Gotta Getaway

Every once in a while life becomes a web of stuff. Random stuff, from work schedules and deadlines to dentist appointments and kid’s school functions, life is tough. Its way easier for DINK (double income no kids) couples but everyone deserves a break. The ‘holi’ weekend is round the corner and though I wish ‘holi’ was on Friday, a Saturday will most certainly do. It’s the Wednesday’s and Thursday’s that really kill a festival holiday, they don’t qualify as satisfactory. ‘Holi’ weekend is barely three weeks away yet a quick, slightly unplanned getaway is definitely possible. Most people vacation in the winter and a rebound refresher is a must. For me personally even booking into a nearby 5 star hotel is a possibility. The service is slicker than the maid at home, beds are miraculously luxurious, a tub is quintessential and who would mind a range of cuisines to order to the room. Before I get too suggestive and convince the whole load of you to swamp the Taj’s and the ‘Hyatt’s’ of India, consider a few more options.



Most of the large Indian cities are peppered with quaint resorts, forts and palaces, all within 250 km radius. This makes India a getaway treasure. National dailies are packed with holiday advertisements for strangely familiar sounding clubs that you never knew existed. Someone has to dare try them and then blog about it! Really, let’s do everyone a favour and pick one holiday club, fort, resort, riverside camp, spa or even a pilgrimage and go there. Head out for ‘holi’, India! Take the gujia’s, the beers and the friends along. See, this is the beauty of India; it’s phenomenally flexible on matters of prayer and celebration. ‘Diwali’ is a day to stay home, clean, cleanse, beautify and wait for the gods to pass by. Holi on the other hand is free reign, just remember to have fun. The ‘puja’ is a day before anyway. So pray, pack and go.



Some of my favourites picks for this ‘holi’ is the beach or a restored fort/palace. I want to try and give everyone a direction to head in, North India won’t have trouble finding a fort and the South has some of the nicest beaches to choose from. With 5700 km of mainland coastline, we really have a huge selection. Assuming a lot of these trips will be groups, giving a few choices will keep at least some happy. Every group has ‘beach’ people and every group has ‘history’ people. This may be a good time to find out which ones your friends are. Forts and palaces have always been associated with an old world charm. They are mysterious and enigmatic buildings that housed people out of fairy tales. If walls could speak, some of us would probably move in forever. Most of the Indian ‘heritage’ hotels have tied up with leading hospitality giants and retained their original architecture and décor, to produce fabulous holiday hotels a stone’s throw from most cities. Rooms have high ceilings, the bathrooms are almost as big as the rooms, the balconies are romantic, the furniture is usually a century old and the turbaned bearers are a delight.



The beach is my other most favourite destination whether it’s for a weekend or for a whole summer. I don’t even mind it in the rain. Thankfully all our beaches are tropical and it never really gets cold. Imagine, two days of communing with nature. I don’t care how clichéd this has gotten but a sunset on the beach is by far one of Mother Nature’s most precious gifts. Rainbows, lightening, aurora borealis and eclipses come in close after. Days seem longer on a beach. The stars shine brighter (provided you aren’t at a rave party) and the food always tastes good. In fact going to the beach right after winter is therapeutic in many ways, you will get rid of the winter paleness and you will get a ‘weight gain’ reality check. Don’t get put off, knowledge is power. It’s only when you know the problem that you can solve it!



Enough preaching, I hope at least some of you will log on to yatra.com or heritagehotelsofindia.com, indiaweekendgetaways.com, travelershub.com and do yourselves a favour. Check out a cool gallery of holiday images we produced. That will surely seal the deal! Click on the link below.

View Holiday Stock Photos by PhotosIndia.com

Falling in Love in India

Falling in love anywhere is easy; staying in love anywhere is tough. Yet each country poses its own unique cultural and social challenges to the human race when it comes to love. The west is perceived as a place where the entire multitude is still writhing in the ecstasy of the 60’s. It is not the permissive nature of the nation that gives this impression, it is the media projected out of there, into millions of middle class Indian homes. Thank you cable TV. I am not going to rant about how twisted that makes our slightly prudish minds, I am genuinely thankful to Cable TV. It has opened a whole new chapter of entertainment for me, considering my idea of fun was the outdoors and books. A good combination according to my parents but teenagers needed more than that. Suddenly everything was so colourful and loud, that’s my most vivid memory of 24x7 TV viewing. I remember the Valentine months most. Every show had a ‘valentine’ episode, every product had a ‘valentine’ promise and every channel had ‘valentine’ specials. I am quite sure there was an Ad for coconut oil that promised ‘Valentine Beau’ attracting tresses in a week. Thankfully it aired a fortnight before ‘Valentine’s Day’.

Unregulated cable TV seeped into Indian life around the time of the Gulf War in 1991. Metropolitan cities in India could view live broadcasts of glowing scuds whizzing across Kuwaiti skies, courtesy CNN. Shortly after that came the day time soaps, some of which are still revered by the now 30 + year old Indians. The third momentous entry was definitely MTV, with its brazen attitude, mind numbing graphics and freaky dating shows. You could practically see the minds blossoming right out our skulls.

Things are more or less the same 15 years down the line. There are more channels, more products and more ‘this and that days’, but the marketing blitz for Valentine’s comes in a close second after Diwali. Locally every restaurant and store has a promotion aimed at lovers of all kinds, young, old, just friends, mistresses, crushes and of course teens. Nationally, FMCG and Fashion brands cash in on this occasion. The Indian psyche has morphed itself slowly but surely. We don’t condone ‘love marriages’ yet all our kids are manically buying Valentine paraphernalia every February 14th. We don’t approve of dating among our teenaged kids yet each one of them knows when Valentine’s Day is versus when Gandhi was assassinated. Love makes the retail world go round, money makes the real world go around.

So far the general perception and awareness about Valentine’s Day is limited to the love between a man and a woman. This makes the marketing efforts concentrated towards the youth of India, 51% of India is below 25. So I am guessing it is fair to call this kind of product pushing an ‘advertising frenzy’. If only the awareness could be brought up a notch and India would realize that Valentine’s Day celebrates love, all kinds of love.

I can picture Kingfisher Airlines doing a ‘Senior’s Valentine’s Special’. Any Indian couple over 65 years old, flies to any one of the ten listed romantic destinations in India at half the price. Now, open this promotion to foreigners. Give them Agra for the Taj, Goa for the party, and Ladhakh for the mountains, give them an Indian love experience. China attracts 87 million tourists a year versus India’s measly 2.5 million. We need to hop on the global media bandwagon, make ourselves heard, make ourselves seen, and make ourselves marketable. Let cable TV be our guiding light. It is time to wake up and take stock of every day that means something to somebody and then sell, sell, sell!

Happy Valentine’s Day. Do check out our eclectic collection of ‘love’ images on Photosindia.com. ; )

View Valentine 2008 Stock Photos by PhotosIndia.com