An interesting journey without destination, without itinerary and without more the basic seed plan. DreamCatcher used to host small Groups of 4 – 5 people traveling in a comfortable Jeep equipped with sufficient camping gear. The Group decided whether to head for the hills or into the jungles: to cook by the river eat at...Read More
A long weekend in the wilderness with a bunch of friends, sometime around 1999-2000. A very interesting account of a visit to a remarkable series of hills near Madras ” (then Madras Presidency) was published in the Madras journal in 1836 by Colonel Montieth of the Madras Engineers and republished more than a hundred years...Read More
A long time ago, we operated a corporate 4-day “outward bound” camp near a sheep farm at Mannavanur in Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu. The land was beautiful with rolling grasslands, patches of Eucalyptus and a few village huts, out of sight, a little distance away. One morning, one of our clients, couldn’t find his nice new foreign-bought...Read More
Written during the BBC's land of the Tiger shoot by a dear friend who is no longer with us - Satya. I smile remembering the miles and good times we had. When DreamCatcher was very young, in its first year or two, Satya joined me, fresh out of Hotel Management school and we operated many...Read More
A friend of mine, Venkatesh “Minky” Rao drove 48-hours nonstop from Delhi to Bangalore in his dinky little maruti through the incredible sands of Rajasthan and the forests of Madhya Pradesh. The highlight was the majestic mist-shrouded Taj Mahal viewed from the banks of the Yamuna. Being a Tuesday, the crowds of tourists were thankfully...Read More
Originally published in the Taj Hotels Magazine, around 1997 Kovalam is a small peaceful bay, 32 kilometers south of Madras, on the Coromandel or East Coast of India. Its tranquillity belies a history of conflict as successive trading posts were established by the Dutch, the French and the English. The ruins of a 17th Century...Read More
Shabari passed on a few years ago. On into the arms of his great mother. I still remember the earnest simplicity in which he shared what was to him an unassailable fact – that he has two Mothers and two Fathers – Human Mother, EARTH Mother; Human Father, SUN Father. He was a master storyteller....Read More
