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Trip to Khandala over last long weekend was rather fun. We were trying to get away from the routine and were hoping to unwind in the probable cooler weather in the mountains and valleys. Weather was indeed very refreshing and was so more because of the absence of the urban hustle-bustle, I guess.
So on the next morning when we struggled to get out of our beds early in the morning, the walk outside was greeted by the mist and a pleasantly cold weather. In such an environment when you visually drink the greens, you find solace right where you are.
But when I look at this picture now, it just says that man has not spared nature either. There are signs of intrusions everywhere and this picture almost shows creatures like transformers who have just transformed themselves into their bigger frames. Just the matter time till they start moving around and warring!
I always find the waters fascinating. I mean, THE waters.When we visited Baagha beach in Goa on a serene evening, it was in December of 2006, it was just about the time for the sun to set. We, a bunch of friends, were in a party mood and it all seemed so joyous. But then I glanced the same scene through the lanse's eye and the whole scene seemed so oceanic. I just added the sepia touch and the result was magical.Looking at this picture, it makes me believe that you don't need to be a great photographer by knowing the technical specifications by its complexities. But when the picture speaks thousand words itself, boy, you have got yourself started.I hope, I make them talk sometime.
Any guesses where this picture was shot?It is indeed difficult to guess the place frmo the skyline and the sea that would look similar from anywhere in the world. And the boat is just an ordniary boat that would assist no clue either. In fact in India itself there would so many locations which would look just the similar. I asked Aniket, he answered Goa!Ranjit had said some place in Europe. (Oh, so much I wish that was true!)Abhijeet had just visited Thailand and he was quite confident that I had visited that country too.So although there is nothing much significant about this picture, I shot it in Dubai about two years back on a cloudy evening. And the funny thing was all the people present at that time were sure that the foggy skyline just melted into sea making it difficult to spot the end of the earlier with the beginning of the later.But the picture captured the boundaries perfectly. Yeah, at times different visions provide the perfect perspectives!
July 22, 2009 was supposed to special. If you were to witness the longest total solar eclipse on this day then indeed it was special. So we, a bunch of colleagues, made a full proof plan of not missing the iconic event by driving down to Valsad, a place in Gujarat from where the eclipse would be seen in its totality!
The first dropout was announced when Amol was diagnosed with chickenpox on the previous morning. Un-excusable excuse! (What a healthy kid he must have been not to have those as a kid! I mean, it never really occurred to me that chickenpox was not kids-special disease..) So we tried finding if anyone else would want to join our madness and Ashok almost said, why didn't you tell me in the first place. So far so good.
Then halfway through the day, I was told to attend a meeting in Chandigarh. WTF! Dharmesh gave me an ultimatum to manage to cancel it. I even tried but without any success.
A 6.20 AM flight added some exotic hope of catching the heavenly sight of total eclipse in the air. So here I am, at the airport, at 5.30 AM, watching beginning of eclipse on the news channels and waiting for the boarding announcement but it was my mistake if I expected the flight to take off on time.
So after the flight took off a few minutes past half past six and after quite a few minutes when the clouds got cleared all I got to see was what you see in this picture.
By the way, I now hear that most parts of Gujarat were all cloudy during eclipse time and those who watched the eclipse on television were the lucky ones! The chances we were willing to take were well not taken then!!
No. What you see in this picture is not a temple. It is just an open auditorium outside what is supposed to be a family temple. It was the first temple we visited in Bali and no prizes for guessing how rich the family would be to which the temple belonged.
The brick structure painted in saffron with white contours is the standard look of all the temples in Bali. The golden design usually signifies the entrance to the existence of the shrine. But here, it just is one of structures in the temple field.
The first thing to be noticed here was, wow, all this is so clean!
Also, I posted my Bali Travelogue on Rediff. You can access it here.
Any guesses what this is?
This indeed is the Bandra-Worli Sea link that was talked about the most in the last one month. Or a decade I should say. I still remember the chaos it started with what sounded as a revolutionary idea almost fifteen years ago, I was still in the school then. A bridge in the sea, solution to the hugely increasing traffic in Mumbai? Well, half of the junta looked at it like a miracle. The media which was not half crazy as it is today still praised what may emerge as a miracle and of course as one the signs that will prove that we are not really a third world country. And the rest made it sound like a biggest controversy of the century. Right from the pollution to the great losses of the fishermen who fish in the stretch of the Bandra-Worli sea, every protest featured prominently on front pages.
Last week when I drive over this sea-link, the skyline of Mumbai that was visible from the bridge gave a sign of Mumbai is sure one impressive city. And as I drove further in the heavy rains, I couldn’t resist but capture this sight on the camera of my cell phone. Sometimes, you don’t need to express the feelings in words. In the middle of the sea, watching the mighty Mumbai at a little distance, it gave a sense of pleasure just by being on this bridge.
Also, happened to read a piece of news last week where a fisherman in the same area was interviewed. He expressed pleasure over the fact that there is an increased variety of the fishes that were not so common earlier which are not found around the columns of the sea link!
All's well that ends well, I guess.
Here is the war against the Rangda where Sahadeva and his men fight her and release her of all her evils. Although Rangda is killed, her one of the followers who is equally powerful continues the fight with the army of Sahadeva in several forms.
Well, so true it is. You may try to eliminate the evil but it always reappears in some form or the other. It reminds me of the last scene from the movie Captain Hook. After reaching the happily-ever-after part of the story that should mark an end of the story, Peter meets Captain Hook himself, for another time. Guys, there can't be only good in this world!
