The Bohospiration

01/09/2026

𖤓 Found my inner apsara in the 1,000-year-old temples of Khajuraho 𑁍

Wearing the new Apsara Collection by T H E B O H O S P I R A T I O N ༄

india travel blogger

19/08/2026

My grandfather moved to Goa in 1962, just one year after Goa was liberated.

He had been working at a government bank in Pune when he was asked to transfer to the Goa Co-operative Bank in Panjim. He had only recently married my grandmother and was apprehensive about leaving behind the life he knew.

On his first day here, he arrived at the Betim ferry with his trunks. He left them at the ferry, crossed the Mandovi and checked into what he always said was the only hotel in Panjim at the time—the Mandovi Hotel—for one night.

He never really left Goa after that.

When my grandparents first moved here, they lived in Mapusa in a home owned by Shri Manohar Parrikar’s father. My grandmother and Manohar Parrikar’s mother became the closest of friends, spending their days cooking together. These are the little stories through which our family slowly became woven into Goa.

Years later, my Dadaji, my father and my chacha opened Goa’s first dedicated music and movie store together—Kalpatru, followed by Rock and Raaga and Mantra. It was essentially Goa’s own Planet M before Planet M existed here.

But they didn’t only sell music; they helped create it.

They produced music, collaborated with legendary Goan musicians like Remo Fernandes and Lorna, and even produced Goa’s own music album, Goenchi Feni, which became a huge hit across the state.

My grandfather didn’t simply come to Goa and build a life here. He became part of its story and contributed to its culture.

But long before Goa became his home, my grandfather had already lost one.

His family came from Lahore, Punjab. He would tell me horrific stories of Partition—of watching members of his family being killed before his eyes and escaping on one of the last trains crossing into India.

He grew up in Pune, where my great-grandfather worked as a photographer during the British Raj, travelling around India with British officials as their personal photographer. He later opened a photography studio in Pune, whose ruins, I’m told, still remain somewhere in the city. (Contd. in comments)

18/08/2026

Yesterday, I found a man selling little red-mud Naag Devtas by the roadside in Saligao, Goa. I stopped out of curiosity, asked him why Naag Panchami is celebrated, and somehow without planning any of it felt called to bring one home. 🐍🌺

One traditional story tells of a farmer who unknowingly killed young snakes while ploughing his field. Their grieving mother sought revenge but was moved by the devotion of the farmer’s daughter. Naag Panchami is therefore observed by honouring the serpent deities and asking for their forgiveness and protection, a reminder that the land we cultivate is home to other lives too.

So I brought Naag Devta home, performed his pooja and offered him flowers from my own little garden, Naag Champa, Aparajita and hibiscus. We made patoli using leaves from the haldi plants.

Snakes shed their skin in order to grow. Maybe we must too. 🐍 🌺

Old fears. Old habits. Old versions of ourselves that once protected us but no longer fit us.

I ended the celebration by placing Naag Devta in the soil beneath a tree in our garden. Made from mud, he returned to the mud.

What began as a completely unplanned roadside encounter became an unexpectedly beautiful day of devotion, food, nature, kindness and letting go.

May Naag Devta protect all that is growing within and around us, and give us the courage to shed what we have already outgrown. 🐍🌺🌿

08/08/2026

born to frolic, forced to earn a living 🧚🏽

04/08/2026

collaborating with nature since 1996 :)

25/07/2026

24/07/2026

“Asi Lahore toh aaye si,” my grandmother would tell me. She still has nightmares about everything they lived through as a child and everything they left behind, believing their grandchildren would inherit a better future than they did.

22/07/2026

History has a long memory.
We should too.