World Tourist Destinations

If you are passionate about art, heritage and culture, both ancient and modern, we call upon you to join us in an exciting trip of the magnificent land of Odisha
Known as Kalinga in ancient times, Odisha is forever remembered as the place where Ashoka, a bloodthirsty conqueror became a worshipper of ahimsa. Dhauli, the site of the Kalinga war that pushed the Magadhan king into the realm of Buddhism, stands by the side of the River Daya near Bhubaneswar.

Times Passion Trails is an initiative that gives you the unique opportunity to revisit the pages of history and explore all the wonders of this enchanting state that stretches from mineralrich plateaus in the north-west to the Bay of Bengal in the south-east.


Traditionally known as a temple town, Bhubaneswar boasts of ultramodern IT parks, top-class institutions of higher learning and well-equipped healthcare facilities. The Odisha capital is one of the country’s fastest growing modern cities where the day begins with the sounds of temple bells and hymns and ends with brain-storming sessions on medical science, technology and other important contemporary subjects in various seminar halls.

Right on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar are the historic Khandagiri and Udaygiri, the twin hills famous for their rock caves built during the rule of King Kharavela about 200 years before the birth of Christ.

Inscriptions at Khandagiri and Udaygiri narrate the life and times of the great ruler. Magnificent multi-storied caves built for Jain ascetics, which dot the hills, not only represent ancient architectural brilliance but also stand as eternal symbols of peace and love.

If one is an admirer of art and crafts, one can follow our travel trail to Kalabhoomi, a pupular craft museum with a rich collection of curated exhibits. Here one can embark upon an artistic journey by having interactive sessions with qualified craftspeople. For cultural enthusiasts, there is a lot to see, experience and learn in Odisha, where 62 tribes with distinct traditions, lifestyles and food habits live. The best place that offers a peek into tribal life and practices is the Tribal Museum in Bhubaneswar.

History buffs can have a great time at Dhauli where a majestic Buddhist stupa reminds one of how King Ashoka became Dharmashoka from Chandashoka after the Kalinga war. Ashokan rock edicts located near Dhauli stand as proof of the welfare initiatives taken by the Magadhan emperor more than two millenniums ago.

A drive down to the village of Pipili takes one to a road dotted with exquisite applique works on either side.

Every house here is engaged in making colourful and attractive canopies, wall hangings, bags and umbrellas. What truly represent the grandeur and magnificence of local architecture are the temples built centuries ago across the state. The Sun Temple at Konark, a Unesco world heritage site, is a 13th century marvel that lords over Chandrabhaga, a bewitching beach lying between Bhubaneswar and the holy city of Puri. Hundreds gather here to enjoy the mesmerizing sight of the sun going down the horizon at dusk every day.

Further down south is located the seaside town of Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath, Odisha’s most revered deity.

This 12th century shrine is one of the India’s char dhams (four holiest centres, a visit to which, devout Hindus believe, absolves one of all sins).

Every morning and evening, thousands arrive in Puri to pay their obeisance to the Lord and partake of its mahaprasad (holy offerings). The annual Rath Yatra in Puri, when the idol of Lord Jagganath is taken around in a chariot for public viewing, draws tens of thousands of visitors from within and outside of India.

 
“…(her) breath like dead moths, fell on me at regular intervals.”

Pace. What does pace do to a narrative? The Russian formalists advanced the key insight that literature defamiliarises the ordinary, and by some alchemy, makes it appear like a discovery. Sometimes, it is to place the lens of observation so close, much like in Georgia O’ Keeffe’s vein, wherein the object under scrutiny leaps at the viewer with such force of minutiae as had not been noticed before, in the process morphing into a new object altogether. At other times it entails narrating the experience at a pace that completely alters it. Like “The Small-Town Sea” by Anees Salim that recreates the quintessential small town where the everyday lengthens into looming shadows, lurking in the street corner for weeks, becoming fodder for gossip, making familiar, and while offering a womb-like intimacy, also destroying with its brazen intrusiveness.

The entire first half of the narrative in “The Small-Town Sea” is given to the impending death of the terminally-ill father Vappa, a failed writer, who, in a true poetic flourish, moves his family to Bougainville, a near dilapidated bungalow by the sea where they wait for the in-articulate-able. So, it is essentially a wait for death, punctuated by several near-deaths, rumoured deaths, false alarms and close encounters of a deathly kind. And in using delay as a mechanism, he mimics a sense of lengthened time in small towns. Citrus odours intensify sadness, in an undeniable tribute to Marquez. Humour seeps in where you least expect it. Flashes of morbidity flicker unexpectedly in the mundane. Without knowing that one is humour and the other is morbidity. And without the writer fussing over either. The narrator, a boy, notices everything without the hypocrisy of the grown-ups, experiencing loss and death without the padding of adult defences, crashing down on the nails of experience. Loss and abandonment is evoked in a raw, unsentimental way. Sentimentality, a sometimes helpful attribute he shuns (or hasn’t cultivated yet), and that is precisely what intensifies the narrative, and breaks your heart.

