Oiling the Rust!

Hello after a long time!
Well, lot of my friends have been asking me about my new updates at my blog. And even I have been trying to write something, but alas , I am not able to churn out anything good enough. I am finding my writing skills to be rusted, down to the position of making so much of fuss and noise but yet nothing fruitful out of it.

So here comes my debut post, sort of like an oil drop in the long rusted machine. You can ignore this! :D

And will try to update my blog atleast once a week! So keep dropping by! :-)

Tip Tip Tip Baarish

Just came back from a refreshing bath in the nature's shower :D.

It started raining some time back and I was sitting all alone in the house and wondering, what the hell am I doing? And that's it...went up to the terrace to have a good feel of the rain.

Its so long that I intentionally got drenched...And it was truly worth going up there.

Woh thandi thandi baarish ki boondein...
woh sansanaate patton ki awaaz...
woh gili farsh pe panv rakhna...
woh paani mein uchalna...
woh baadlon ka garazna...
aur woh jhoom ke gaane gaana...


Ohhh...It was so romantic...so magical...
It made me so happy...that I came down and started writing a post...after a long long time...

I wish each one of you who is reading this to have an unrestrained joy like this. :-)

Happy Monsoon to everyone!

Moral Dilemmas

Have you ever faced a situation where in you don't know which way to choose? A duvidha or dharamsankat, as called in Hindi.

For example, You are supposed to be at a contest and are the judge to find the best talent. One of your close relative is one of the contestant. There are two situations in this case. First, there is a better contestant who actually deserves the prize. You can make your relative win over him/her. The second situation is, your relative is the best. Now you start thinking that if I make my relative win, what will people think of me, that I practice favoritism. And you may deprive him/her of what he/she was worthy of. What will you do in these situations?

The above example was actually a milder version. Milder in the sense, it doesn't involve life and death. But there can be situations where a person's life or death is on stake. And you have to choose between life of someone who is close to you and life of many others. What good or what bad will you choose?

I have always had this thought in my mind, that what if I am in such a situation. God forbid, but what will I do? I still don't have a complete answer. Will I be able to think rationally and keeping my emotions behind the practical thought? Its very easy to think, when you are not under pressure. But, when in pressure, it depends on a person's mental stability and ability to think rationally and more importantly, unselfishly.

Here are few dilemmas which I found while surfing.

Of Special regard is the first one. Let me know what you think of it. Was the captain correct or was he unethical?

Weekend Spent Shooting!

I am back with my tales out of my routine life. And this time its about a weekend photography shoot (so don't misinterpret the title ;-) ).

I joined this group called Bangalore Weekend Shoots very recently. Missed out on the first weekend shoot due to some unforeseen circumstances. But was determined to join the next one. After a lot of scheduling and rescheduling my weekend, I finally got myself free for the Saturday trip to Channapatna.

The trip started with meeting of all the fellow photographers from the group at Town Hall at 6:30 a.m. (believe me I woke up at 5:30 a.m...a record for me :D). I was picked up by Vinayak, Srividya and her cousin Anu from my place at 6:15 a.m. I was already pretty nervous for the shoot and once when we reached Town Hall, my nervousness had reached new heights. Looking at people with fundu gears and equipments, I felt like the odd-man-out. And knowing my inhibitions with new people, I thought of better standing quietly at one corner of the troupe. We waited for another fellow photographer, Shreelesh, while I just tried to calm myself down. Finally, with the arrival of Shreelesh, the caravan started.

The first stop was at Kamat Lokaruchi, for a nice breakfast, after all an empty stomach will drive you crazy. After filling the stomachs, cameras came out and a few shots were taken at Kamat's. We even met another flickr member with an ultimate photo gear. I had noticed him at Town Hall as well and thought he is a part of the group, but later came to know that he was not. Anyways, he took a nice wide-angle shot of the entire group and headed his way.

From there we started towards Channapatna and with a 10 min break in the way for shooting some photos, we reached the place to find it all deserted. Then Shridhar, another fellow photographer took the lead and went in search of toy industries. He finally found one, and with a bit of searching and U-turns we finally reached the small industry. It was far away from what I had expected from my a priori background study on Channapatna.

But still everyone else seemed to be busy. So even I took my camera and started taking random shots. I was completely blank in the start, what to shoot? But, as and when I took snaps, I started finding reasons and urge to take this and that. I took some snaps in that particular workshop and then headed for another one where women were the makers of those wonderful toys. Here, the colors were more, it was more lively. But something was lacking. I didn't spend much time there and started loitering around. Thats when I saw a small door at the backside of the school in the premises. There were many kids looking intently towards me and they called me inside. That was really the best part of that day.

Those kids were so enthusiastic and full of vigor and liveliness. They were all going gaga about getting themselves photographed. I liked that smile on their face when I click a photo. Wow! it was all worth those smiles and few minutes of happiness that I could give them. Looking at their ecstatic faces, even their teacher didn't mind my intrusion and was most welcoming. I took a series of shots and had a nice chat with the kids. With an intention of not disturbing them much I reluctantly left the place.

Next in line was Dilip Kumar, The Horse. He was getting too nervous modeling for two photographers shooting at him from two different sides..hehehe. Meanwhile, I had sort of made a friend their in little Irfan. He lead me to his house, though he was so shy that he hid himself. Had a small chat with her elder sister about the life and education in their place. I always feel I am over-blessed after talking to such people. I just can just hope for them!

Well, I know its getting too long...but believe me the day was too long. Anyways, from Channapatna we headed back to Kamat. Took some refuge, water, buttermilk and Sugarcane Juice to refill ourselves. And then headed for Big Banyan tree. Though mistakenly, we reached another spot, I think it was a meditation center by Swami Nityananda. We took a few snaps there and headed for the original Big Banyan Tree. Again it was a disappointment to me, from what I had imagined of the Big Banyan tree. But here again I found three kids, so eager to be photographed. They smiled and giggled and posed like whatever I asked them of. It was good. From there we parted our ways and left for our respective destinations.

All in all, the day was amazing, far from expected, but then always the uncertain is more interesting and turns out to be the best. I learnt a lot of things that day. Technically, spiritually, and philosophically. I really will be looking forward to more such trips and more learning.