When the Air India flight touched down at Devi Ahilyabai Holkar airport in Indore at around 2 pm, the temperature outside, the air-hostess announced, was 40+ degrees Celsius. Out of the airport in search of a cab for an hour’s journey to Ujjain, I just recoiled from the blistering heat. Would I be able to withstand this intense hot spell and have a good look around this holiest of holy place, hosting the Simhasth Kumbh Mahaparv 2016, I wondered.
It’s not humans alone you fall in love with at first sight. There are places-sometimes almost in your backyard – that could leave you similarly smitten. We recently visited the wondrous Kalimpong town, and were blown away by two of its state-run lodges and their unique environment.
In Madame Bovary, a novel by Gustave Flaubert, there is a conversation between Monsieur Leon and the eponymous heroine (Part Two, Ch-2) where Mme Bovary says: “Do you not feel that the mind drifts unfettered upon the immensity (sunset by the sea), where contemplation raises up the soul, and feeds a feeling of infinity, of the fabulous”, to which Leon replies: “Such sights as these (the poetry of lakes, the magic of waterfalls, the gigantic sight of glaciers) must be an inspiration, an incitement to prayer, to ecstasy!