Then there is a marked stamp of self-referentiality. “The Blind Lady’s Descendants” is an expansive suicide note and the mildly autobiographical “The Small-Town Sea” is a winding letter to one Mr Unwin, a London-based literary agent. Needless to say, it’s not benign. Salim’s father, who worked in the Middle East was a failed writer. Salim, too, waited for very long to get a publication deal and those fears might have been accentuated, being based in the small town of Varkala where opportunities were few and far between. The weight of the unwanted legacy of failure was another liability: the horror of attracting a destiny you have fought across generations to keep at bay. The vocation of writing can be treacherous that way.


Important things are always happening outside their confines, the small towns can, at best, lend them mileage through gossip. So this fear of being elided as inconsequential is constant. At best you can be part of the mass rally when an important leader does a sortie and an impersonal wave of the hand at the teeming sea of humanity. And later both the leader and venue is mythologised to a cult status borne by that rare brush with importance. There is no doubt that this inability to publish for a considerable time fostered fears which could have been disruptive but Salim refused to give in.

Salim paints the small town with the incisive detailing of a topographer, the boys biking through dappled tracts of coconut groves, the heartless cliff, bananas in people’s backyard, the clay streets together evoke a peculiar, unchanging landscape. Small town in the lineage of a Narayan or Naipaul, as an inward-looking, self-sustained unit could itself be on its way out, along with the amalgam of its unique responses developed to questions of life, a fountainhead of stories, given the all altering influence of media in these times. In a way, the Indian small town is already moving into the space of memory and nostalgia.

Salim’s reticence is in news. Like a private act of dissent in a world that is increasingly becoming driven by social media, where there is a compulsion to be constantly seen and heard, Salim has declared an avowed abstinence from award functions/events. In so doing the litterateur brings back the focus on the “word” and eschews the trappings of a burgeoning new “Literati”. This choice is an act of courage today. And this is the wry in him, along with the vulnerable in equal measure.

Anees Salim has been recently awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Blind Lady’s Descendants.

1 Nude lips, smokey eyes

Hydrated matte nude lips paired with smokey eyes is what was seen in celebrity weddings – note Sonam Kapoor’s and Deepika Padukone’s bridal looks. Nude lips make the eyes look dramatic and flatter almost every skin tone.


2 Beauty oils

Face oil, body oil, hair oil, cleansing oil, primer oil – ‘oil was well’ with beauty. Oils got a pride of place this year on your beauty shelf and was used as a makeup base or to get glowy skin. This trend is likely to spill over to 2019.

3 Rose gold tan

The glowing from within skin look was all over 2018. Blending bronzer with blush was quite the rage.

4 White liner

Bold white liner and even grey liner and eyeshadow was huge.

5 Dual eyeliner

Picking up two shades of eyeliner (like blue with black or gold with green) and applying one to upper lid and the other to the lower lid was big.

6 Go blonde

Platinum blonde, sunkissed reds or white, the head was lighter and brighter. In 2019, the sayno-to-colour and going grey movement is pegged to stay strong.

7 Graphic nails

The wine reds and pinks stayed on but more funky colours and interesting nail art with abstract lines, curves, and clean graphics were all over this year.



5. BRAID-Y BUNCH Braids, especially cornrows, was popular. But cornrows carry the tag of cultural appropriation because of its origin.

MILLENNIAL FARMERS

This was the year of young, urban farmers. If stats are anything to go by, it was for the first time since the 1970s that the number of farmers aged 30 and under were on an incline. Farmto-fork movement reached more households with young farming entrepreneurs delivering healthy goodness at your doorstep.


BIOME BOOSTING

Research has shown that your gut microbiome – the bacteria inside your digestive system – can influence your brain and your moods. Kefir, kombucha, tempeh, sauerkraut, kimchi… these words ruled menus and kitchen slabs in 2018.

NOOTROPICS

Brain health was big in 2018. Just like the body improves with proper nutrition and exercise, so can the brain with proper brain training techniques and mental nutrition – otherwise known as nootropics. Curcumin, ginseng, caffeine and bacopa are some natural brain boosters one can bank on.

PLANT-BASED EVERYTHING

Growing awareness about health and nutrition research with plantrich diets, environmental impact, and food waste amongst others, find more people opting to eat plant-rich meals, no matter what lifestyle they identify with. Recent studies have shown that choosing plant-rich food has less of an impact on energy, land and water resources than meat-based diets.

SNACK THAT

A food habit judged unhealthy for the longest time became the most exciting genre to indulge in this year. With kale and sweet potato fries, savoury desserts, nuts and seed mixes and grab-and-go yogurts, the snacking scene changed and how. According to Mintel, millennials are more likely than any other generation to snack four times a day!




CALL OF THE WILD

More people opted for safari vacations to see the remaining habitats of endangered or extinct species. The scarcity, in such a case, triggers the rise of wildlife tourism’s economic value.


