|
|
|
|
TRIP PLANNER
MUMBAI (BOMBAY)
Plus: Although this is where the trendy scene is happening, Mumbai retains the architecture and much of the flavor of the days of the Raj.
Minus: Hopelessly antiquated transportation infrastructure, from airport to taxis to roads.
Hotel: Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Apollo Bunder, Colaba; Tel: 011-91-22-5665-3366, from $250. A bit lacking in personal service, but the palace rooms are impeccable.
Restaurant: Trishna, Sai Baba Marg, Kala Ghoda; Tel: 011-91-22-2261-4991. Astonishing seafood; tears come to my eyes when I think of the king crab with butter and garlic.
* * *
GOA
Plus: The isolated high-end hotels make for lovely beach resorts; Portuguese influence still lingers in the food and the old buildings.
Minus: The roads are jammed and the beaches overcrowded and dirty.
Hotel: Taj Holiday Village, Sinquerim Beach, North Goa, Tel: 011-91-832-564-5858, from $175. Luxury cottages and other facilities spread out on 28 beachfront acres.
Restaurant: Le Poisson Rouge, Baga Beach, Tel: 011-91-832-394-5800. An innovative chef from Normandy doing French-Goan fusion.
* * *
UDAIPUR
Plus: A beautiful city of lakes and old palaces.
Minus: An acute shortage of hotel rooms, unless you come well equipped with cash.
Hotel: Devi Garh, Delwara N.H. 8 near Eklingji, Tel: 011-91-2953-289211, www.deviresorts.com. The palace, one of the most spectacular hotels in India, stands on the top of a hill surrounded by a colorful village an hour's drive from Udaipur. The palace rooms start at $500, rooms surrounding the garden are $350, and eight tents on the palace grounds -- complete with marble bathrooms and more comfortable than many hotel rooms -- are $150.
Restaurant: Garden Hotel, Gulab Bagh Road, Udaipur, Tel: 011-91-294-241-8881. A delicious thali plate (a little of everything, with extra helpings free) of Rajasthani food, costing all of $1.
* * *
KOLKATA (CALCUTTA)
Plus: An opportunity to see the old (Raj-era buildings, jostling crowds, outdoor markets, poverty) and new (gleaming high-tech zones) Indias side by side.
Minus: Appalling air pollution.
Hotel: Park Hotel, 17 Park St., Tel: 011-91-33-2249-9000, from $200. Modern, stylish and trendy.
Restaurant: Aaheli, in the Peerless Inn, 12 Chowringhee Road, Tel: 011-091-33-2228-0301. Great Bengali food, with freshwater fish the highlight.
* * *
HYDERABAD
Plus: You've read about India's high-tech boom; now you can see it, in a city more amenable to tourism than Bangalore.
Minus: The old India is more colorful than the new India.
Hotel: ITC Kakatiya Sheraton, 63-3-1187 Begumpet. Tel: 011-91-40-2340-0132, from $200. No historic splendor, but clean, modern and pleasant.
Restaurant: Our Place, Banjara Hills, Tel: 011-91-40-2335-4234. Hyderabadi biryani (rice with meat) is deservedly famous, and no one does it better than here.
Note: The hotel rates listed above are for the current peak season, which ends March 31. Between April and June, the months of hot weather, and July through September, monsoon time, rates can drop as much as half.
|
|
The Andover of India? Graduates From Doon Score Top U.S. Jobs --- Scholastic Bootcamp for Boys Raises Stars, Faces Change; Gandhi Suffered Here, Too
By Anita Raghavan
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 3rd, 2006; Page P1
DEHRA DUN, India -- At the Doon School, near the foothills of the Himalayas, life is spartan. The 500 boys enrolled here bathe together in communal showers. In winter, they pore over textbooks in rooms with no heat. Cellphones are forbidden and parental visits are kept to a minimum.
