My Favorites !!! --

With each trip that I made I clicked. I love traveling and I love taking photos while traveling. Most of the time I'll be disappointed with most of the shots that I click. But there comes a time when I get ecstatic after a shot, I just feel that I got a shot that's worth the whole trip. I get too eager to get back home and see the last outcome after the post processing. There are very very few of such shots and I thought I would list them out here. Just as a place holder or some delightful memories. They are not in any particular order or number.

School Kids waiting for ride to school. I was traveling to Goa after a night halt at Shimoga. Had to vacate the room by morning 6 and so we started early. By the time we reached Sagar Sun came out and then after some time just after crossing sagar I show this scene on the rear view mirror. Put the car on a screeching halt and run with the camera in my hand to shoot. Took a few shots and I was kind of jumping with joy. This is one of those shots which makes you feel so good. And this shot has made my whole trip.






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I was driving from Jorhat to Gargaon and enroute this one big field caught my attention. I told myself that I need to be here during sunset or sunrise for sure. And voila, just 2 days after I was there just before the sunset. Found this tree to be really interesting and I knew what I want. I patiently waited for the sun to go down and capture this moment. I wanted to move closer but due to a ditch I couldn't but on a hindsight that probably was a blessing in disguise. I told my sis that I got the shot of the trip and I don't have to click any more pics on this trip anymore( but I did clicked many more shots after anyway ;-) )







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Had to reach the Nagarhole forest asap from our homestay at Irupu. But we couldn't reach that soon and almost missed the Safari. The reason, well this photograph was the reason. Just while leaving Irupu I stopped at the incline to see these heavenly rays piercing through the canopy. Stopped the car and started clicking. May not be great composition wise but that time I felt this was shot of the trip and it still is.














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LADAKH, a place made of dreams. And actually speaking I've many shots which are my favorite. But I'll post only a few for each day of the trip which I felt had my day for that trip.
We were returning from Pangong Tso and just crossed the Pagal Nullah. There was this smaller serene lake there and then there was this grass land dotted with small rivulets. We were shooting the lake first and then decided to move a bit further. We stepped next to a rivulets and there was this two guys standing calmly. And in my mind I already had my shot. Lied down on the ground and started taking their pics from a lower angle and they really posed for me for quite long time before they moved on grazing.



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Breaking my own rule, this one another fav from the same trip. This became my fav after a bit of HDR processing to get the sky exposure correct. Just before the grass land we stopped at this junction. I somehow loved how the mountains kind of making way for roads by converging into that meeting point of the bases. This is one of my first tries with HDR processing and I loved this shot a lot.






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We were getting ready to leave Leh and found these kids of our guest house owner was playing around the garden. I just grabbed my camera and shot a few clicks. Loved this one the most. They were so cute and innocent.












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Was descending from Rohtang pass and the green started to creep up everywhere and we were getting overwhelmed by the greens after full dose of browns of Ladakh. It looked so soothing and inviting. Had a bus to catch to Delhi from Manali as we had to cancel plans to stay at Manali. But when such views invite then who cares about the Bus schedules. Stopped numerous times and this was best of the lot. Ohh BTW we did get the taste of mountain traffic jam after some but that;s a different story for some other time.













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Had to attend a wedding at Shimoga and how can I miss the chance for another lovely drive on that route and so were on that route again. Stopped for a lil' break and found the farmers working on their fields. I thought of capturing a moment with them and kinda loved this outcome.





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It was a long pending trip and a trip with the BPC folks. At the temple I was outside and one of friend called me to show these intricate carvings on the roof. They were fascinating piece of art. I wanted to capture them and tripod are not allowed and light was less. I didn't want to use flash as for these shots I wanted to capture the existing light only. And it suddenly clicked my mind to keep the camera facing up on the floor. And voila I found these three pillars holding the roof to be an interesting compo and I was quite happy with the result. I should've had the fourth pillar also to complete the shot probably. ...

Well, that's all for today. I'll add some more from some other trips in some other time. Need to go to sleep now..

Where the music gone???

