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I have been on trains in Switzerland, the Netherlands, France (the TGV), Japan (Shinkansen) and Italy (the Frecciarossa). But the last time I was on a train in India was sometime before COVID – which means it had been a long, long time. So when I got on the Ahmedabad …

Ever since I can remember, red torii gates have had a hold on me. Every documentary, every travel show, every friend’s Japan photo dump – there’d always be one shot of a vermillion gate against green forest or grey stone, and I’d think, I need to stand under one of …

Everyone I spoke to before my Japan trip said the same thing. “You’ll love Kyoto.” Every single person. And I’ll be honest – by the time the fifth or sixth person said it, I’d started to temper my expectations a little. That’s usually how it goes, right? The more something …

I’ll be honest, when the invite came in for probably the first Assamese restaurant in Hyderabad, my first reaction was genuine curiosity mixed with mild scepticism. This city loves its heat. Biryani, Irani chai, the kind of food that announces itself loudly. So a cuisine built on subtlety, bamboo shoots, …

My first international flight was to Chicago in 2023 for KubeCon. I remember the anticipation, the layover calculations, the sheer excitement of landing somewhere that wasn’t India. Also my first-ever Airbus A380 flight! And then, nothing. Apart from a few stories on Instagram, now archived under highlights, there’s no log, …

There’s a specific kind of craving that hits me every few months – the kind that only vada pav or a proper Pav Bhaji can fix. I grew up loving Mumbai street food, and every time I was in Mumbai, one meal was a standing appointment at a street stall …

Hyderabad’s food scene has been doing something interesting over the last couple of years. The city has always had a strong identity around Hyderabadi cuisine – the biryani, the Irani chai, the haleem – and rightly so. But layered on top of that, there’s been a quiet but steady influx …

I’ll be honest – the Shinkansen was on my Japan bucket list long before I even booked the flight. Not in a casual “oh that’d be nice” way. More in a “I have watched every YouTube video, read every travel thread, and mentally sat in that cabin a hundred times” …

The first time I pulled up the Tokyo metro map on my phone, I genuinely thought someone was pranking me. Fourteen lines. Five different operators. Colour coding that would make a Pantone chart look minimal. I zoomed in. Then zoomed out. Took a screenshot to study later. Then gave up …

I know I owe the blog a lot of posts. March had me in Amsterdam for KubeCon Europe, followed by a short getaway to Belgium and Luxembourg. And then, barely a week after I got home, I was on a flight on my first trip to Japan and the eastern …