Can't Get Enough

I am still obsessing. And why not. There are countless fuck-all days in general. And very few of the magical type. 

Next Steps?

A few weeks ago I was imagining about getting a new lens and wondering which one would be my next. Broadly - macro or wide angle. Today I have the opportunity of getting a good deal but I am wondering if I really need a lens. I have lately been feeling that the quality of my photographs has been going down, and therefore my motivation too. So, will it really make any sense to spend money on more expensive gear? Or will a new toy help me get the drive to click more and better pictures. 

What is to be doing?! Your free advice is solicited. 

Head Rush

Over the past one week of inertia, there were a zillion things-to-do that got lined up for attention. Among those, one of the most important was the stock of fruits that I had not replenished for two weeks. Yes, I am a proud buyer and consumer of expensive but happy, healthy fruits. There's this father-son miyan duo on F.C. Road that I often make the purchase from. Their USP? They give fruits in recycled paper carry-bags. Others, depending upon the location, either wrap them in newspapers or hand them over in those fancy brown paper bags. Yep, Pune is pretty serious about plastic bags. [And here I admit a good thing about the city! :D]
Anyway, let's not digress. Fruit shops make me happy. Bigger the shop, happier I am. No, not Reliance Fresh kinda bigger. The bigger, local ones that are nicely stocked are the ones that I am talking about. So I stand in the middle of all the fruits, and they call out to me hoping I'll take them home. Alas, there are only so many I can buy in one go. Moreover, my preference basket usually has room for only 3-4 categories. Soft pears and cheekus always make the cut. They make my tummy soooo happy!! :D Even though I love apples, I have stopped buying them because they make me unbelievably hungry and there is never a good time to do that to myself because I am hungry all the time any which way! :-/
So, today, along with pears and cheekus, I chose to buy a watermelon. I know having a watermelon is a family activity. And now that I am back to spending some more time with friends in the hostel, I decided in favour of the little watermelon. And then what happened! Senior miyan mentioned mangoes. I went berserk. Rs. 1600 for a box of mangoes. But before I could give him the look, he made me smell them. And I swear to god it was the best feeling I have had since the day I saw my mom, last! So I nicely asked him how much he would charge for one mango. He quoted Rs 150. With a lot of courage, I got to keeping that one mango down. He told me I could pay whatever I want to for it, but should take it along. But I suck at that kind of bargains. So I kept insisting that I cannot afford it as a student, and he kept lowering the price. I made a genuine bargain. He gave it to me for Rs 50. And I brought it home!!!! You know from which budget I paid for it? The one I had for the flowers I was waiting to buy for myself post the V-Day madness. But this time I happily gave up on them. Mango!!!
While having it I could smell all the summer afternoons spent at home. Thank god my mom, dad, and bro never used to be home. Today I didn't feel weird eating alone thanks to the training I got at home.

The happiness Fs of my life help keep that one degree of sanity that I can positively claim.
Family
Friends
Fuchsia
Flickr
Flowers and
Fruits

I remembered that my initial months here were very comfortable. I was detached, sane, and sorted. I stayed happy. And then lots of Fs of lots of factors effed my happiness. Of course, I will be taking full responsibility for all of them. Don't worry, I am not blaming you.
But I liked being sane, man! I liked not giving a fuck about getting too close to people. Doing it one-hundred-percent sucks! And letting them in in your zone sucks more.

Oh, by the way, remember my superhot boss from WWW? He is marrying the girl he was dating in office. I saw their pictures on Facebook and started smiling along just watching their smiles! I hope they stay blessed.

Now I will go. Just had to talk about the mango. :D


P.S. - Photography also begins with an F!

Earthly

Nothing can be defined as 'effort' if not waking up at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning. But like some efforts are totally worth every penny, or as I'd like to say, every minute of precious sleep, so was today's for me!

