Postcards from Mysore

Srirangapatna, famous for being the capital of Tipu Sultan's kingdom which stood valiantly against the British Raj, is not that well known for it's rustic charm and natural beauty. The river Cauvery's tributaries flow through this idyllic town and has reverside temples unchanged, just as they were since historic times. One of my favourite places in the world is this place called Gosai Ghat. Sitting on those steps on the banks of Cauvery as the cool waters flow by, under the shade of mango tree, beside the ancient temple, is an experience I would seriously recommend!

This time I tried some HDR imaging. And I got this image.

And of course, I had promised Mysorean that I would give him a better panorama of this spot.
Here it is, Mysorean!

Postcards from Bengalooru

Auto drivers in Bangalore... er, Bengalooru, are becoming very well known for their ruthless fleecing of customers. Still, an autoride is always fun as you zip through Bengalooru traffic. Especially if you know you are going to MG Road or Brigade Road! :-) One autodriver told me that the government allows them to increase the metering charges only about once every 2 years! So, in the meanwhile they are only allowed to mug the customers! There are also plans of completely removing autos from bangalore roads once the metro, according to one driver that I talked to. Well, they do came across as the predators but they are not that high up in the 'food chain'.

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There is this island of greenery just off MG Road that a lot of us do not seem to know about. The green and yellow lines are MG Road and Brigade respectively in this snapshot from Wikimapia. The park is marked in red.

Someone on Wikimapia has labeled this park as a 'useless park'. But if you see the number of couples putting this place to good use, you'll think otherwise! ;-) Now, before you let your imagination run wild about what I was upto there: I was just having a photoshoot there with a friend. So there...

Here is how green the trees are there:

Snapshot from Wikimapia:

Regis Givazo

The accordion somehow made famous by Raj Kapoor in Mera Nam Joker is almost unheard of in present-day India. I have always been a fan of the accordion for the pleasantness of its sound. The movie Amelie had a generous dose of background score consisting of a lively accordion. If you heard Rahman's song for the movie Guru, Ei Hairathein (Ok, my Hindi spellings are not good), it starts with an accordion (or at least I think so) leisurely playing a melody, immediately bringing to my mind images of some quiet European city with cobble-stoned streets and street cafes! The morning sun casting a silver light on the cobble stones and.... and now let me get back to what I was going to say...

This Wednesday, I attended this accordion concert by Regis Givazo hosted by the Poona music club. "Regis who?", was my response too. He is supposedly a world famous (Yes! and WE don't know!) accordionist who is originally from Madagascar. Regis teams up with Mirandon a percussionist/drummer, and together they create magic! He sang with his rich Malagasy (language of Madagascar) voice while his accordion provided the rhythm and bass along with a
complex interplay of notes that simply mesmerised us! His style had a very ethnic touch to it but at the same time incorporated a strong European flavour. Having been in Paris for about 10 years, he had beautifully assimilated various sounds.

I did not know that an accordion is such a versatile instrument, or is it the greatness of the artiste? I would think the latter would be closer to truth. You can listen to his tracks at this National Geographic World Music link . Do try the song Aia Rose at this link.

Now that I hear the tracks on the little CPU speakers in my grey cubicle, it does not sound like it's a big deal. When you are in front of the artist while he is passionately playing his instrument into the amplified hi-fi sound system, each sound crisp and clear with energy, it's a different experience altogether!

That evening I went home and had the perfect hangover :-)

Dolled Up

While visiting my friend's place, this little key-chain doll caught my eye. Some 'inanimate' objects seem to have so much life in them! Right beside the doll is the Laughing Buddha...

The Arrow and the Song

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Arunima: umm, read it long time back when I was going to give my boards. We were 149 in the batch and knew all of us won't be together. With much love, we had scribbled on each other's scrap book, these lines from this fellow. Ah! those were the days when friendship meant the world.*

Claytonia Vices: Ya, friendship did mean the world then... it still means a lot, but I guess we don't use the word 'forever' as frequently (or carelessly?) as we used to. I guess we understand the impermanence of things better... I think I should blog on this... or would you like to do the honours, Arunima? :-)

Arunima: please go ahead. Iwould love to leave my footprints on your page.*

Claytonia Vices: Footprints? Hmmm... thank God you are not very heavy! ;-)

Arunima: :-)

(I am scared to open my mouth. you will blog that also. so just a smiley.)*

*Posted with permission of course! :-)

Doing the Dew

The ad was dumb. So was the punch line. The Sprite ad's spoof on it damaged whatever little was left. But one day while travelling by bus, feeling extreme thirst and nausea, I tried it. it felt good. Now it's my soft drink of choice.

Now, why am I writing all this just for a drink? The other day I went to the hill top to have a photosession with my friend and he had brought a Dew bottle filled with water along with his bag. So I thought the green bottle and red bag in the evening sunlight made a good combination... In summary all this that I wrote is just a bahana to post these snaps! ;-)

I am simply loving the 'quality time' I am spending with my K100D! I have posted hi-res versions of these snaps..

Moonset at Sunrise

The picture is so ordinary but the moon looks beautiful...


By the time I reached the top of the hill, the sun was up, it's warm rays leaving a faint orange glow on the trees... these trees are green only during the rains and remain leafless for the rest of the year...

Watched the NH-4 below, winding throught the misty Sahyadris of Pune. It connects Bangalore and Mumbai via Pune.


By then the moon was much closer to the horizon...


