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2023 - The Year That Was

Places impact you for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different people in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual experiences, where every single person’s experience is unique. And personally, every spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply spiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has emerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this year, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited recently. I began this year with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a relaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, but the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh. It was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few hours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There was an indefinable connect with
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Collaborative Posts

My blog seems to continue on the 'silent mode' while I am busy with so many things...... On one hand, as I mentioned earlier, I have been travelling quite a lot, on the other hand, I have also been busy writing about things other than travel...... Most interestingly, for the first time, I have been part of two collaborative posts on two different sites.....



My first collaborative post on 'Naming Children' was up on the Pocket Cultures site before I left for Delhi, but I was too busy to write about it here. The post has inputs from people from 13 different countries, each with their own take on naming traditions in their own countries or families.... yours truly is just one of them, so go ahead read the post here or click on the pic below.... Meanwhile, I am now a regular contributor for Pocket Cultures, so you can read more about India and Indian Culture there too...



Now for the second.... For the first time, I am part of the Lonely Planet Blog Carnival. This is the 23rd such carnival, where Lonely Planet featured Bloggers from around the world write on a chosen topic on their own blog, and all such posts are collected and posted on the blog hosting the carnival. This time, the carnival is being hosted by Kiran Keswani, a fellow blogger from India, who writes about Indian markets on this blog, aptly titled "Indian Bazaars'. Of course, the topic this time is 'The Marketplace', and among posts about markets from all over the globe, Kiran features my blog on the Hampi Bazaar. Go ahead and take a look for a virtual tour of markets from around the world! You can read the article here or click on the pic below..


There is a lot more I need to write about, but that will have to wait till I have time to sit down and put all my thoughts down..... and since there is a lot more travel lined up ahead, plus Samhith's vacations which have started today, it looks like May will be a quiet month on the blogfront. Of course, I shall still post photos and articles about happenings as and when I can, so please do keep coming back..... and I shall be back with a bang as soon as I can!
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