Behind the rising walls

The people who construct the buildings you and I live in are hardly the people we ever get to see let alone meet and get to know. These are the ones who work hard on every inch of a living or commercial place and move on exactly when it is ready and livable. One of my friends who works in the construction business wanted me to take some of their portraits. It was an opportunity I just could not resist. :)

This girl got so shy that I was photographing her while the little baby reacted with fear! :)

The interiors were still in near total darkness and the workers set up lights to be able to see what they are doing.

She was on the terrace along with a couple of other ladies who were cooking the meal for that evening. 

The carpenter.

He was cutting tiles, every muscle in his arm flexing.

Lace Curtains and Wind Chimes

I always wanted to have lace curtains and a wind chime right along... now I do :)

Ant Safari

I was in Mysore a few weeks ago. One dull boring afternoon, I set out into the 'vast expanses' of the portico of our home in search of some interesting ants. When you are looking for ants even a portico is a very very large place... except that you can easily cover it in less than an hour. :D

Framing a fast moving ant is not very easy...


Sometimes you realise that the huge orb that it is about to bite is actually your toe... you see the butt of that ant sticking from under the toe? I made a quick retreat after that shot...

Here is an ant in what is maybe the one of the most exotic locations it could be in... a pink hibiscus... my mom hates it when I crop the flower like that!! :D

Smiles to Remember

My cousin and I went to the nearby villages to distribute wedding cards to all our relatives in the nearby villages. One of our relatives is a teacher in a little village school. Here is her entire school:

Yes, that's the ENTIRE school. It has two teachers!

It was a long time since I had seen school kids who looked stress-free!!

I told them to show all their teeth... :D

Delta

Just back from a trip to the Godavari delta area, coastal Andhra Pradesh. It is a land of abundance, whether you are into farming or photography! ;) I have updates of my little niece and
a lot more images coming soon...

We had stopped our hired ambassador car (I realize they still make them!) to ask this man for directions. His rolled cigar in his mouth and looks made a for a nice photo-op... People are so vary of offending others there, he removed the cigar when talking to us. I had to persuade him to put it back in for the snap :) after telling him it looks stylish :)

Shepherd's Banquet

After about two weeks of camping, the shepherds decide it is time to leave. On the last day they sit together for dinner. Women, a flurry of activity preparing bhakri on firewood stoves. Men chat, passing around a small bottle of liquor, taking occasional sips. The kids sit with them and listen to them under the cool afterglow of the twilight sky....

What a Wonderful World :)

He was a security person at the gates of the little campus in which our office is situated. Being a senior citizen, he had a nearly toothless smile. What set him apart was that he used to salaam everyone who passed by. Initially, I did not acknowledge his salaam as I just wasn't used to strangers greeting me so cheerfully, as if I were an old friend. But then one day I thought, 'What the heck!' and started saluting him back! That was fun! This man was always so happy each morning I saw him. He greeted the world that went by and the fact that no one seemed to wave back at him never discouraged him.

Now I don't see him anymore, standing there, waving. He was so old and frail, I wonder where he is now. The strange part is that he looked well beyond the age of retirement.
He reminds me of one of my favorite songs, Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World':

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And i think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to my self:"What a wonderful world!"

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying "How do you do."
They really say: "I love you!"

I hear babies crying I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"
Yes, I think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"

I have seen some people say that this song is too happy for our times. You might ask that if people everywhere are hating and killing each other, how can someone be so happy? There may or may not be an answer for this depending on how you look at it. A part of the answer might lie in the fact that this song was written when racial discrimination was high. When equal rights seemed to be a distant dream. A dream that is now reality...

Watch him sing! :)

Baby and a Goldfish

Met my 2 month old niece for the first time. I realized it was ages since I felt a tiny little hand in mine. She still does not recognize faces yet but cries very little. She actually does not know how to cry even when she's hungry! LOL! She just makes 'skawking' sounds with a painful expression on the face! Teeny hands and teeny feet! Mother nature is the master designer of cuteness!!


They also have a pretty goldfish gracefully swimming in its glass bowl. I realized to my surprise that if anyone stands close to the bowl, it immediately swims towards them and hovers around there. Even more surprising was that if you put your hand close to the glass the goldfish gets distracted by the hand only for a moment and then starts looking at your face again!! It felt as if it can recognize the face! Maybe we humans grossly underestimate the intelligence of other creatures.

I can imagine! At night when everyone is asleep the goldfish pulls out a little laptop from under one of the pebbles and starts wondering on its blog: 'Today I saw a human showing signs of intelligence. He did not tap my glass bowl (How I hate it when they do that!!). He actually seemed to look into my eyes. Maybe humans are not as dumb as previously thought...'


...Obviously, I had a very tiresome overnight bus journey back to Pune, its Wednesday morning but am still short of some sleep...

Of course, I also met my two year old nephew. It is impossible to track down fast moving two year olds and take a pic when indoors... all I could get was his doggy toy...


(posted this a day later...)

It Takes So Little

The mesmerized smile was imprinted on his face. His eyes were fixed on the ice-cream cone in his hand. Probably 3-4yrs old. You had to probably watch your step to not step on his little feet as you hurried across to catch your bus at the other end of the bus terminal. A woman, probably his mom, walked ahead unaware that the kid might not exactly be paying attention to which way she is going. It was that little smile. It would make you realize you too are smiling a while after it unconsciously appears on your face. It stays with you long after. Reminds you it takes so little to make a kid happy...

This post if for you, Lucky!! :)