Articles written by Madhulika Liddle

What is Helium

About me - Madhulika Liddle

I like to say I'm thirty something - which could imply I'm vain and don't like to reveal my age. The truth of the matter is, I'm incorrigibly lazy and don't want to have to update this profile for the next few years. I may be lazy, but I'm also finicky about

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Travel > Travel Diaries & Adventures (Other) Why do you like where you currently live?: 5 of 125
On one of the walls in the Diwan-e-Khaas (The Hall of Private Audience) in the Red Fort at Delhi is inscribed a Persian couplet:Agar Firdaus bar rue zamin ast,Hamin ast o hamin ast o hamin astWhich, translated, means `If there is a paradise on Earth, it is here'. Although the poet, Amir Khusro, wrote the couplet in praise of ... More..
Travel > Italy Travel destinations: Rome, Italy: 3 of 27
Elizabeth Bowen, writing A Time in Rome (1960), describes the City of the Seven Hills in words that can be somewhat daunting."Knowledge of Rome must be physical, sweated into the system, worked up into the brain through the thinning shoe-leather.... When it comes to knowing, the senses are more honest than the intelligence. N... More..
Travel > Asia A visitor's guide to Delhi: 1 of 3
I am admittedly and unashamedly a history buff. Give me a bunch of ruins or a building that's old enough to have been a ruin ten times over, and I'm happy as a clam. Living in a city that can boast of some thirty centuries of habitation is therefore a stroke of luck. When the length of that history has been matched by its tur... More..
Travel > Asia A visitor's guide to India: 7 of 14
To start off listing a top ten or top any number destinations for India, I'd have to have seen most of India. This, if you go by the World Factbook's facts, means having covered something like 2,973,190 square kilometres (India's total land area; I'm not much of a water lover) in the three and a half decades of my existence. ... More..
Travel > Asia Guidelines for women traveling in India: 2 of 4
Indian police have been told to carry out a murder investigation into the death of Scarlett Keeling, 15, who was found dead on an Indian beach last month.That's from the Telegraph, UK, dated March 10, 2008. Scarlett Keeling was found raped and murdered on Anjuna Beach, Goa, on February 19th. The Goan police have since arreste... More..
Travel > Asia Wildlife Tourism in India: 1 of 2
One of my earliest travel memories is of a night ride in an open jeep through the forests of Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh. I am just over three years old, and though my parents, my elder sister, and a couple of my father's colleagues are in the jeep as well, I am, frankly speaking, quite terrified. With good re... More..
Travel > Asia Travel experiences: Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, India: 1 of 1
The man standing at the door is young, fresh-faced like only a hill man can be: pink-cheeked and grinning from ear to ear. "My name is Raju, sir," he pipes up. "I'm the guide."Standing just behind my husband, I can't help but smile. Not just at the look of utter ingenuousness on Raju's face, but also at the incongruity of his... More..
Travel > Vacations Planning a family summer vacation on a budget: 39 of 77
With summer around the corner, many of us are beginning to plan a summer vacation. For families and that too on a budget planning a vacation becomes a tad tougher than just making bookings. To get more bang for your buck, and keep your family happy, follow a few simple guidelines.1. Plan well in advance.Figure out what you wa... More..
Travel > Travel Planning & Advice What to know about traveling in India: 3 of 5
A couple of years ago, I was on a train between Venice and Vienna when I got talking to a pair of Americans. When I mentioned I was Indian, they wanted to know more about India. Weren't there lots of monkeys in India? Did people really go about on elephants in India?No, I wanted to say. Yes, there are monkeys, but they haven'... More..
Creative Writing > Essays Reflections: Starbucks: 20 of 32
I live in India.Starbucks Coffee, after years of `We're coming to India - no, we aren't - yes, we are' finally announced, in July 2007, that they were delaying plans to open coffee shops in India.Guess who's most disappointed.It's not as if one can't get decent coffee in India (that is, if you concede that Starbucks is decent... More..