[Photo-Blog]~Of a Mare and Multiplicity!!! :)

I’ve been short of words off late. Call it the lack of time, the busy at work or the simply plain-n-lazy – I haven’t been able to write and publish a single post here for like over a month now. So here I am posting two pics, just to feel satisfied that my blog isn’t all that dormant!! 🙂

Pic #1: This shot of a horse mare was clicked at Rameswaram, South Tamil Nadu.

Pic #2: Tried this photography technique called ‘Multiplicity’. It required a lot of patience though, for both the model in Su and the photographer in me!! 😀

 

[PhotoVerse]~A November to Remember…

Hand in hand, One step at a time…
Around the sacred flame, in an imaginary line…

A long way to go, of what started this November…
A companion so lovely and a walk to remember…

Photographed by: My Sis
Camera: My Nikon D5000
Post processing: By me using Picasa 3.0
Shot on: November 14 2010

 

[Love Call][Photo-blog]~ Caw Caw :)

Standing on the balcony, as I was sipping on my early good morning coffee around 1pm last Sunday…I saw this crow perched on the window slab of the opposite building, calling out “caw caw” loudly.

I didn’t realize it to be the “love call”…and in no time, did another crow (presumably male, by its behavior towards me) come to join its partner (presumably female, cos the other one I reasoned out to be a male 😛 ).

The male was looking at me as if I would run away with his muse…huh…while the female (I was as much tired of its caw-caw, as it must have been “caw-caw-ing”) was whispering something to it.

And suddenly, not bothering about who was watching – THEY DID THIS!! I clicked, and ran inside to instead watch some decent Rakhi Sawant show on TV!! hmm…

NOTE: No Crows nor their sentiments were hurt in the process.

 

[Pic-Blog]~Once upon a Pirate…Capsicum & Hara Murgh! :)

Sincere apologies for freaking you all out with the photo in the previous post…Rakhi was still ok, but the guy next to her stood and stared like there was no tomorrow…Pls make a note that “It wasn’t me”!! 🙂
This time round, the post has some pleasant tummy and taste-bud tickling pics. 😀

Over the weekend, had been to this new restaurant called “Once upon a Pirate” on the Bessy beach road…in Chennai.

About the restaurant…in short:
Ambience: 3/5    Decoration: 4/5    Food: 4/5
Quantity: 3/5    Quality: 4/5    Service: 3/5
Price: 3/5 (high for the quantity)

Points to remember:
1) If you are planning to visit the place, have time at your disposal.
2) When you order, say it out loud and clear…
3) The lady waitress who brings the soup and finger bowls is one and the same. See what is being laid down in front of you. If she brings soup bowls for the second time round, be polite and say “It isn’t our order, can we have the rest of the order pls?”
4) The table napkin is to be returned back (I almost escaped with it, unknowingly…ok, I thought err…chalo, chodo!) 🙂

Note: Cognizant Employees were given discount, on informing them prior to Billing! 🙂

HeRe ArE tHe PiCs:

For the starters, we had the Chilli Paneer – The pieces of Green Capsicum were “cornered” in the dish! 🙂

Moving on to the main green dish – This is the Haraa Murgh (Green Chick-en) 😀 Don’t ask me “Where is the Chicken??” Its dead, cooked and settled at the bottom of the green gravy! 😛

 

And it rained…

It rained in Chennai on April 30th evening, much to all our astonishment and relief. I couldn’t enjoy the rain in peace, as I was on my way home – to Bangalore. 😀

But then I did enjoy getting dirty..some heavy vehicle splashed the water logged on the road while I myself walked into some slush and had some fun (its a different story that there’s wasn’t any other way to get out off there!!) 😀

Awaiting more rains… 🙂

A ‘cricket’ visited my home as the IPL matches were going on..was it a sign of the ‘rains’ being on the way!! 🙂

 

Photo Walk @ the Marina Beach, Chennai! :)

I did something for the first time today, and felt good about it. 😀

“What are you doing here man, at this hour?” I asked my roommate, as he stood right next to where I was sleeping. (psst…I am not afraid of ghost, so wasn’t startled.)
The time was 3:45am today morning.
“Are you coming for a walk? I’m not feeling sleepy” he said as put his shirt on.
“Hell no..I’ve to wake up anyways at 4:30…you carry on” I said and shoo-ed him away.
But then, I just couldn’t get back to sleep. So I got up, took bath and was on my way to the Marina beach – by 5am.

