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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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Seeking Santa

The Christmas holidays are on, and Samhith is pestering me to get a tree and decorate it, and wondering what gifts he is going to get this year..... He missed out on the Christmas party in school, and is rather upset about not being able to meet Santa..... Meanwhile, I read this post today, where Satyabrata Dam recollects his 8 meetings with Santas... Yes, that's 8 meetings.......

He writes....

This is the jolly festive season of Christmas and all things good so let me today tell you how and where I met the grand man in red suit and what happened thereafter.

To begin with, I have three distinct links to Santa Claus: (a) Our first names start with identical alphabet (b) Quite like him most of my life I have spent in extreme cold and snow laden places and in Polar Regions (c) We both travel the world spreading joy and cheer and smiles at strange and dark places. To my knowledge he never went to South Pole and here I actually outpace him. All this definitely makes me Santa’s country-cousin if not a direct descendent. Read More





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