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Anurag Singh & Ranjana Singh

Total Vote(s) : 104 | Total Testimonial(s) : 1

We are Anurag & Ranjana. We both were born in Lucknow but I (Ranjana) was brought up in Varanasi. Anurag is a software engineer with Oracle, Bangalore while I (Ranjana) am a research scholar (History) with BHU, Varanasi. We got married last year in Nov after our parents made us meet (the rest was easy). Anurag has traveled a lot more but I too have been around quite a few places in India with my family. We both like to travel and try out new cuisines. Anurag was into stamina sports like long distance cycling, running and squash...and he occasionally does take part in half-marathons etc. And me...well, I am a bit easy going and like TV, drawing, painting and reading. He writes pretty well. In fact, he was writing a novel I am told, but I am not going to read it until he finishes it ;-) We have recently settled down in Bangalore and I am working towards the end of my thesis on medieval Indian History. And yes, we fight only on Sundays :D

We are the best candidates because...

Nopes! Nopes! We aint the best candidates... We have seen some cool looking profiles that already registered for the competition, and really it feels great to see a rocking, dynamic sample of young India unfold before our eyes... I (Anurag) have modest car driving experience of about 10k kms, mostly on UP and Karnataka highways. Ranjana can drive, but I get the lion's share mostly. We can both use digicams but haven’t got a chance to handle any slrs. All this really doesn’t put us in the big league we guess. But the idea is attractive and we would still like to run. We stand for aspirations. Having known each other for just a year, we really want to grab whatever life can throw at us. Individuals from different fields that we are, with different aptitudes and different directions of exposure, we think we can combine our abilities and take on this challenge. A quick look at our travel plan will tell that the idea is to exploit Ranjana’s background in History towards a meaningful excursion with an explicit objective in a unique manner. And you bet, we are equipped for at least that much!

Our Travel Plan

The theme of our travel is History. We would be touching some well-known sites even up to 1500 years old. Our attempt would be to bring out a new perspective on each of these sites. Our route: Bangalore -> Belur & Halebid -> Hampi & Badami -> Ajanta & Ellora -> Sanchi -> Khajuraho (or Lothal) Another aspect of our travel is exposition. We believe there is a lot of history embedded in smaller, unknown sites in remote villages, hamlets and dwellings abandoned hundreds of years ago. We would fabricate our minor routes to pass through such areas and try to exposit some lesser-known sites during our journey. There is one explicit reason behind visiting Ajanta and Ellora actually. Ranjana says that there was underground murderous cult of Thugee in India and their activities are depicted in codified form in Ajanta and Ellora. This she came to know while writing a paper on Thugee. Will we be able to find it out? We are excited!

Our Travelogue

"Are you going on your honeymoon or a picnic? " was the first thing everyone asked, but motoring down to Jim Corbett National Park from Lucknow, last Nov and the time spent there involved many firsts for both of us. Most importantly, now we know that Ranjana can net a Mahaseer in her first swish. Less importantly, she now believes that I am no smarter than those illiterate fishes (I still blame it on the fish fries I have been consuming on weekends)! Anyway, we both couldn't outsmart the tigers either from the back of an elephant or from the jeep. Soon after our return we drove to Varanasi (her hometown) and I was made to wake up early and visit many temples to chastise my soul and wash away all my sins accumulated from years of fish eating. Next time you bet, I am gonna catch those fishes too x-/ Next we went to Kannur for the Indian History Congress and it is purely unintentional that it also happens to have cozy homestays and long virgin beaches. We went by rail and then hopped KSRTC buses to reach Kannur. Ashu, Lokesh, Vishal, Neeti and Shimjith drove down the next day and being the losers we are, we spoilt the serenity by playing 'teen patti' and drinking chai right on the beach :D But while returning via Mangalore, Ranjana got high on CCD’s iced eskimo and sold me her entire vanity bag for slightly over two thousand rupees after a lot of haggling and was back to being chic and coy next morning. The latest and the best happened when we went to Ravi’s wedding in Pune. Having arrived a day early, we hitched Mayank’s avenger and biked down to Panchgani for our maiden paragliding and loafing around. Meeting Pune junta was great anyway. That is all folks, about our short career together. I do miss occasional biking with friends. Hopefully we can throw in a couple more of bike trips, before the lust of taking our new Accent to places takes over completely!

Kalikinkar

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