Day: December 5, 2025

Lucknow: In the labyrinthine streets of Lucknow, where the air carries whispers of Awadhi poetry and the aroma of kebabs, Hazratganj stands as a living monument to the city’s syncretic soul. Named after Prince Mirza Hazrat, son of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, this bustling market district emerged in the 19th century as a colonial-era enclave, blending Victorian architecture with Mughal grandeur. For nearly two centuries, it was the city’s social and commercial epicenter. Yet, decades of unchecked urbanization had dulled its luster: encroachments choked its alleys, haphazard signboards clashed with its heritage…

Lucknow: Lucknow goes to bed early, or so the old saying claims. The kebab shops roll down their shutters by eleven, the paanwallahs wipe their counters, and the grand gates of Hazratganj’s colonial façades seem to yawn shut. Yet the moment the last azaan fades from the minarets, the city changes its skin. A second Lucknow awakens—one that the 19th-century chroniclers never imagined and the 21st-century guidebooks still struggle to describe. It is younger, louder, and deliciously unapologetic. This late-night persona is not a rejection of the city’s storied past,…

Chicago: Chicago does not seduce at first sight. It does not have the postcard perfection of Paris, the sun-drenched ease of Los Angeles, or the imperial swagger of New York. What it has instead is a stubborn, almost aggressive vitality—an industrial city that decided to become beautiful on its own terms. Travelers who return again and again rarely cite a single monument. They talk about the way the light fractures off the lake at 6 a.m., the smell of a Polish sausage dragged through the garden, the moment a blues…

Orchha: Orchha, the forgotten capital of the Bundela Rajputs, lies curled along the Betwa River like a half-remembered dream. Founded in 1531 by Maharaja Rudra Pratap Singh, it was abandoned less than a century later when the court shifted to Tikamgarh. Yet the town refused to die. Its palaces, temples, and cenotaphs stand almost exactly as they did four hundred years ago, wrapped in a silence so deep that every footstep feels like an interruption of an ongoing conversation between gods and men. Here, mythology is not a story told…