For 71 years, Doon has supplied India with business leaders and well-known writers such as Vikram Seth. Even Rajiv Gandhi, the late prime minister, suffered the school's famously bad food. Now Doon is taking its uniformed students in a new direction: up the U.S. corporate ladder.
The head of Citigroup Inc.'s North American credit-card business is a Doon alumnus. So too is a Merrill Lynch & Co. senior currency executive. From Raytheon Co. to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Doon is supplying a new old boys' network in an increasingly international business world.
Many of the Doon alumni say they are still driven by the school's humbling culture. Vikram Malhotra, head of McKinsey & Co.'s New York office, recalls the pain of failing to earn one of the school's coveted blazers, awarded for excellence. "Imagine 500 boys, homogenous in what they wear, and the only way you could stand out is if you wore a blue blazer if you were good in sports and a black blazer if you were good in academics," says Mr. Malhotra, 46 years old. "I fell a point short on each one and to this day it rankles me."
Even as Doon graduates penetrate the upper ranks of corporate America, the school draws criticism that it is out of step with the times. The headmaster is pushing for reforms -- such as heating the study rooms -- but he faces some opposition from alumni.
And proposed national legislation may mandate that private schools set aside a quarter of their places for underprivileged students -- including the country's "Dalit" or "untouchable" caste, which has largely been absent at high-tuition Doon.
"There is a debate now whether Doon's elitism is required and whether it works in a changed world," says alumnus Bhaskar Menon, the former chief executive of EMI Music Worldwide.
Founded in 1935, Doon once drew the sons of prominent Indian industrialists and politicians. Today scholarships, partly covering the annual tuition of about $4,000, assist one in four students. About half of the students' parents own small businesses. To be admitted, boys must pass a tough entrance exam.
Located on the site of the former Imperial Forest College & Research Institute, Doon is an oasis in Dehra Dun, a dusty town of about 700,000, 140 miles northeast of New Delhi. Thousands of trees shade the 70-acre grounds, where 55 teachers lead classes six days a week.
Each morning except Sunday, boys rise at 6:15 and down a small snack to fuel them for 20 minutes of military-style exercises. Two classes precede breakfast, with another five crammed in before lunch. Academics are leavened with music, poetry and drama. Every April, the boys vie in a calisthenics contest in which judges award points for clean, pressed clothes as well as team coordination.
On a recent Saturday morning, in a room lit by fluorescent lights, more than a dozen 17-year-olds sat at old wooden tables as fans whirred overhead. The work at hand: CPA-level accounting problems. "Is depreciation on a delivery van part of selling overhead?" asked one student. (Answer: yes.)
Some graduates, like Ravi Sinha, say they got their first primers on deal-making at Doon. As a 13-year-old student, he bartered breakfast goods with the other boys. Milk and bread "had no trading value" because they were ubiquitous, recalls Mr. Sinha, now a 43-year-old partner at Goldman Sachs. But the less-available "butter and eggs were tradable," he says.
To help blur class lines, boys perform menial tasks such as pruning plants or window-cleaning -- unthinkable chores for those of high social standing. The school's de-emphasis of wealth explains why many material goods, including fancy cars and designer clothes, are not allowed on campus. Unless parceled out by the school, money, or "home dough," as boys call it, is also forbidden. Those found with unauthorized cash are stripped of their precious few privileges, such as Sunday forays into town.
"The monastic existence" is an "article of faith of the school," says Dr. Kanti P. Bajpai, Doon's headmaster. "It is a leveler, a reminder that you are here to work and participate in campus activities and not wallow."
gCunt Meetingstrippeddevi G Ever En Gritos De Muerte Y Libertad Meeting Stripped Devi WSJ.com - The Andover of India?k l Meeting Stripped Devi x Meeting Stripped Devi Meeting Stripped Devi
qCunt Meetingstrippeddevi G Ever En Gritos De Muerte Y Libertad Meeting Stripped Devi WSJ.com - The Andover of India?u y Sexy Www.zhicom.cn |