Sokoto is so far from Punjab, and yet it brings back little memories of that land. Like Punjab it is 1,000 miles from the sea. The Niger...

As the Shatabdi wended its way south, we passed a continuous landscape of dusty fields with dispirited men and cattle, all wandering in...

For Outlook | September 29, 2008 My love affair with the Himalayas started in 1961 when I trained at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, under Tenzing Norgay and his nephew, Nawang Gombu. The affair continued during my stint as deputy commissioner, Lahaul-Spiti, under the great Punjab chief minister Pratap Singh Kairon. A winter crossing in February of the Rohtang Pass remains a precious memory. Two years ago, we went to Leh, and on to the Nubra Valley, across

For Outlook | September 3, 2007 Pre-1966, the Beas-Kangra valley was part of the Punjab. My early service was spent in that beautiful...

For Outlook | April 30, 2007 I first went to Kathmandu when I was CEC many years ago. It was a world congress on mountaineering and...

IN LIGHTER VEIN BY M.S. GILL For The Tribune | February 25, 1986 If you are up at Cambridge you want to go somewhere for the vacation. The place is closed for six months in the year to allow people to study. Terms are meant for more serious pastimes! A friend says we have holidays between holidays but I think it is not true. Another possible reason for the vacation is the avarice of the college bursars. They want to make more money. And so the students are cleared at the end

For   The Tribune | July 18, 1980 The Orient Express was made famous by Agatha Christie. In the days of the raj the most romantic train on the subcontinent was the Frontier Mail which ran from Bombay to Punjab and the Khyber Pass. Men like John Masters have described the fascinating journey by this train, full of bearded Sikh soldiers and hawk nosed Pathans, from the sultry Bombay coast to the dry uplands of Punjab and the Frontier Province. The Punjab Mail was another such t