Vaendum - வேண்டும்

An interesting poem from Bharathi, from the collection ஞானப் பாடல்கள் (Poems of Wisdom), titled வேண்டும் [Vaendum, Need (or) Want, loosely translated]. The word வேண்டும் can be interpreted to be either a need, in a mellow sense (as in 'You need these') or as a pre-requisite requirement, in a stricter sense (as in 'You should have these').

வேண்டும்

மனதி லுறுதி வேண்டும்,
வாக்கினி லேயினிமை வேண்டும்;
நினைவு நல்லது வேண்டும்,
நெருங்கின பொருள் கைப்பட வேண்டும்;
கனவு மெய்ப்பட வேண்டும்,
கைவசமாவது விரைவில் வேண்டும்;
தனமும் இன்பமும் வேண்டும்,
தரணியிலே பெருமை வேண்டும்.
கண் திறந்திட வேண்டும்,
காரியத்தி லுறுதி வேண்டும்;
பெண் விடுதலை வேண்டும்,
பெரிய கடவுள் காக்க வேண்டும்,
மண் பயனுற வேண்டும்,
வானகமிங்கு தென்பட வேண்டும்;
உண்மை நின்றிட வேண்டும்.
ஓம் ஓம் ஓம் ஓம்.

The translation of mine is as follows. I blurred the distinction between connecting and separating clauses in the original sentences and hopefully kept the meaning intact. I have played with the dichotomy of the word Vaendum (வேண்டும்) to translate it, as some lines could be looked at in both ways.

Thou shalt

Thou shalt require
    strength of mind,
Thou shalt require
    pleasantness in words,
 Thou shalt require
    fairness of thoughts;
Thou shalt achieve
    what you set out to,
Thou shalt achieve
    what you dreamt of,
Thou shalt achieve
    ownership by agility;
Thou shalt possess
    riches and joy,
Thou shalt possess
    pride for this Earth,
Thou shalt possess
    an openness of mind;
Thou shalt value
    the belief in your work,
Thou shalt value
    the freedom of womanhood,
Thou shalt value
    the auspices of the Supreme;
Thou shalt have
    an impact [a use] on this Earth,
Thou shalt have
    a view here of the heavens,
Thou shalt have
    the truth to stand;
Om Om Om Om

The following is a rendition of this poem from the movie "Sindhu Bhairavi" by K J Yesudas in his own inimitable way. [You may need to click twice]

Intrusion

The door was securely locked and the house fairly clean. I state 'fairly' as I agree with what Sneha (or was it Srikanth?) tells in the movie 'Parthiban Kanavu' about a house needing to be a home and not a museum to be absolutely spick and span. :-D [Now I am sure to be taken care of with the ammikkal I had referred to in the travelogue :-) as already the dining table is never used for dining.]

We return back in the night after around 6 hours. Door was still securely locked. Things looked the same, that is, almost.

RamMmm: Who left these banana peels here, in the middle of the room?
La Niña: Don't know, not me.
RamMmm shrugs, moves the peels to a safe place and climbs upstairs.
RamMmm (with a slightly raised voice): Who ate bananas? Who dropped the peels on the stairs? Someone could slip
La Niña, Señora (surprised): What? No one ate any bananas.
Señora (from the kitchen): Why is the packet of salt on the floor and broken?
(Bulbs flash that it could have been an intruder...)
Señora (panic): Go, go, go see if all the doors are still locked.
RamMmm (scrambling): Yes, they are. But wait, one window is open!
Señora: All bananas are missing.
(Ha Haa, more bulbs again) 

It must have been a simian (Sherlock Holmes, ahem! me, deduces that there must have been only one because two would have caused mayhem inside the house, Two is company, isn't it?) that has sauntered in through an open window on 1st floor, pass 2 rooms, climb down the stairs to the ground floor, get into the kitchen and finish off around 10 yelakki bananas, throw the peels here and there, push a few things down and make an escape long before we were back.

Our laugh amongst all this was that El Niño's keychain that has a small rubbery banana toy attached, was targeted by the monkey as a real banana. It was ripped into two pieces and discarded. Maybe should have been there to see the face of the monkey when it bit into the rubbery banana. :-D

And now, the security threat level in the house has been raised to Orange (high risk) from Blue (guarded), [Ha Ha Ha, blame the US Dept of Homeland Security for these coloring schemes] where most of the windows and doors will be locked down before any trip out of the house, however short the duration. The next day, it was noticed that lots of Alpenliebe wrappers were strewn on the sunshades with the candy gone. Smart monkeys, there are, and they become smarter by the day, living alongside us. God save!