I was going to attend my first photo walk. Armed with my Canon XIUS 80 (it’s a point n shoot…a basic camera…n for an update, recently its LCD display had a cross sectional crack too…) I reached the venue – Gandhi statue at the Marina Beach, Chennai – much earlier than any of the other folks did. For starters, this photo walk by initiated by my company’s photography community. Some of the pics I took, can be found below 🙂

We walked for about 90 mins before the heat (April is hotter and May is hottest in Chennai, rest of the months its hot 😛 ) started taking its toll on us. We reached back to the starting point, onboard a MTC (its a high class local bus, and am not kidding) to collect our parked vehicles. Overall it was fun…do try for sure, if you get a chance anytime! 🙂

This was shot at around 5:45am…when the sun was just about to awake the world this side.

The Gandhi Statue – in close up – with crows sitting (and doing what not) on it!!

The first rays reaching out to us…

The setting up for a close-in shot! 🙂

The boats come back to the shore at sunrise, after a late night or an early morning round of fishing!! 🙂

Listening to music, watching the sun rise…

A group of athletes at their warm-ups…

The patrolling cops on their horses…

This puppy was cute..readily gave poses to our cameras! 🙂

Some of us, walking the talk…in between the shots! 🙂

This was the scene at 8am…it seemed like 12 noon, with the sun almost right above our head and radiating hot waves!

We departed after a round of breakfast…and I was back home by 9 30am! 🙂 Loved the experience! 🙂

 

[Blog-Ads]~ Do get down to Blogging! :)

A few Blog-Ads…which I did, just for fun with animals…also with the intention of motivating pure readers/commenters to get-set-go with blogging on their own!! 🙂

Let me know how they are!! 🙂

Personal Blogs:

Photography Blogs:

Group Blogs:

 

[Photo-Blog]~Love: Dawg-ie style!! ;)

The days were numbered. The contest was coming to an end. The mind had some ideas but since the search for models (male and female – human, of course) proved unsuccessful, I decided it was high time for some click-flick-bang-bang action with whatever I could lay my hands on. 😉

This was my entry to February 2010 Contest – Love – conducted by the Photography community at my office (on the internal blogs)!! – The title of the post was different and decent though!! 😛

Love is always not lovey-dovey…There are various stages a couple goes through….I’ve titled the pics, based on the stages which I could picturize with the pics I took!!
It is the pictures that I clicked first, and then thought about the different stages. So no confusion as to which came first (chicken or egg, likes! 😉 ). 😛

Consider that the guy in this story is a friend of mine. Lets say his name is Dalapathi Wanchuk Gunnu (in short and with love,  DAWG) and this is his story!!! 😛

1. Attraction: Dawg sees a gal (as usual 😛 ) standing close by…his eyes zoom in as she slowly zooms out of sight…he taps my shoulders, says he’s attracted to her…even makes the mistake of calling it love-at-first-sight. What the, sight!!

2. Interaction: Being kind enough, say I introduce her to Dawg. Dawg wanting some quality time to interact with her, signals me to get lost. I silently leave the place wondering (read: cursing 😛 ), if Dawg would have been a better policeman rather than an IT professional.

3. Seduction: Dawg seems to be a changed man nowadays. He wears the best of clothes, tucks his shirt, polishes his shoes and even gels his hair. Surprising of them all – not only does he apply (loads of) deodarant, but he takes a daily bath too. He only talks about her with me. She is like this, like that…she likes this, that…et al…I remember reading somewhere that “Barking Dawgs, Seldom Bite”…whatever it is, Dawg is a changed person.

4. Affection/Action: Dawg doesn’t tell me about what all happened in this stage. He’s such a Dawg. Hmmph!!

 

(Lap-top? 😉 )

Disclaimer: No Dawg’s were ridiculed or killed during the making of this post. Only a juicy tomato was sacrificed! 😉

 

[Travelogue]~The DNIT – 5 (New Delhi)! :)

As we packed our bags past midnight we knew we had not much time to sleep. The Gareeb Rath (Poor man’s chariot) to New Delhi was scheduled to leave Amritsar sharp at 4:50 am!! Even then, we slept keeping a series of alarm every 15 mins with the first one set at 3 am. We were finally all up by 3:30 and reached the railway station by 4:15am right on time to dump our luggage (which was now 14 in number) into the coach and get a cup of chai.

As the train started on time, I dunno what others did cos I had already climbed up to the upper berth and gone to continue from where I had left…sleeeep… 😀

Btw, if you haven’t read the previous two posts in this series you can read them HERE!!