Daksh, my cousin, and I had planned a trip to Rajasthan for my first week in Delhi this time. But my father often plays spoilsport. And so he did this time too. So, as Sariska waits for me, a green patch en route to my current office greeted us this morning. Asola Wildlife Sanctuary was once home to a host of animals including the leopard. Today, it is said that there are more birds than anything else over there.

We did know the route, just had to ask around to find the entrance to the वन. At a check post I asked a police guy for the route, and he was surprisingly sweet enough to offer us tea too. ;-)

We reached just when the sunlight was perfect. But it took us a while to spot our first friend for the morning. Huuge peacocks, lots of deer, white camels, pretty butterflies, some animals whose names I did not know, and unfortunately very few birds - they were all there!
Moreover, I had good company in human form too.

His father was nice enough to let him take his car on his 22nd birthday! :D

Poor guys were scared!

And I was super-excited! Not because of the thorns and wild twigs in my jeans though. :|

I read somewhere that Pune also has a little wildlife sanctuary. I'll have to check on that soon. But a good, bigger national park can't be kept waiting for too long. The itch is getting too much!

P.S. - Every morning should be like a Sunday morning for Mathura Road and the B.R.T. corridor. The drive was dreamy!

On Guru Nanak's Birthday...

I...


went to...


with...


to capture some absolutely typical stuff like...


and had lots of fun! :-)

Fuchsia

:-)

Before I forget

An account of what happened last evening has to be registered before I forget the details.

Daksh, my cousin, and I had gone to Old Fort for a shoot last time I was in Delhi. Had had a lot of fun as well. Then, during my second term in college, I saw some pictures he had uploaded on Facebook, which is when we decided that we'd go for another shoot when I am in Delhi during summers. But these engineering students have way too many exams in life which last for way too many weeks. Therefore, by the time we found time to execute our plan, I didn't have much time left. So, on Monday night we decided on a place and figured that we'd have to do it after my work on one of my last few weekdays here. This meant I'd have to run from work to get some decent shots while there's still some daylight left.

Wednesday afternoon: raining like it's monsoons.
Wednesday late afternoon: no signs of the sun.
Wednesday evening: asked to stay back at work a little longer.

And then I ran. Daksh was waiting for me at my place. We had planned to take a trip on the local trains in Delhi. It would have been double fun 'coz neither of us had been on one of those ever before, and of course, for the few pictures we hoped to manage on the same.

We thought of taking the train from Sarojini Nagar towards Rail Museum and beyond, but when we reached the ticket counter, we were informed that the last train on that route had already left. We were a little surprised to hear that 'coz it was still only 7:15 p.m. So we asked the lady if there was any train going in the other direction some time soon. She figured we just wanted a ride on the train. So gave us a ticket from SN to Nizamuddin.

The Sarojini Nagar Station

2 bucks each. We were highly amused to see such a low fare. The minimum fare even on a local bus is 3 bucks. Anyway. We took our ticket and walked the foot-over bridge to the platform on the other side. Waited for a couple of minutes for the train... and there it was!!! I was excited as ever when it comes to trains approaching a platform. I think this last one was an incorrect sentence.

Sadly, the light had dimmed too much for me to get any good shots. Managed just about a handful of so-so frames, and concentrated on enjoying my little ride through the city. :)














We passed by Sewa Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, etc to reach Hazrat Nizamuddin in about 15 minutes, I think. Certainly didn't take more time than that.

Daksh

Uncle on the train

Since Nizamuddin is a big station with long-distance trains going through it, the number of people there were also obviously that many more. I clicked around a bit before we decided to leave. The auto took 41 bucks back to my place. It was hilarious thinking we paid 20 bucks to get to the first station, 4 bucks for our ride, and then a relatively massive 41 to get back. :D

At Nizamuddin Station

An exit that we almost took before deciding to roam about at the station for a little longer


At Nizamuddin Station

Doggu :)

All the stuff (other than Vodafone) that I could not comprehend or read without my glasses

I'm Tired

Expression. Inexpressive. Snap. Draw a line. Discomfort. Surrender. Hold on. Let go. Distance.

