Shaadi

A dinner party being set up for a shaadi in front of my house.

Simon and Garfunkel

I am thankful to them for their meaningful songs.

Birdwatching

Its Saturday and the Delhi clouds have kept me with a promise of rain. Well, it hasn't rained yet. Though, saw a few birds on trees in front of my balcony. Don't know the name of the species it belongs to. But, they were worth a few shots.

The midnight sketch.

Last night, the power went off at midnight. The breeze was nice

and I drew the view from my balcony. Hope the breeze stays for a few days.

Dust.

With some luxury of time, you picked up the borrowed book of your friend. Something thick was floating between your finger and the fat book. You stare at your finger and the brown of your skin appears tanned, it’s the dust. You rush to the window, slide your silk curtains. The light coming through shows the shadow play of the minute dust particles dancing with their partners. It’s a dust storm breathing outside and you; you are just a minor storehouse. You push the curtains back on your view and now look back at your room. You realize the objects have put on weight. The dust piled on intoxicates them. You try to find some space in the maze of left over dish from past month, books you never returned to the rightful owners, remotes of many gadgets that you have rented, newspaper that you flipped through and then ate on them, the excreta of your cat that left you without asking for a gentle caress, the clothes that you bought in offseason and then left them to wait for the right season, the beer cans squished, the wine bottle rolling, the cigarette butt charred, the shoes and chappals mismatched with your gifted stench, the posters that fell down when you stopped looking at them. Yes, you had stopped looking at them for inspiration. And, the mirror too had stopped telling the truth; it had slept with the blankets of dust. After the calculated steps put through the beautiful creation of yours, you reach the duster, which needs dusting too. You don’t know that. You come to your mirror. You think of waking her up and run the duster on it gently. You wipe it once, twice, thrice, many times with love, care and anger then with vengeance. But, it keeps folding new and replenished layers of dust. You are sweating now; the saline water has dust floating in it. You are panting; you realize that your very first attempt is not making up for the past years. You step back and stare with half unsure thoughts at your beautiful mess. It isn’t so bad, is it? You have lived hugging the dust for so long, why clean it up now. You wipe it off and the very next blink, it is back. Smiling at you notoriously. You have done that before haven’t you? Fix the ceiling and yet it drips again. Now, your eardrums love the sound of it. You have convinced yourself to move to the couch and not pick up that dusted book again. You are back in the crouching couch in the nestled dust and know that it is not worth changing the anatomy of the things. And, your cat is not coming back. You don’t know that. Do you? Still you have left the broken window open for her. And, all that comes through is dust.

Do it with LOVE.

- Somesh Kumar

- Ojasvi Mohanty

- Saalim Sulemani

An afternoon idea for my loving Helvetica. Thanks Vaibhav for some help on the text. Dedicated to all Helvetica lovers and non lovers. Strictly for graphic design geeks. The second one is done by Ojasvi Mohanty. More sleek and stylish. If you want to do another version of it, go ahead and make one. Please mail it to me, so, that it can be showcased here.

Kushinagar

During my Gorakhpur trip, I managed to squeeze a visit to Kushinagar for few minutes. I had read about it in my Hindi course book in class IX. Since then, I had a strange wish to see this place. Finally, I was on the doorstep of Parinirvana temple where Buddha's 24' statue rests.

The monk sitting near the statue took us through the history of Buddha's journey to Kushinagar in a Guide like manner. One thing that struck me was a secret that this statue keeps. When seen from three different positions, it conveys the three stages of Gautam Buddha's life. The first one is seen from the end of the statue. This view conveys the dead expression on Buddha's face.

From this view, the face reflects a thoughtful moment. Which is the mid life stage of Buddha.

This one is the birth stage, a face with smile curling on lips.

A brief visit to the zoo.

This is from a morning visit to the Delhi Zoo. I have a 75mm lens. So, couldn't zoom really close. The Lion didn't show up and chose to sleep in the shade. The elephants waved their long trunk well as trained by the caretaker. Only the leopard cubs showed some agility in the penetrating heat. My film roll also got over by then and so did the visit with a few glimpse of alligators swimming with their nose floating on the surface.

Shyamali

This was Thursday...Friday had to wait.

Gorakhpur to Padrauna to Tamkuha

A few shots from my Gorakhpur trip. I was mostly shooting for a story but, in breaks used to click the easeful moments of Tamkuha village. You can go to my flickr link to see a few more shots from the trip. Click here.

We are the blues.

Its the first league victory for Chelsea since I started supporting them. After 3 years, the trophy is back to the Bridge. As Terry says - This is just the start.

A day with Dadi.

Went to see my Grandmom this Saturday. She just had a surgery and is recovering from the hip bone replacement. She looks tired and a bit depressed due to this. The good news is that she has started to walk a bit with the help of the walker.

Garden Lizard

Few shots of Garden Lizards wrapped around the Bel fruit tree. Shot them on my trip to Tamkuha (Bihar, West Champaran). Will upload other stuff soon.

Personality infographic

An infographic done by 'Ionz' design agency about me. Thanks Polo (pallavi manchi) for letting us know about this. You can get one for yourself too here. Go to their site - http://www.ionz.com.br/index.html

Mom

Took a day off as Mom is here. Tired from the journey, she was sleeping. I had nothing to do but sketch.

Amaltash

Walked out of my balcony and saw the Amaltash tree in its full vigour with the yellow flowers muffled around the tree. Quite a pleasant site in the morning, before the constructions around are going to envelope the city with dust.

They were waiting and so was I.

Last week, I was on the airport and on the railway

station too. I was waiting and so were the others.