Pulkit Vasudha

Thorny Miles

Pulkit Vasudha — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 02:04:36 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Cruising on a dark, desert highway across the width of California, I entered the outskirts of Phoenix on a balmy summer night. Long before the city lights approached, the weak beams of my 1995 Nissan began picking out stupefied giants scattered across a bare Arizonian landscape. As I pulled up outside my host’s, [...]

Eatopia In Vietnam

Pulkit Vasudha — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:00:14 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha I had planned to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City in fading daylight, so I could guiltlessly gawk at the horrific reminders of the Vietnam War. I had expected a city struggling with the lingering pain of war, its people maimed and crippled by Agent Orange, and the economy buckling under imposed communist rule. [...]

A holiday among cashew shrubs

Pulkit Vasudha — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:00:09 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha A rustic fishermen’s hamlet speckled with cashew shrubs, palm trees fringing the horizon, brown sands dotted with seagulls, and a blue sea yet undiscovered by weekend beach seekers. “Near Chennai? Impossible,” I said, when told about it. The adventure tour company assured me it wasn’t a marketing gimmick. It wasn’t. Katupalli Islands, 40 [...]

Dance, drama, hope…

Pulkit Vasudha — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:00:41 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha , TNN Wrapped in blankets, in Washington DC, almost two million people braved -13 degree celsius to be a part of a historic presidential inauguration. In homes across the nation, people woke up as early as 4 am to catch the action live on TV. At breakfast meetings, viewing parties, and coffee houses, people [...]

With taps running dry for years, Vatva falls back on private borewells

Pulkit Vasudha — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:00:06 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 21 Sairaben Ahmed (name changed) glances furtively at the hosepipe snaking across the floor of the kitchen as she chops vegetables. In her ‘one room, kitchen, toilet’ tenement in Maqdum Nagar in Vatva, she is waiting for the evening supply of water. However, she is not the only person in Maqdum [...]

Where garbage, kids and cattle battle for space

Pulkit Vasudha — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:00:50 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 13 With barely two days left for the second and final phase of the Assembly elections, the fanfare of campaigning is at its peak in Maninagar. Both the Congress and BJP workers rallying strong and loud for their candidates—Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel and Chief [...]

Slums razed for beautification, but none to look after the displaced

Pulkit Vasudha — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 08:00:58 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 9 One fine morning in November 2005, Pathan Shamshad was getting ready to go to work, when he suddenly heard bulldozers thundering through the narrow lanes outside his house. Without any notice, the workforce of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Board (AUDA) had descended in the Bakra Mandi area of Ranip to [...]

At IIM-A food festival, organic foods make healthiest profits

Pulkit Vasudha — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:00:49 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 4: The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is providing a platform to entrepreneurs to market and sell their traditional delicacies, which are made using organic ingredients. Dilip Patel is one such person who has been in the business of manufacturing pure jaggery, without using chemicals or acid, for the last [...]

Where primary teachers barely complete secondary education

Pulkit Vasudha — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:00:20 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, November 30 The next time you enroll your child to a new school, please make sure the teacher knows his alphabets. According to data released by the state’s education department in reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by academician Deepak Patel, over 60 per cent of Ahmedabad’s primary school [...]

Blind and borderless – Tenberken shows the light

Pulkit Vasudha — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:00:01 +0000

Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, November 23 Sabriye Tenberken can read and write in the dark. She even teaches her students to do the same. No, Tenberken does not possess miraculous powers, nor does she belong to the world of wizardry. She is blind, but as she says, that doesn’t prevent her from being a visionary.Along with [...]