__

One thing that I really appreciate about a lot of people around me is the fact that they appreciate my being honest with them. I realise that I end up being too blunt at times, but they understand. They're quite nice. :)
And people who don't know me find me to be the meanest thing around even when I do not intend to be mean. Prices.

__

I think I will buy a macro lens soon. It's a superbly exciting thought. The exclamation mark-deserving thought. :D

__

Four more exams to go. Lots of packing to do. Four big submissions to make. A trip to Chandigarh. And joining at work. I am hoping post the 20th of this month I will get to breathe a little.

Visual Peace

I went back to the world of Flickr after really long today. It's slowly begun... I'm going back into the world that was only mine. I gave it up for things that I prioritised over it. No qualms about anything, but I think this will make me happy.
As far as this night is concerned, I can't be more thankful for the photographic existence of some people I know from Flickr - Apurva, Ashwin, Sarika, and a few more. In fact, Apurva and Ashwin are two people that I really respect for the work that they do and their understanding of light. They're incredibly talented. And Sarika? She's my queen of abstract. I've never seen anyone do better abstract work than her. Their photographs are delightful to say the least.

The peace that was floating around keeps wandering away too. But I can just be thankful that it decides to come home as well. :)


Subhadip, you're part of the larger peace process too. Thanks.

This is what happened...

People I hang out with had all made separate plans for the holidays. I tried real hard to get any person I met on Sunday to come with me to a place other than Goa. I called Subhadip and did a lot of crying and cribbing. Sat with a long face at the dinner table, and tossed between making a boring trip to Mumbai and an adventure trip to some place nice alone. That's when Priyam came into the picture.

At 1o:00 pm, we had some 2o tabs open with Maharashtra all over them. And it was midnight by the time we decided that it was going to be Ajanta and Ellora. So we immediately booked a cab for 5:00 am from campus to be able to take the 6:00 am bus from Shivaji Nagar in the city to Aurangabad which is the closest station to both Ajanta and Ellora.
Cameras out, packing done, shoes on, and we were off campus by 5:10 am. We sped and as luck would have it... the first bus coming out of the depot was going to Aurangabad. We boarded it and managed to get only the last seat which did bust our asses during the five hour journey. It was 5:45 am when we started, the bus took one stop at Ahmednagar for 15 minutes, and dropped us at our destination at 10:30 am - bang on schedule. It was an MSRTC bus, the near-equivalent of the Haryana Roadways buses of the north, only with slightly more comfortable seats. The ticket was for Rs 195, and somehow I felt that was a little too much for a state bus. Anyway.

Ahmednagar bus depot

We made our first mistake at Aurangabad - taking a local bus to Ellora. The distance was less than 20 kms, and it took a little more than 1.5 hours to get there. It was certainly cheap at Rs 17 per person, but if you want to save yourself an incredibly slow and dusty journey, take a shared auto from outside the bus depot at Aurangabad. I'm not sure about how much that would cost, but I am sure it would save a lot of energy.

The local bus from Aurangabad to Ellora

At Ellora, there are a couple of dhabas and a small market outside the caves. We fed ourselves with some good, filling food there. Next decision that was to be made was for our stay. It's tricky business - Ajanta is 104 kms from Ellora, and almost the same distance from Aurangabad too. So we thought that the obvious and better decision is to spend the night at Ellora, and move further the next morning. But what most tourists do is go back to Aurangabad the same evening, spend the night there, and move to Ajanta from there. The reasons? There are more options to stay in Aurangabad, and you get direct buses to Ajanta from there. Yea, we did not know about the bus thing until we had checked into our hotel at Ellora. One either goes back to Aurangabad from Ellora to catch a bus to Ajanta, or changes buses at 3 different stops if they want to go directly.

Our hotel

Let's go to the caves first, and then I'll tell you what we finally did the next morning.


