despair

break free

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again...
-Paul Simon ("Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel)


Surrounded by gates I can't open.

lost in translation

Walking around in the unknown looking for the new,
shackled to my legs are memories of old and you.


Street shops in Vijayawada.

dazed and confused

Invasion of Privacy.


Primitive marketing: these chicks were colored to make them more attractive to prospective buyers.

sunrise in Visakhapatnam

The house where I was staying for the duration that I was in Visakhapatnam was right next to the ocean. I mean, it was a literal 2 minute walk. I pulled myself out of bed at 5:45am to catch the sunrise, but found it was too foggy out there that particular morning. Shouldn't have waited till my last day in Visakhapatnam to see the sunrise over the ocean, I know.


Sunrise over the Bay of Bengal.


The awesome morning breeze was having fun tossing some ocean around.

Rishikonda beach

Rishikonda beach is located near the coastal city of Visakhapatnam in southern India.

a real mini-mart

Paan shops as they are called, are the ultimate mini-marts. You can buy a single cigarette, a soda, candy, chewing tobacco, or a paan amongst other things. Paan is basically betel leaves wrapped around fine betel nuts and other ingredients picked by the person ordering. You can get a sweet paan, or one with tobacco. Many people in rural India start their days with a paan, and worry about tea later. But paan is something that is appreciated as much by the rich as it is by the poor. Sweet paan is one of my favorite indian delicacies. BoingBoing.net had a pretty good post on paan recently.


Random paan shop in Visakhapatnam, a coastal city in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Indian Railways

Indian Railways, owned by the government, is one of the largest railway systems under a single management. Transporting an estimated 11 million passengers daily over almost 70,000km of track, the railway system is plagued with an average of 300 accidents per year. The worst accident in history happened in 1981 when a cyclone blew a train travelling in the state of Bihar off the tracks into a river killing more than 800 passengers. Although the train system has always been criticised for its poor safety record, much of the network still relies on a very outdated manually operated signalling system, I've always loved travelling on the trains. Statistically, the number of deaths as a result of train accidents is pretty low compared to the number of deaths that occur on the roads in India.


Leave your troubles behind, take a break, go see the unknown.


Darkness calls out...


View from top of the Vijayawada railway station.


Cargo or "goods" compartments.


Waiting...

checking out Hyderabad

It had been six years since my last visit to the city where I was born and spent a significant amount of my childhood. Already a melting pot of forever clashing religious groups, it seemed as though the city was unware of its own rapid transformation into a metropolis. But, after taking more time to explore the city and its recent history, the nuances made more sense. The transformation was actually the direct result of a visionary state governor's passionate attempt to make Hyderabad (capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh) a technological oasis. He administered the state more like a CEO, rather than a politician. Attracting companies like Microsoft and Oracle using whatever means were at his disposal, he put Hyderabad on the global map. Technical call-centers for Dell and other large technical companies account for a significantly large number of new jobs in the city. The transformation is not yet complete and is far from slowing down.

But I think I mostly enjoyed the food in the city. The restaurant business boomed in the last couple of years; the fierce competion increased the quality of the cuisine to heavenly standards!


You find great fruit all year long everywhere on the streets.


I rode around the city in style!


Smoke break.

A lot more cars in the city now, but the two-wheelers still rule the streets. They ride like they don't fear death. Weaving in and out of traffic like they are all alone on the road.


Idiot knocks down a couple of parked two-wheelers.


Buildings are getting taller and bigger everywhere.


Happy Hours indeed.


Jackie Chan is GOD in Hyderabad.

three weeks in India

I spent the first three weeks of January in India.


Dulles Airport, VA: The beginning.


Getting ready to board!


Layover in Dubai, UAE: Technical difficulties?


Crashed at a relative's house for the first couple of days in Hyderabad, India.