Roopkund - Adventurous Trek to Solitude

Roopkund Trek has got everything – forests, rivers, meadows, snow, all the ingredients of the nature. This glacier lake is famous due to more than 500 human skeletons that are found at the edge of the lake and that's the mystery  which remains unsolved till date.

Thanks Arun Skariah for sharing these amazing pics :) This is his second trip to the Himalayas.

 



Reaching Lohajung 

  





Near Gwaldam, through the pine forest...a scenic drive

 



                       

The camp @ Bedni - the beautiful meadow 



First sighting of Mt. Trishul

You can find these small religious structures the whole way. As you climb higher, the deities are replaced with just snow....

                          

Some say a pond, others say an arena of sorts...

Keep walking

                                   

I am the king of the world...

Camp @ Pathar Nachna, at a distance....

                              

Time stops here

 

                             

Heaven meets Earth

The last camp site at 14000 ft



                                           

Snow Point





Solitude





                           

Roopkund 





The much fabled bones around Roopkund. You get to hear interesting and vivid folklore about their existence... 





Magical Mists



Keeping Kerala's Art Alive

A sudden trip to hometown in Kerala gave me a chance to visit one of the surviving traditional
art schools. Spending my entire school life in Kerala, I never visited Malayala Kalagramam but
better late than never.

29kms from Kannur town, you need to take a left before the Mahe River Bridge and in minutes you will see the name board on the left. There are chances of missing the place as you may get distracted by the beauty of Mahe River alongside the road.

                                                                           

As you walk towards the old building, you ears will strain to hear the faint harmonium music with voices matching to it giving you the feel of traditional Kerala. Sponsored by the A.P.Kunhiraman Trust Chennai, the center started functioning in 1994 and has courses in painting, sculpture, music, dance and pottery. Besides these, sessions, seminars, lectures, in-service programmes and special projects in different fields of art and humanities are conducted by the Fraternity centre of the Kalagramam. It also offers Kalari (stage) for youngsters to rehearse and perform all forms of fine arts. Yoga and Sanskrit too are taught here.

Tourists are permitted to watch the classes with prior permission from the Director. The Malayala Kalagramam is closed on all Thursdays. It is a must go for all the art lovers and spend some time with the veterans of art and linger around in the campus interacting with like-minded people. The ambience is sure to give inspiration to your creativity.


Malayala Kalagramam
Cochin House New Mahe,
Calicut
Kerala
Phone number - 0495 - 2332961

-Chalked By Rashmi

Tuesdays with Morrie - a review

         “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

All of us have thousands of complaints right? about the traffic, the food, the salary,the work, the politics,... on goes the never ending lists.

So amidst all these regrets and worries, there came by a book which left me thinking how silly i am !!

A professor counting his last days of life, shows us the true meaning of being alive! to not surrender to the disease is one part of whole book, but the most important part is the lessons he teaches us.

"Take any emotion-love for a woman, or grief for a loved one. If you hold back on the emotions- if you dont allow yourself to go all the way through them- you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid.  You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

·         But by throwing yourself into these emotions , by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely, you know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, all right. I have experienced that emotion, I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment."

Many a times in life I've been through stages when the same had happened to me, an emotion is with me only till i go to the full extent with it! and it being not the norm, i have been questioned by many of my queers... all those questions remain answered with professor morrie's statement above.

"No matter where u live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be, we should be looking at our potential stretching ourselves into everything we can become. "

Through simple statements , Mitch albom, brings out the real essence of life.. of living and letting others live!!!

Thanks Mitch for this wonderful composition.

                                                                  -Chalked by Megha kuruvilla