Entry ticket was the standard Rs 10 as at all other protected monuments. If you're the bottled water kind of person, carry your bottles with you because inside there are only two canteens where you will get it. It is 'only two' because it is a large area that the caves cover and canteens are not that close. But there are drinking water taps available outside almost every cave.

Underground water

Ellora has 34 Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves. The first one that you see after entering is the largest Hindu cave called Kailasa. It is massive, and it is extremely beautiful. We spent about one hour inside. Well, that's largely because we were kinda tired after a night where we did not sleep & a journey which was kinda long, and the crrazy heat. Even so, the cave is worth spending all that time in. There is a small shivling where people offer prayers inside the cave. I thanked the caretaker there when he helped me with light for a photograph, and he replied with a 'gracias'. Way too many foreign tourists. :)

Kailasa

View from top (Kailasa)

The little shivling inside cave 16

We spent about five hours in there, but did not really go inside each of the 34 caves. We'd enter one cave, sit there for looong and chat and click, and then make the effort to climb up another cave. Yea, for people who do not have ANY stamina, and are already tired, it can be an uphill task. But, it is Ajanta where stamina really comes into play.




After about 2.5 hours of moving around, we needed to refuel ourselves. So we had lots of water and a yumm aloo parantha at the canteen. The main entrance divides the caves into two sides, with number 16 in the middle. So, our second round of walking was to the left of # 16. There are a lot of autos that will offer to show you around because I'm guessing there are many people who are not too fond of walking. So these autos help you move around, take you to the important caves, and bring you back to the exit in one piece. We got many such offers in the second half because the walk to that side is longer and is on steep roads. But the boots were meant for walking, and walking we did. When it looked like the sun was beginning to take it easy, a new found energy took over me and I wanted to climb to the top of the rocks to see the setting sun. So I pushed the other two as well, and we climbed & climbed to settle at a decent viewing point. It had been only five minutes that two shady men came up as well. They had some foreign friends either waiting for them or waiting to be discovered by them. It looked like extremely shady business and we almost thought we'd surely get stabbed or something if we even looked their way. This killed the little joy we could have derived from the sunset which was average when compared to the sunset at Lavale, and we were just relieved to move out of there. Those guys also walked back with us, offered us a ride in their car, and had a weird english with accent for men who we thought would not even be educated.

They will come back next morning...

At the canteen

Dinner at another dhaba in the market. They served parathas which reminded of home

The place had no computer and I had only 1 GB of memory, so I ended up deleting some pictures to make space for the next day. Our neighbours in the hotel were a single German lady, and two men from Switzerland. All of us had plans of going to Ajanta the next morning, so the manager suggested we share a cab instead of the looong bus drama I mentioned earlier. It sounded convenient, would have only saved us some money, so we all agreed.

The next morning, all dhabas outside were shut because Ellora caves are closed on Tuesdays. So we had to have the relatively more expensive breakfast inside the hotel. And while we were at it, we saw the same shady men (who had also offered us a ride to Ajanta when we walked out looking for breakfast) come into the hotel compound with their car. They were talking to the manager, and we knew that was the car that the manager had arranged for us. We died. The three of us really lost it. But we were a lucky bunch and we were six of us who could not have fit into his Ikon or whatever that car was. Our prayers worked, and he did not drive the replacement auto which we got. The manager made money out of offering a car and ultimately sending us in an auto, but we were only too glad.

It took two hours to get to Ajanta. There are shuttle buses from where outside vehicles drop you to the caves. Rs 7 for non AC, and we were on board an MTDC bus. With us was a bunch of school kids. They helped me expererience the most embarrassing public moment of my life. We'd bought hats outside the caves because the sun was killing us. I had my sunglasses on anyway. AND my camera was in my hands (unlike Priyam's who decided to keep it in until we reached the caves). So, I could not have looked more tourist-y, and the kids thought that I'd also come from some foreign land. They all thronged to see me, made jokes about me, tried asking me 'what is your name' in a way that they thought should be comprehendable for me, laughed their wits off when they heard me talk in Hindi, and kept staring at me and my camera with non-stop giggles. I would have loved to click them as well, but they were so many of them that I was afraid of being killed in the process.