Left Amritsar: 26th Dec’09 4:50am – Gareeb Rath
Reached New Delhi: 26th Dec’09 11:30am
Weather: Cool (8-10 deg) but having got used to the chill weather for the last 7-8 days, we found it warm!! 😉

The accomodation at Delhi was free of cost, courtesy the company of my friend’s dad…and the 3-BHK guest house was located in South Delhi at Greater Kailash-II.
It is at this place, where we got to see why someone’s called “stinking rich”!! If not every house, 99% of the houses had a minimum of 3 cars with the least priced one being a Mercedes…else it was either a BMW or Bentley or Audi…we heaved a sigh of a relief when we got to see a Santro parked…Btw, we roamed around that locality in a black n yellow painted Ambassador!! 😉

On to the pics,

By the time we reached to see Qutub Minar, it was already late evening.

The entire area where the Qutub Minar stands was lit here and there in various colors, which gave the whole area a very semi-vibrant look!!

On the second day, we went to the Humayum’s tomb which is an area that’s now under the Archaeological society of India and was very well maintained…

Inside Humayum’s tomb – Under one of this, lies Humayum…not sure which one…didnt find any board in English/Hindi…

Humayum would have been a man who loved his barber (no, not that way)…his barber’s tomb is also a huge dome structure in the same compound…The above is the writing in Arabic (or is that Urdu) over Humayum’s barber’s tomb.

Before going to the Lotus Temple, we had been to the Akshardham Temple….It was breath-takingly beautiful but no photography is allowed inside the temple…and nothing much is seen from the outside…
Lotus Temple is a place of worship of the Baha’is. Beautiful and peaceful.

This Birdy – the king of the skies – was shot at the Lotus Temple while it had perched on one of the huge focus lights!! 🙂

And finally as our journey came to an end, we closed it off with visit to the India Gate – a memorial to the lost lives of our soldiers.

Thank you one and all.  With this post, ends the series of travelogue of my DNIT!! 🙂 

 

[Travelogue]~The DNIT – 4 (Amritsar)! :)

We were looking forward to our touching base at Amritsar…mainly for two reasons…one, the Golden Temple and two, the cold weather which was expected to be around zero degree centigrade.

Since we were not able to get our tickets booked in 3AC, we took the risk of booking in sleeper class for the night journey to Amritsar from Haridwar. Thankfully, Haridwar was a starting point for the train and so the compartments were clean. And this time, the windows closed with very minimum air gap.

Btw, if you haven’t read the previous two posts in this series you can read them HERE!! 😀

Left Haridwar: 24th Dec’09 9:40pm
Reached Amritsar: 25th Dec’09 8:30am
Weather: COLD!! It was around 2-3 degrees when we reached and went max low upto -1 deg. 😀

We had booked a hotel…through my friend’s dad…it kinda happened to be a star hotel but then the rates surprised us. 🙂 It was 2-3 kms from the Golden Temple to which autos plyed us to and fro for 50 bucks one way.
Though we didnt find the authentic roadside dhaba, we managed to have lunch and dinner in the dhaba’s – with glass full of lassi’s ofcourse!! 😛

Chalo, moving to the pics. 🙂

We first went to the Jallianwala Bhag (then a park, now a memorial) which is like 300-400 mts away from the Golden Temple. This was where thousands of Indians were shot at, on the orders of General Dyer in the year 1919. The above pic is of a painting on display in the small museum at the memorial.

This structure is a memorial built later, remembering all the lives that were lost on that fateful evening.

There is also Amar Jyothi, a flame lit at the memorial…

We went to the Golden Temple twice altogether….this one was shot in the morning…though its bright, the temperature wasn’t more than 4 degree celsius. The insides of the temple, was heavenly and peaceful inspite of a huge crowd. We are supposed to cover our hair/head when we enter the temple area…

The Temple pond, had huge and beautiful fishes…in the above pic, you can see one of our catch!! 😉

We started off to Wagah (Indo-Pak) Border around 3pm (which was late…if you are going, pls start by 2pm atleast) and reached there by 3:45pm only to find a huge crowd that had reached well before us. You can see the Indian gate with a soldier at the top…this shot was taken past 5:30pm – Flag has been lowered and taken off the pole, if you observe.

You can see the crowd….I took this pic standing on a arch…far off is the Pakistani Gate..We were about 2000+ people on our side of the border while there were hardly 300-400 people on the other side!!

This was taken by my friend…You can see me standing/hanging on the arch to get a better view!! 😉

We got to witness the crossing of the Lahore bounded bus from Delhi…There were happy cheers and local whistles as the bus crossed into Pakistani territory. 😀

On return back from the Wagah Border, we went back again to the Golden Temple…to enjoy its glory in darkness!! 🙂 You can see me all bloated….I was in 5 layers of clothing!! 🙂

Well to bore you guys, there’s me again….which one? Take your pick!! 😛

We stayed at the Golden Temple till about 11pm before returning back to the hotel as we had to catch an early morning train to Delhi…more on that, in the last post of this series (I know I know…at last!! 😛 )!! 😀