Music, aah it's something that made us happy, made us cry, made us nostalgic, euphoric. But somehow, somewhere I'm having a feeling that I'm loosing it, loosing my emotional bond that I had with music. No I'm not talking about playing musical instrument, I can't play anything at all except the CD player. It's just that nowadays I don't get ecstatic when I see a new album by my favorite group nor I get swayed away with the flow of the music. Why is it happening? Is it that when something is in abundance and available freely, it looses it shine. Looses it's value. Or is that there is no one to share those joys? I don't know, I wish I know and fix it but I can't..
I still remember those days, the days when I used to save my pocket money to get that particular album which I wanted to give a hear for a long time. Sometime I'll have the money but the album won't be available. Sometime somebody will bring the news of another album that got released and available at the stands. But can't go to get it as there are lots of classes to attend or probably last bus has already left for city center. And I remember when I get enough money accumulated and go to the city center to buy that particular cassette. Will get very restless to get to my hostel room. Will call out the friends and tear open the plastic cover and play it loud on my el-cheapo music system. Oh man, didn't I enjoyed that, didn't we all enjoyed. We'll listen to the tracks from first to last, instantly fall in love with some track and rewind it to play it again and again. It's a pain to rewind on cassette decks but we'll still rewind hundreds of times and listen to that particular song. Guitarists among us will try to find out the notes or whatever, oh yeah some of those guys could do that. And the others, like me will try hard to memorize and play Hotel California without even knowing any majors, minors. But who cares, we loved doing it, we loved music. Probably eagles, zubeen, Kishore Kumar or GnR were our best friends (Pink Floyd happened to me in a later stage). Aah, where all those are gone.
I so much loved listening to music is that the first thing I bought with my salary was neither a bike nor cell phone but a Sony Music system. I did enjoyed listening on that system, a lot. I remember when we used to listen to it even in the dead in the night and sometime even get sound rebutals from our owner of our rented place. But still it was fun. I still remember when one of my friend used to come to my place to just to listen to his favourite song again and again.. Aur kya, aur kyaaa... ;-) We even listened to Ande ka funda for umpteenth amount of time. In the mean time one will keep on singing Rimjhim gire sawan and another will fight hard to become Jitul (an assamese singer). But good things never lasts long and after that within a year or two all of us got separated. Everyone went to different places and in the melle probably I probably forgot how to enjoy music.


After thought: Another thing, those days I never used to bother how the quality of recording was nor how much noise is there in the song due to bad recording. Never bothered if some bass or treble is missing or if the vocals are not clear. No, I never used to do that but just to enjoy music whatever kind it is then to be critical about the recording quality. May be this also a small part to play.

half life..But not Game over yet !!!

Few days back when a friend called me on 12AM to wish me for me coming to the earth on that particular date, 30 years ago, I was kind of suddenly having a strange feeling. A feeling that I'd lived(did I??) so many years and the years just flew by and I didn't even noticed it. Life almost went off halfway, gone in like a bullet train and all I'm left with is a faint glimpse of it. Suddenly a fear of loosing myself into the dark oblivion engrossed me. I was thinking what's there after this life? How it'll be and as the life is moving so fast that the end is coming closer[oh, scary, isn't it?]. And what's life actually? Why am I here? What is this force or magic that I'm walking, talking,eating, sleeping and then suddenly one day will come when all these things will stop and I'll just vanish into the thin air? What's the purpose of this life, or as they say, what's the bigger picture?
But then as suddenly sanity prevailed over me and I realized how futile it's about to think of the end. Let's not think about it as it's inevitable anyway. So why bother? Whatever has to happen will happen, destiny has something written for everyone and worrying is not gonna change anything. Let's enjoy what I have now and probably that's how to live a life. And cherish the past, all that remained from past is a memory. Somewhere I've read that human brain erases bad memories as time passes by and so only the good ones remains itched for years.

Forget about the future, forget about the past,
Life is a journey so just have a blast.. [some song by BAdams I guess]

I know this things may sound crazy but sometimes craziness overcomes sanity.

A Wednesday on a thursday..

No, no, it's not about a day but about the thoughts after watching a movie called "A Wednesday". No, it's not a critique about this movie but about the message it was trying to pass. A message to those who thinks that they can kill us at their will and spread their claws of terror to every nook and corner of our country. It's to tell them that yes, we the common people are angry, we really want to retaliate and take revenge for those mindless attacks on us. These cowards, so called terrorists don't even have the guts to come out in the open for a fight. All they can do is to hide behind their veils and plant a bomb in a public place killing the innocent common man. They don't think for a second time when they commit such heinous crimes. They don't have any heart for humanity and they are not someone who can be called humans. Then why should not they be punished whenever they are caught? Why should not they be shown the path to the gallows? Why it takes so much of time to punish these buggers after they are caught? The judgement should be swift and punishment should be severe. Why these human rights and their cohorts make noise when some terrorists are killed by our armed forces? Why why why? I think they are not even humans to have human rights.