We took a guide in the caves because otherwise there were only paintings and paintings on the walls and we had no clue what they meant. In a big group, it came to Rs100 per head for us. Guide uncle was too keen on making us hear every word that he uttered, and he almost scolded me once when I was too busy clicking. I gave him a dirty look which he conveniently ignored, but then I ignored him too. Hmph.

The Ajanta caves

Lord Buddha

Painting of a thousand Buddhas

Lord Buddha in his avatar as a white elephant - offering one of his 6 tusks for the queen's ornaments

After the guided tour, we'd just rested our feet when we got talking to Anders, a researcher and lecturer from Denmark. His area of interest? Travel and tourism. He does research on backpackers across the globe, and also on the business impact of guide books that they use. Very interesting to talk to, and quite a funny man... he was nice enough to pay for our lunch at the MTDC restaurant as well.

At around 4:00 pm, we left Ajanta for Aurangabad. We wanted to reach the city and find an internet cafe so that we could plan our next move. It was another 2-hour ride (this time we chose a private bus over a local one) to Aurangabad. There we did find an internet cafe, browsed for an hour, looked at several destinations and finally came down to Srivardhan, a virgin beach about 200 kms from Pune. But when we got to looking for a bus that would drive us through the night to Srivardhan, we got to know that the travel agents had not even heard of the place. We were offered a cab, and that was the nth time in the recent past that I realised how painful it can be to be a woman in this mean world. Again, it was unsafe for the three women who were "alone" together, and they had no option but to eat and head back home.

We missed the Daulatabad Fort which is en route Aurangabad to Ellora because we did that journey only once and if we'd stopped over, we'd have missed Ellora caves which are shut on Tuesdays. Also, it was tooo hot to bother after that. We also missed the Bibi ka Maqbara which is better known as the 'Unknown Taj Mahal' in Aurangabad. This, because we used Aurangabad only to switch buses. And we did not want to spend another night there only for the Maqbara. But I guess we were happy with whatever we did manage to see as well.
One more thing that we missed and should probably not have was the Grishneshwar Jyotir Linga which is one of the 12 shrines of lord Shiva in India. Mom believes in him, I should have gone. It was close to our hotel, but we never woke up in time to visit and leave with the rest of the people on time as well.

Took the 8:30 pm bus to Pune. It took a little longer than the first journey, and we landed here at 1:45 am. Again, a private cab back to campus. The driver told us that Srivardhan can be done in one day from Pune. Also told us the rates. So, that's where we're heading next -- that is whenever we have enough money again. :)

The above-mentioned was not the only embarrassing moment. I was so tired and sleepy during the bus journeys that my sleep was not inducing little jerks of the head but wayward movement of the head in both directions in an area of about one meter. People say I was quite a sight. And Anders was finding it funny too. Well, I can only laugh about it too. I banged my head against the front seat, the window glass, and so on in the process, did not even sleep in peace, and entertained people too. Can anyone ask for more?

A couple of points...

# Ajanta caves are shut on Mondays. So the plan was actually working out fine.

# The area has some unique blood red guavas. We never got to buying and tasting them because we only saw them while we were on the move.

# I never thanked the makers of any shoes before this, but this time I owe it to Adidas. 5 am to 10 pm on one day, and 7 am to 2 am the next... I lived in an extremely comfortable pair of shoes.

# I walk fast. And when with a purpose, I leave people behind.

# We resolved that from now on we won't judge any person on the streets digging his/her nose. You CAN reach a point where you can feel dust on and inside every part of your body.

# The trip cost us about Rs 1700 per head. And this includes around Rs 300 spent on private cabs we had to hire within Pune.

# Learning Marathi is an absolute must for me now. Sometimes things become very difficult without it.

The apparent origin of the Garbha dance form

Phew! I've saved some pictures for my Flickr page. See you there as well. :)
And now I shall hope for a comment from you. :P