I always assumed that I knew almost all the stories from Mahabharata. And the very existence of Rangda was a blow to that assumption; forget the stories of her from Mahabharata. But like they say, the language changes every few miles, probably Rangda exists in the Balinese dialect of Mahabharata.
In the very front here, you see Sahadeva with his ministers on both his sides. The story portrays that despite Devi Kunti’s promise to Rangda about sacrificing Sahadeva to her, Sahadeva survives. Lord Shiva had bestowed immortality on Sahadeva before he was to be sacrificed. The story didn't offer any explanation on why, how etc but I really admire the fact that the high level management of things by people in high positions or people who know people in high positions can be traced back to the Mahabharata days!
The traditional plays in Bali have women to play the main (and good) characters. Maybe to bring out the contrast with the evil or to say that how much ever small the good might look, it will always win over the evil. The funny looking, long grey haired character on the right is the evil Rangda. She looked more funny than evil to me.
Barong dance portrays a story from Mahabharata where Sahadeva achieved immortality, a story less known to many Indians. What you see in here is Devi Kunti (Balinese refer to Kunti as Devi Kunti without fail!) at the center and Sahadeva to the right of her. Kunti had promised Rangda, an evil witch to sacrifice Sahadeva so Rangda would stop troubling innocent people.
It was difficult to judge the acting skills of these actors because they acted through theor dance based movements. Besides that all the females for some reason spoke in a sqeuaky pitch which was very distracting. Had it not been for the melodious Gambulan, I would have started focusing on other things in the auditorium than the characters. But thanks to the handouts about the show we received at the beginning, we could figure out the characters and the story. Balinese dialogs would have been a simple bouncer otherwise.
The Barong dance starts not with the Barong act but with these two beautiful ladies in their traditional best instead. The silk robes with intricate golden embroidery made those pretty ladies shine in the morning sunlight. The best part of their ensemble was the Plumeria crowns which were so delicate but suited the ladies with ultimate precision. That was the first time I also realized that I already need a telephoto lens as I could not zoom my 18-55 mm enough to capture only those crowns.
I am not a great admirer of the dances but their performance quite fine with movements similar to those in Bharatanatyam along with the melody of the Gambulan. This dance act gets the play started, after which the Barong enters. And fortunately it lasted only till the time after which I would’ve started yawning.
When we reached the main auditorium, of course the play was yet to start. But what had already started was the orchestra - the Gambulan.
Some 15-20 players in their traditional outfits had already taken their seats and were playing their instruments some of which resembled their Indian counterparts. The flower that you notice on the left ear of every player is a part of Balinese culture. They put flowers on the left ear of the guests a part of welcoming ceremony.
Although an aseembly of a little strange looking instruments, the players were good enough to create a melodious harmony out of it.
Barong dance is a very traditional play based on a story from Mahabharata. I was very impressed by the traditional stage on which this play is performed.
As you see here, keeping in mind all the necessary symmetries, elevations from the audience stand, the stage built in the stone has a very authentic touch of the Balinese culture. Even more impressive were the trees on the stage itself which had grown to full heights. Someone really thought through the design while building this open air auditorium some hundred years ago!
The character you see here is the Barong! He is a mythological character, supposed to be powerful and with magical powers. He helps Sahadeva, the youngest of the Pandavas, to defeat an evil witch.
Every nook and corner of Bali is decorated with beautiful sculptures like the ones you see in this picture. On the very first day of our stay there, our guide took us for a local play based on a story from Mahabharata. The way to the open air auditorium was adorned with nicely manicured lawn. What you see in the picture made one of the boundaries of that lush green lawn. I couldn’t resist capturing these some 300-400 years old statues neatly carved in the sand colored stones.
These sculptures are usually organized perfectly against a backdrop of light orange colored brick walls. The effect is not just pious but also endearing. If you notice carefully, even the expressions on the face of the stone dude who is meditating are perfect. Symmetry of the whole sculpture, no need to say, but was flawless.
The more I read about Bali, more convinced I was that a trip to this Indonesian island will be a memorable one. Pictures available on different portals about Bali even made me buy a digital SLR camera, something I was planning to buy for a very long time. And the best part about whole thing was it was going to be my honeymoon destination!
We landed on Denpasar airport in Bali admiring the glimpses of the greenery of this tropical island. Beautiful sight of some nice structures on both sides of the airport corridors was so refreshing that we kind of enjoyed filling out the forms to declare not being the victims of swine flue. I hoped that all of Bali would be as pretty and nice. The next few days we spent there made us endorse the fact that Bali is indeed an amazing place.
Bali is all about nature, arts, culture and history. You can experience summer, monsoon and winter in a single day at various exotic locations. Ninety five percent of Balinese are Hindus (and they don’t feel shy saying so!). The ambience everywhere, the temples, the gardens, scenic locations, the people and the things they do remind you of India in some way or the other.
I was always fascinated by pictures. Photographs, to be very specific, were always of a special interest to me. And then the tryst with my own and very first ever camera happened when I was gifted one, when I was about 10!
It's just been wonderful watching the world through the eye of the lens and trying to capture the moments. Of people, of nature, of colors and of emotions. So many things that seem so simple and ordinary, seem so magical when seen as a captured moment must later on. I can't help but smile, reliving these moments or should I say mingling with the past, sometimes...
