uncle next door. Ever smiling, but certainly not the patronizing ones. His nimble body is deceptive of the exceptional feats it has accomplished. Scaling more than 120 peaks in Maharashtra. An unbreakable record of 40 virgin peaks. And 40 odd new routes to some of the known mountains. Meet Pradeep Kelkar, affectionately called as Pradeep Sir by mountaineering lovers in Maharashtra, a winner of many national and state awards including Shiv Chhatrapati Award. If humility can be measured in heights, one has to add up all the mountains he has climbed…

  • Nature's Wonders - Places

    Old Fears Die Hard

    January 1, 2009 - By 

    The surprise element in the three-day Ratnagiri mountaineering camp organised by Nature Knights was the ‘Snake familiarisation’ session by the Ratnadurg Mountaineers. For some of us, it was a pleasant surprise while for others it was perhaps a dreadful one. A bagful of snakes. All captured/rescued from the human habitat around Ratnagiri town, and ready to be let out to the forests. The session was to make us, the city folks, understand and appreciate the ‘other’ friends around us. There were a few varieties of them. Some of us touched them, felt them, and almost all of us allowed the…

  • Places

    “No Punjabi Dishes Please …”

    January 1, 2009 - By 

    If you happen to be in Ratnagiri and looking for good eating joints, here are some really compelling options. If you are a vegetarian, try Hotel Mithila. Excellent is perhaps an understatement. What we did was a breakfast and what we tried of course were the basic south Indian fare – idli, masala dosa, upma, vada, and sheera. Yet, it was simply awesome. Incidentally, some of their family members run an Indian hotel somewhere in the US, which is supposedly very popular. For the non-vegetarians, try Hotel Amantran. It was a dinner affair for us here. True Konkan fare. Fish/seafood…

  • Places

    In Search of the Glass Palace

    December 25, 2008 - By 

    “Soon the district administration discovered itself to be in possession of monies sufficient to build the King his long promised palace. A mansion had appeared on the hill side that faced the Residency. It came complete with a durbar hall, a gallery, outhouses, running water and a garage… All of Ratnagiri turned out to celebrate the move. Cheering crowds lined as the Royal Family drove out of Outram house for the last time… Its upkeep was found to require a small army: twenty seven gate keepers, ten peons, six hazurdaars and innumerable other attendants, cleaners, sweepers and ayahs – a…