Tuesday, April 21, 2020

World Map



       This was in the hostel I stayed during my visit to Heidelberg, Germany.  The hostel was pretty. It had bunk beds in the rooms and some Victorian age décor in the ceilings.  As I was talking to the people sitting in the lounge, my eyes wandered around the room. The front wall was filled up with framed pics of various travellers who stayed in the hostel. The wall in the right was adorned with huge world maps. What caught my attention was lots of colourful pins protruding from the map.  I stood up and walked towards it. Seeing my interest, the people sitting tried to explain it to me by pointing at the note written in the bottom corner. ‘Where do you come from? Take a pin and show us in the map!’ I was fascinated and picked a red pin. Instinctively, I searched for India. As I looked closely, to my surprise, even the states were mentioned.  Automatically, my eyes moved eastwards, and there it was, Assam, in black block letters adorned by a blue elongated patch of Brahmaputra. A smile escaped my lips while inserting the pin. But the smile broadened further when I saw a yellow pin already sitting there above the first A of Assam.
        A guy sitting there was kind enough to capture the beautiful memory for me.


Tartare

It was during a college trip to Milan, Italy. We had a filling Italian buffet breakfast served in our hotel. But the site visit in the mor...