Monday, June 18, 2007

Arbit





Celebrating one year of moving to my one room studio in Mumbai !!! Done on one rainy night with nothing better to shoot than the lock on my door,snail in my bathroom and water droplets from a faucet ! (Arbit modifications on PS as is so painfully obvious)

Went to Karnala for the weekend. Nice place if you are looking to see clouds descent over the peak. Nothing much in terms of trekking per se or even photog during monsoon (Atleast nothing befitting it's name of being a bird sanctuary - check here what I got!!). Caveat : I was there neither for the morning / evening so obviously sightings were very few. And season is anyways around Oct to Feb !!
Still being very close to Panvel it is nice drive for Mumbaikars to go and enjoy clouds / rains.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Kerala Monsoons

It was an ossum welcome break ! Spent 4 days in monsoony kerala with cousins and friends. Attended a couple of family functions....

Was nice re-living the nostalgia - of paper boats in water, flooded roads, chinese nest against the cloudy skies, fisherwomen with skirts lifted up exposing fleshy thighs, diamond droplets over long grass reflecting early morning sunshine, coloured flowers, massive rainbows, variety of birds wet and drying themselves whenever sun comes out (Woodpeckers, robins, drongos, sunbirds, sparrows and even owls), playing cards in cozy sofas as the rain beats heavy against the window panes, just looking at the water flow down the tiled roofs of traditional kerala houses, walk through the pools of water splashing it around like a school kid, playing cricket with the wet ball that skids along as if on a matting wicket, watching mallu comedy movies, going to temple for the smell of burning camphor & agarbathi & oil & flowers, squirrells and mongooses all over the place shaking their fur ejecting water droplets against weak rays of sun coming down through thick cloud covers, driving the car fast in the rain through highways with water filled paddy fields on either sides, drinking filter coffee at the front verandah watching the coconut trees swinging like mad, eating mangoes and then eating them some more, put alarm for 6 o clock so that you can wake up and KNOW that you have taken leave & hence go right back into the confines of the covers as the rains sing the morning ragas - Life !!
As always when ever I am in Kerala loads of youngsters come for advice on which branch to take for engineering, which college to go for in MBA, what is the scope for CA etc...And I thought - How does it matter ?... When will we all stop planning for life and start living the life ?...Noone in their final days would miss all the extra hours not spent in office, the MBA degrees not taken from top schools,the bank balances that never bulged enough,.............But ofcourse I did not say any of these - would def be construed as the "show off" by someone on the other side of the green grass syndrome !!! :)....

Could not photograph a lot since FZ 50 is not good at creating sharp images in low light conditions. (Or I am not good enough to use it properly !! hehe). Maybe I shall have to buy a tripod soon enough.
Few samples here