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Review of Executive Lounges at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS)

During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport.  That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’t ju

Navaratri Experiences – 6 and 7

Weekends during Navaratri are busy, for these are the days of hectic socializing – these are the days we have more visitors at home, and we have to go to others’ houses as well. At least, Samhith was happy as he got to see a lovely golu at one of our friends’ houses. They also have a young son, and he had enthusiastically exhibited a cricket team as well an airport.

From Miscellaneous

From Miscellaneous

From Miscellaneous




Navaratri is a time we pay obeisance to the Devi in her each and every form. It was one such form that was depicted in the temple on Saturday, the fifth day of Navaratri – SAKHAMBARI.


From Miscellaneous


In the Devi Mahatmyam, Durga prophesies that when the earth has been dry for a hundred years, the wise ones who continuously meditate upon her will cause her to be born in a superhuman fashion and she will bring forth from her body; fruits, flowers, vegetables and herbs to take away our hunger and thirst and our fear of death. She calls herself SHAKAMBARI. We pray to her for abundance of fruits and vegetables.

From Miscellaneous


She is depicted as being covered with fruits and vegetables, and as you can see from the photograph, apart from the face, every inch of the Devi is made up of vegetables, including the decoration around her.



Sunday, the 6th day, which signifies the completion of the phase celebrating Lakshmi, had a decoration that pleased Samhith very much – GANDAKI Devi of Muktinath.

From Miscellaneous


The Gandaki Devi temple is at Muktinath in Nepal, and is one of the 51 Shakti Peethams. It is believed that Sati’s nose fell at this place.

The Devi has been depicted as holding in her hands, two heads, one of a male, and the other a female, and standing on another figure.

From Miscellaneous

Samhith got all excited, and shouted out “Mamma look! The Devi has killed three asuras!” (He notices only asuras these days, not the gods). The temple priest hastened to correct him, saying that the Devi was not holding the auras’ heads, but the bad thoughts and bad habits of normal people like us, which is what we should pray to her for – an explanation which he accepted for the moment, though not full satisfied yet. He wants me to find out who those asuras are, and I must say, till now I have been unsuccessful. Even the internet, which provides most of the answers to my son’s questions, has let me down. If any of you reading this has any more information about this form of the goddess, please do let me know.



That’s all I have for the moment. Looking forward to sharing more news with all of you tomorrow….

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