Images from my Beautiful Sakhalin Island

Here are some pictures from Sakhalin

When Vladivostok Sleeps

Here are some images of Vladivostok, taken after midnight.

My Turkish friends and the Armenian genocide

It was warm evening in 2012 in the Italian town of Siena that the topic of the massacre of over a million Armenians (1915-1918) by the Ottoman Empire came up. A Turkish friend of mine, who represented all the fine qualities that a young man educated in the country possess, was agitated. He insisted that there was no genocide and that many Turks and Armenians died in a civil war that broke out. Since he was losing control of his emotions and we were, after all, just students enjoying a Tuscan summer, I changed the topic.

A year and a half later, I had the opportunity of visiting Turkey, a country I completely fell in love with at first sight. The flat I rented in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul was right next to an Armenian Church. There were still some people in the city who were parishioners.

My young and lovely landlady told me that the building and the flat were once inhabited by Armenians, who were then marched off to the desert in Syria. She said her grandfather recounted the tales of the expulsion, and that she would risk a jail sentence to say publicly that this was a genocide.

This girl is a secular Turk who admires the legacy of Attaturk but refuses to idolise him.

Realising that I may be slightly putting her in an uncomfortable position, I wanted to change the topic, but she persisted and talked about how there was still some hostility in the country towards its minuscule Armenian minority, who some hated as much as they did the Kurds.

She went on to tell me that many saw the expulsion of the Armenians from Istanbul as a great chance to seize their property. The very flat I was renting was occupied by poor Turks who guarded it with knives from other possible encroachers. This reminded me of what happened to many homes of Hindus and Sikhs in Lahore after the city fell on the wrong side of the Radcliffe Line.

As someone who loves modern Turkey, I really think the country must accept that the massacres did take place around the First World War and that they very much constituted genocide. In all fairness, the government in Ankara said it wants to invite scholars from all over the world and open up all the archives and let them reach a conclusion. This is something that the government of Armenia must accept.

Back on board

My popular column on the Russia & India Report is back. I'll try and write a few times a month there, given how much good feedback I am getting. 

Another world

I love public holidays in this city, especially when there is a flurry of them leading to a long weekend.  Bombay actually looks it was meant to be. A reasonably populated city where you can walk without bumping into 200 people.

There is a wonderful calm in the city and thanks to the dramatic reduction in traffic, the air is so much cleaner.

Here's to this 4-day weekend in the city! 

A journey of 42.195 kms

I have successfully run 2 marathons in my life, with timings that are nothing to write home about. Although I trained reasonably well for both of them with a focussed diet being the mainstay of the second attempt, I know deep down that I could have trained much better and as a result performed better.  So here I am, attempting to train for marathon number 3. 

This time, I am going to spend a greater part of a year in the training process and set my sights on Rome 2016.  The run is in March, when the weather is gorgeous in the Eternal City. I want to slowly pick up the pace in my training and be super-fit on the day of the run. This really means a detailed plan over the course of 11 months to be in the kind of shape that I have never been in. 

The closer I get to 40, the tougher it gets to be able to finish a marathon in less than 4 hours. So here goes... I am going to give it my all  :) 

Forza Roma!

The two most wonderful months of the year in Bombay

Most people dread the thought of April and May in Bombay. The high humidity levels scare a lot of people away.

I love the city in its two "summer" months. The days are longer, the trees flower and best of all, it's mango season.

The schools are shut, so there's far less traffic on the roads. Many families also take off for the season, making the city feel emptier.

Bring on April!