FORAGING VACATIONS

Culinary travel trends got bigger this year with foraging trips. Connecting ecotourism and cooking classes, travellers lined up to look for local ingredients with an expert before heading into the kitchen. Hunting down truffles or herbs in forests and plucking scallops and seaweed from shorelines were popular across the globe, from England and Portugal to Australia, Cape Town, and Abu Dhabi.


THE MULTIGENERATIONAL VACATION

Parents need a break, don’t they? That’s why the grandparent-grandchildren vacation was big amongst the emerging travel trends this year.


YOU CAN’T BEAT THE EXPERIENCE

Travellers took more thrill-seeking adventures, engaged in cultural immersion experiences, and set their sights on extreme regions of the world.


THE EXTENDED BREAK

The digital workplace meant that more people were able to go on extended working vacations to some of the world’s most exotic locations.

BAREFOOT FITNESS

Going to the gym sans sneakers was such a good idea this year. Known to be the best way to exercise, barefoot training invaded not just yoga, barre or Pilate classes, but also cardio and weightlifting studios.

SLEEP GOT EXTRA ATTENTION

Tech wearables tracking sleep and number of REM hours got popular this year. Sleep wellness and sleep hygiene earned cult status. The world realised how lack of sleep not only makes you fat, sick, inflamed, and imbalanced but long-term sleep deprivation can also lead to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and stroke.

TAKE YOUR GYM FOR A WALK
Your couch was your workbench, office stairs your cross trainer and neighbourhood park your outdoor fitness zone this year. Taking the gym out of the gym was a trend worth celebrating in 2018.

Gadchiroli Division bus stand depot contact number

Sr. No Designation Functioning Area STD Code No. Telephone No. Email_id

25 Divisional Controller Gadchiroli, dc.stgdc@gmail.com,
star786.2014@gmail.com

1 Divl.Traffic Officer Divisional office, Gadchiroli dto.stgdc@gmail.com
2 Divl. Accounts Officer Divisional office, Gadchiroli
3 Divl. Personnel Officer Divisional office, Gadchiroli
4 Labour Officer Divisional office, Gadchiroli

1 Depot Manager Gadchiroli bus stand depot contact number 07132 232949
2 Depot Manager Aheri bus stand depot contact number 07133 272056
3 Depot Manager Bramhapuri bus stand depot contact number 07177 272054

SOLAPUR DIVISION bus stand depot contact number

Sr. No Designation Functioning Area STD Code No. Telephone No. Email_id
Office
1 Divisional Controller Solapur 0217 2733330 msrtcslp@gmail.com

1 Divl. Traffic Officer Divisional Office , Solapur 0217 2733332
2 Divl. Accounts Officer Divisional Office, Solapur 0217 2733336
3 Divl. Personnel Officer Divisional Office, Solapur 0217 2733335
4 Labour Officer Divisional Office, Solapur 0217 -

1 Depot Manager Solapur bus stand depot contact number 0217 2733343
2 Depot Manager Pandharpur bus stand depot contact number 02186 223178
3 Depot Manager Barshi bus stand depot contact number 02184 223167
4 Depot Manager Akkalkot bus stand depot contact number02181 220216
5 Depot Manager Akluj bus stand depot contact number 02185 220015
6 Depot Manager Karmala bus stand depot contact number 02182 220588
7 Depot Manager Sangola bus stand depot contact number 02187 220120
8 Depot Manager Kurduwadi bus stand depot contact number 02183 223218
9 Depot Manager Mangalwedha bus stand depot contact number 02188 220328

KOLHAPUR DIVISION bus stand depot contact number

Sr. No Designation Functioning Area STD Code No. Telephone No. Email_id

1 Divisional Controller Kolhapur 0231 2654474 dcstklp@gmail.com

1 Divl. Traffic Officer Kolhapur Divl. Office 023 2650971
2 Divl. Accounts Officer Kolhapur Divl.Office 023 2650974
3 Divl. Personnel Officer Kolhapur Divl.Office 023 2650975
4 Labour Officer Kolhapur Divl.Office 023 2650972

1 Depot Manager Kolhapur bus stand depot contact number 023 2651447
2 Depot Manager Sambhaji Nagar bus stand depot contact number 023 2651431
3 Depot Manager Ichalkaranji bus stand depot contact number 023 2432496
4 Depot Manager Gadhinglaj bus stand depot contact number 02327 222306
5 Depot Manager Gargoti bus stand depot contact number 02324 220035
6 Depot Manager Malkapur bus stand depot contact number 02329 224153
7 Depot Manager Chandgad bus stand depot contact number 02320 224132
8 Depot Manager Kurundwad bus stand depot contact number 02322 244203
9 Depot Manager Kagal bus stand depot contact number 02325 244076
10 Depot Manager Radhanagari bus stand depot contact number 02321 234038
11 Depot Manager Gaganbavda bus stand depot contact number 02326 222017
12 Depot Manager Ajara bus stand depot contact number 02323 246396