The protagonist in the movie raised a question, a question to all of us, if a cockroach enters our houses what do we do to them ? Do we give them shelter or kill them? Yes, we all Indians need to think that way, either be it a Policeman or someone from the decision makes or the common people. Are we going to just sit back and watch those cockroaches spoiling our lovely home, our motherland under our nose? And NO, please don't bring religion here, none of the religions teach us to take up arms. Terrorists doesn't have religion, the only religion they follow is of terrorism. This is just twisted version of those few monsters who have sold their souls, to something called terrorism.

Afterthoughts: It's really ironic that these thoughts are coming on a day of non-violence (2nd Oct) but I feel non-violence works with people who have lil' bit of humanity or civilization left in them. Not with barbarians who have long gone down from the level of humans long back to that of demons.

A journey that changed everything..

..and it changed the world history the way we see it today.Was watching the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries" a movie based on the early life journey of the legendary revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara.While he was studying medicine at Rio in his last year Che decided to take a year off and travel length and breath through South America on a old motorcycle with his friend Granado.This is what have changed the young exuberant Che to someone matured enough to think differently.Who felt for the poor people of South America and he came back with a belief that all the suffering of common man was because of the imperialism/capitalism.A journey that taken him out of the shell he was in before, immune to the outside world probably.He started to see the world with a different view.He started feeling the pain of the poor,neglected people.Fuser(his pet name) got transformed.He transformed into Che as the world know him today.This one journey he realized the injustice done to the people working in the mines of Chile or the sufferings of the leprosy patients on the banks of Amazon.This movie has made me think few things..
May be we all need to come out the comfortable zone we are in now, the shell that we are enjoying.May be we also need to take a journey, may not be as huge as Che's but we need this to view the world with a different eye.May be that won't change world history or anything, but that may change a few lives.Can we ? Can I ??

Life in the fast lane....

Fast cars,expressways and a destination but no time to look around and enjoy the beauty a journey can provide.No time to connect to that small town we've just bypassed, no time to wait for to see that small festival going on that village that we would've crossed.What about the coffee/tea at the roadside stall while it's raining. Instead of using the laid back journey of a small state-highway we prefer to travel by the six laned highway and have our dose of tea/coffee at A1 plazas.Yeah we do reach our destinations faster but that's all about it.We've probably forgotten to enjoy something called journey. And if I see the analogy, the same is exactly happening even to our lives.
These are the thoughts that came to my mind while watching the movie "Cars".It's a animated movie about a hot-racing car Lightning McQueen by mistake drove into a town called Radiator Springs on the forgotten highway of Route 66.Where he met few other cars and he learned something called friendship.The drive on the old route 66 he took with Sally Carrera(the Porche) and how he exclaimed to her how can people just miss the awesome beauty of this road and abandon it for the new interstate. To which Sally said about driving on Route 66 " Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved" and then the best part "Cars didn't drive on it to make great time,they drove on it to have great time". And exactly what our lives have also become.We are running as fast as we can on this rat race but we've forgotten that we've just lost time and never was able to enjoy the time that just ran past us.We are running towards some obscure destination far away, not a bit bothered about what we've missed.We are making big strides in our career in great time, but we've missed to have a great time.
Wish I can find a way to the route 66 but it seems to be just fading away in the horizon.

Had a bad day..

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day -- Daniel Powter


Well well well, it was supposed to be a fun day and turned out to be a bad day.Nothing went right today for me after lunch.Things never happened according to plan.Got stuck in traffic..Said the wrong words at wrong moment and to top of all these had a small accident which broke my new baby's rear view mirror(RHS).We were lucky (and that bugger nut on the road also) to come unscathed.And after I reached home I successfully hurt my eye also.Luckily nothing major happened except the broken mirror.
Had a bad day..

[Actually things are not just going right for me last few days, all my gadgets are going through a bad phase.. First my DVD player conked off,then Digicam CCD has become history, memory card of my phone gone kaput and the phone also acting funny. God only knows what's happening with me.Hope things won't turn worse,just keeping my fingers crossed]