Taking the brisk morning walks and climbing this hill almost everyday has been very rewarding apart from the beautiful sights. On the hill-top the morning air is pure and cool. Each time you take a deep breath it seems to fill each cell of your being with energy...

New Desktop

Meet Elmo!
He sits on top of my desk, so...

Oh, right now he's thinking out of the box! ;-)

The Kid

She's loves to sit on the swing. She can make 'tea' from the kitchen set and warns you that the stove is too hot to touch. Never throws tantrums. She's got a little book collection. She showed her storybook of the firemen and their dalmation. It was nice to see her squealing in excitement while looking at the colourful images in the book as if she had seen it for the first time! Everything's fine except her vocabulary, which seems to be out of the ordinary. She knows that something can smell 'pungent'. I'll let you know if she starts her own blog! :-)

Down by the Seaside

The beach as seem from wikimapia:




The trees circled in red above can be seen in this badly stiched panorama:







This 4-foot long fish beached itself one morning...

The rocky side of the beach....




Yes, am finally done with the pics from this trip! :-)

Urban Village

There was this burly looking silver Pulsar parked right next to the thatched house. The wall of the house had a fading Pepsi logo. A village with no mobile coverage but with tiled roofs adorned with satellite dishes, Harihareshwar is one little place that can show you some interesting contrasts...

Way to Go-A

Finally got to download images from my little Canon Poweshot. These are snaps taken from the bus on the way to Panaji...





And at the resort, tried some low-light photography just before sunrise...

To Mulshi and Beyond

Last weekend, my friends/colleagues suddenly planned to travel to the west coast (Konkan). The place decided was Harihareshwar. It is a tiny village on the edge of the Sahyadris (Western Ghats). The route is one of the most picturesque I have seen. You have to go beyond Mulshi where the western ghats are all the more breathtaking!

One of the best parts of the journey is when you have to travel beside the Mulshi Lake for many kilometers.

Here is what the wikimapia shows:

I have labeled the places. Lonavala is just for reference...

About 6hrs after leaving Pune, we finally felt the sea breeze. That evening we visited the beach. The sand here is a dark brown and the first reaction is that it is dirty. The color is probably due to the undersea rocks (which are almost everywhere in this region) getting eroded.

Right now I have only the snaps taken with my colleague's digicam. The snaps in my digicam and from the film camera, I haven't got them on the hard disk yet. These pics (except one) are all shot with a very narrow field of view and I find them making me a little claustrophobic!!

We went to the Harihareshwar temple the next day.

The village had this narrow lane about 6 feet wide with various shops and restuarants lined on either side. The atmosphere there reminded me of R.K. Narayan's Malgudi village! :-)

Perched on one of the houses near the temple was a loudspeaker. Interestingly, it was silent.
Then on the other side there was this narrow alley leading to this quaint little house...
We saw a staircase leading to the other side of the hill and decided to see where it landed...


Hmmm... it lead to a rocky shore on the other side. A kind that I had never seen before.


The stairs landed at a place that looked like a tiny docking area. This could have been a scene straight from a classic James Bond movie. The secret docking area to the villain's lair who is planning world domination!! :-))

Close to the top of this hill grew a lone tree...
Waves smashed against the rocks sending water as high as 10 feet in some places. Away from the seafront the rocks formed recesses on which you could sit. There on those rocks sat two non-identical twins...


On this rocky shore was this turtle-shaped sea-sculpture in a pool within the rock... I told my friend's wife to sit on it.... this is her reflection...


That chilly evening we had dinner sitting around a bonfire and then played dumb charades...
In the next post I will put up the wide angle landscapes that I shot...

G . O . A .

26 Years Old, Reborn

Got my 26yr old PENTAX ME Super SLR repaired finally. It had stopped working a few months ago. According to the camera repairman who repaired it, it will easily take snaps for another 20 years... provided they still make film...

Thinking about it, we can hardly expect today's 'hi-tech' SLR cameras to last so long.

Found this old advertisement about ME Super:

PENTAX is virtually unknown to our generation. Especially because it joined the digital camera bandwagon pretty late. They make great cameras even now but they are yet to learn to make great publicity and marketing...

photograph courtesy
William Eric McFadden

And Long After the Trip...

It took me so long to get the slide roll scanned...

You can see Everyman in the blue shirt here, near the bike...



The cool shade of the tree was inviting...

Spotted this lone bird flitting from tree to tree...

Hmmm... I am going through that phase again when I don't feel like blogging for a while... Just finished with an important part of a project and now I want to concentrate on a little travelling! This 16th I will be in Goa! :-)

Escape from Cubicle

(Friday, Oct 28th)

I look longingly at the world beyond the confines of this cubicle. The world outside beckons. I conspire and plot to make a break... this weekend...

(Saturday, Oct 29th)

I and Everyman set upon a bike ride into the Western Ghats. This time there was no monsoon. The sky was blue and the hills were beginning to dry. The waterfall that was roaring was now down to a trickle, with tiny fish stranded in little pools awaiting a dry grave... The grass still retained some of the green, now a more yellowish shade.... It was still beautiful!

Misson Accomplished!!! :-) :-) :-)

Entanglement

Wondering what to post, stumbled upon this one from an old folder...

Three-day Weekend

This three-day weekend was a relatively quiet one. On Sunday morning we went up the hills down the street and sat under the shade of a tree, watching the world below. But the most beautiful thing was the morning sun peeping from between the branches, and the blue sky with cotton clouds drifting above us.... there was only silence, interrupted by the leaves rustling in the wind and the occasional bird call...

...and my camera decided to do a little posing too! ;-)