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Hints

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Why do we travel?

Pico Iyer, in his famous essay of the same title, says, "...the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle". Close to my heart, this Mr. Iyer, for he often says what I mean, and puts just the right words to what I think and live by.

You have no doubt noticed my absence here for the last couple of months. I traveled to Portugal in March and soon thereafter I went on a bit of a journey - quite a fantastic one at that for all its ups and downs and lefts and rights and wrongs - and having done what I needed to do, I'm back, armed with  a bunch of hints.

Hints of what is to come here in the following months. Something incredibly special, something very unlike everything you've seen on this blog so far is just getting dressed backstage, waiting to happen. It has been in the making for a couple of months now and involves a bunch of very special people....and that's all that I can say at the moment! I promise you that when it happens, it will be worth all the curiousness!

Meanwhile, I brought you a bunch of hints from Portugal. Hints, not a story, because I could barely weave one in six days of a whirlwind trip. Hints, because I couldn't possibly pretend to have scratched beneath the surface, though I'd love to go back at leisure and do that one day. Hints, because that's what these are.

The hint of history embedded in the layers of Lisbon..


Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal

Hints of the ups and downs that Lisbon is all about (atleast for a stairway lover like me)..

Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal


A brief hint of yellow as the famous 28 tram rattles past...


Hints of Portugal


Or the suddenness of a warm yellow village house in pristine white Sagres...


Hints of Portugal


Perhaps the burst of yellow succulents defying the concrete of the Sagres pier and the deep azure of the ocean?


Hints of Portugal



Hints of Portugal


...as suddenly interrupted by red


Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal


... or orange, when you least expect it

Hints of Portugal


A hint of a packet of weed, offered to me by a roadside tramp in a dirty suit and a stumbling gait, quickly returned to the secrecy of the pocket when I shake my head..



Hints of Portugal


Just metres away, hints of a better life, in a better suit, but nevertheless a stumbling gait...

Hints of Portugal




Blue tiled walls, hinting at patterns, and sameness and decay...


Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal


While in Sintra, a past that continues to thrive and bedazzle


Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal



Hints of Portugal


Hints of Portugal


Pico says in the same essay: "Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back is -- and has to be -- an ineffable compound of himself and the place, what's really there and what's only in him."

I brought you back these hints. I wonder what, if at all, they tell you about me?

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Back in London, opening a new chapter, for myself and for this blog, and perhaps for you. See you soon.

8 comments so far:

My Dream Canvas said...

Lovely images and write up!!

Slogan Murugan said...

My favourite images: The first and last ones.

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures!!

Aditya said...

Wow.... so colourful Shilpa!
I wanna visit!

Kunal Bhatia said...

Lovely lovely pics. Wondering what you have in store for the blog.
- Mindless Mumbai

Shilpa Bhatnagar said...

Anu: Thank you!


SloMo: Much appreciated :)


Ania: Thank you!


Aditya: Thanks, you must!


Kunal: There's always a lot more under my belt :) You'll just have to wait and see! Thank you so much for dropping by and commenting. Cheers!

Meera said...

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous!!! In my next life I'm going to be born in Portugal...but maybe in another century :) heehee
Btw - ze blog, it has changed, n'est pas?

Pradeep said...

Love those cobbled streets!

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