Pain

'If someone is determined not to risk pain, then such a person must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstacy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship -- all that makes life alive, meaningful, and significant.'

--M. Scott Peck in 'The Road Less Travelled'


I simply liked this quote. I realised that there is no such thing as an inherently painless life. We can only learn to live happily inspite of everything. If anyone asks if there is a secret to true happiness, I would say that this is one of them

Happiness

"Happiness is... a warm puppy."

-Charles M. Schulz (Creator of Peanuts)

Commercial Street

A zillion photons bombard your eyes with various hues, from the neon lights flashing on and off. They jostle for eye space filling your brain with a dozens of brand names before you can blink! No, you aren't in Hongkong, you're in Namma Bengaluru, Commercial Street!

Fog!

It's official: winter is moving in! This morning the whole city had fog. This is the view from our apartment window of a neighbouring building which is under construction...

Truth Vs. Fine Art Photography

Believing that a photograph should be untampered with and presented as it is, I had considered that anything else was as good as fraud. Fraud against truth and all that is real. This I feel was due to the image (pun unintended) photography has acquired, that it is meant to show things as they are...

But then I realised that this is the case only when we are talking about photography whose objective is to portray the truth as in documentary and journalistic photography.

It is now my belief that if you are dealing with photography as an art form, the objective of the artist is to convey a message/emotion to the viewer. This makes a photograph just the 'raw material' that the artist uses to convey his/her message/emotion. So, you might say that the act of taking the photograph is a mere beginning of the journey that the image will take to finally convey the artist's thought. For after all an artist is only trying to convey what is on his/her mind, the means that the medium he uses is nothing more than just that.

Another issue that comes to mind is digital tools used to modify images. If you think that just because things happen at a mouse-click and hence anyone who uses them can only produce kitsch, think again! To use a digital tool to produce something that is tasteful and aesthically appealing, requires a certain sense, without which we might end up making, well, kitsch!

Next time somebody looks at an image and says, "So you manipulated it?", with a facial expression that seems to say, "So, you took dope to win the gold medal?", I will simply tell that person to read this post!

Sun-day

There's nothing like the sun emerging from dark clouds...

Notice the 'rainbow' created by a cloud in the top half of the image (pointed to by the upward arrow) and the rainbow coloured cloud below it! The colours are just noticable...

This tree is apparently on some land marked for 'developement' and I doubt it if it will be there to see the next summer...

Smiles

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

The Charm Still Remains

Pune, Camp area.

The City that Sleeps...

The city sleeps, under the moolit sky...

New Toy!

As a kid I had always wanted a Rubik's Cube. The other day while window shopping at the 49&99 store, I saw this cube and fell for it. Well, I guess it is never too late for 'brain food'!

Cabin by the Tree

This exotic place has mesmerised me. I have visited it about 5 times in about one year and I still feel like going back. When you are here, all you see is the earth and the sky, and this little cabin with a dead tree beside it. This tree hasn't had a single leaf for over a year now but it still stands its ground. The silence here is nearly absolute, except for the distant 'whoosh' of vehicles on the national highway about a kilometer away. Now and then sparrows flit around chirping away a happy conversation...

If you walk closer to the structure, you will be a little anxious to see the pitch-darkness that you see inside. But when you look closely, you see that it is a temple. Unsual temple... It has a mound of turmeric with a red tilak in place of an idol...

A Room With a View

In the year 1999, we lived in a rented house. The sole reason why we had moved into this house was that it was just one street away from the house which we were building for ourselves. I remember how I saw many beautiful sunsets from the window of my room. I had just started using the camera and this was probably from the first roll I ever shot. That's what makes it special.

Home Sweet Home

It's been just about 3 weeks since I was home.
I am missing home... already...

One Tough Nut

The molten tar had tsunamied onto their tiny world taking away a few creatures to the nether world. But this little plant was one tough nut...

On the Way to the Office Today...

Mula river...



Tranquility....

Visit to Kailash Temple

The Kailash temple is larger than the Parthenon, and better preserved. It was cut out of a single rock starting from top to bottom (that was clever).

Standing within these stone walls takes you into another world. It is amazing what faith can inspire people to do...

The stone was covered with plaster which was painted in different colours, so the temple was a lot more colorful in its days of glory. Some of the plaster still remains in certain places, giving a glimpse of the grandeur that was...

The temple even has a balcony... :-)

The plaster still surviving has a hint of intricate, colourful designs... the parakeets seem to admire the sculptures up close!

The Invitation

We had just finished lunch. S and I were taking a walk within the company campus. The weather was warm but not too sunny and it was just right for a walk.

There was construction work going on ahead of us. We saw that one of the workers was just unpacking his lunch. As we got closer, he said something to us (in Marathi) with a happy smile. I did not know enough Marathi to understand him. I found his warm smile unusual for he had not met us before. Marathi-knowing S replied to him. I asked S what it was about. S told me that he was inviting us to share his lunch. (S had replied that we had already had our lunch and thanked him for the invitation.)

S said that this is a custom followed when anyone comes by when you are having lunch.

I had heard of this custom but had never witnessed it before. That too between total strangers. It's nice to know such things still exist! :-)

And the Painter Tames the Monster...

The Return of the Concrete Monsters

These were still in the making:

Concrete Monsters

A celebration of bad design, compromise and demented creativity. The designer must've thought that people are capable of anaerobic respiration or I should actually check if these were luxury apartments exclusively built for dementors!

Safety Begins at Home

Saw this on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Our vehicle was travelling at close to the speed limit when I saw this unexploded tanker. That gave me just enough time to get this badly taken snap. It had crashed into solid rock ironically with the words 'Safety Begins at Home' painted on its rear, right next to the speed-limit sign. They should have added the words 'and Ends on the Road'.