[There had been a burglary a few months back in our layout where the burglar(s) cleaned up almost all valuables in the house, opened the fridge, ate whatever was in there and then made good their escape while the inmates continued to sleep. :-( Another one happened in just a gap of around 2 hours in the evening when the people were out for a function. They returned to find the house vandalized and some valuables along with cash gone. This house was in the direct line of sight of the layout's security gate. And hence all the paranoia]

Travelogue - A 1900 km drive (Part deux)

The earlier portion of the travelogue can be found [here]. Be forewarned that this post is longggg. :-) All the images can be clicked to see a larger view.

The trouble with the car being over, we headed towards Kanyakumari from Madurai with a short detour at Tirumangalam for lunch. Food was okay and I noticed that the hotels there and beyond kept 'kothavarangai vaththal' (dried and salted cluster beans, roasted in oil) which I liked immensely, and snacked on it exclusively rather than as an accompaniment to food (usually with curd rice). NH-7 (or NH-44, according to the new national highway numbering plan, of numbering East-West highways with odd numbers and North-South highways with even numbers, similar to the North American way, but with numbering swapped) is a joy to drive on. 99% of the road from Bengaluru to Kanyakumari is 4-laned. I could only recollect 4 bridges where work is still in progress. All the 650 kms of it can be traversed in around 10 hours with 2 or 3 short breaks and no need to get into any town.

Windmills of the Gods!

The landscape is literally nothing to talk about beyond Madurai until you come close to Tirunelveli. Dry and harsh, with nothing but vast empty land and short shrubs, tall thorny shrubs on river and lake beds and the glaring sun came along with us as we passed Virudhunagar, Sattur, Kovilpatti and Kayathar. The landscape slowly changed near Tirunelveli (the place famed for its halwa and its traders) with some hills and lots of greenery coming up. As we drove past Tirunelveli, we saw one of the examples of a formidable alternate green energy source, wind. Well, do I call this place the Netherlands of India? Maybe! Hundreds of windmills, of all sizes and shapes, dot both sides of the highway, spinning with a whooshy sound to the breeze from the sea which was probably around 30-40 kms from there towards the east, and connected to the power grid. Now I understand where all the huge 100 feet blades which are transported in 18 wheeler trucks near Bengaluru on NH-7 are headed to. For some time, I had thought they were the wings of aircraft, but was suspicious about it since there were no ailerons or wing flaps, on those huge turbine blades.

Sunset at Kanyakumari

It was evening when we drove into Kanyakumari. Went to the Vivekananda Kendra at Vivekanandapuram, where we found a decent with no-frills accomodation, freshened up and headed for our rendezvous with the sunset at Cape Comorin. There is a sunset beach (the beach is not like the Chennai Marina, but does have a few metres of sand with rocky outcrops), around 2-3 kms west from the Gandhi Mandapam, where we watched the sun go down blazing and mellow into the Arabian Sea, standing in the water even as La Niña and El Niño were busy picking up shells of different shapes and sizes. It is always soothing being washed in the feet incessantly by the waves and the mild feeling of sinking in the sand as the the sand is washed over.

Gandhi Mandapam with the ocean and
the moon as a backdrop

Sunrise at Kanyakumari
La Niña, El Niño picking shells

The evening was spent at the Gandhi Mandapam, the Kanyakumari temple and just walking around the shops close to the shore and watching probably what may be the lights of distant ships circumnavigating Cape Comorin. Came back to Vivekananda Kendra, where the canteen has awesome tiffin (minimal choice, but great taste). Woke up early the next morning and walked to the private beach there for the sunrise watch. Waited and waited for the sun to be up and it was already day break and we were told that the sunrise would not be at the horizon because of clouds, but fairly above it. Slightly disappointed, but then we waited there till the sun was up between the clouds. The sand at this beach is different in texture and colour than the one we were in, the previous evening. Went to the Vivekananda Rock memorial on a short trip by boat and we were enveloped in the sun's blazing glory by the time we were back ashore. The contrasting colours of the seas were nice to see from the rock memorial.

From the Vivekananda Rock Memorial

Padmanabhapuram Palace - One view

We had decided to go to the famed Padmanabhapuram palace, then to Thirparappu Falls, maybe the Pechipaarai dam, the Mathur aqueduct, the famous Sucheendram temple and then head towards Madurai to be there by 8:00 PM. But what we had not reckoned with is the typical Keralaesque narrow roads all the way out of Kanyakumari towards these places. I was joking while driving towards Nagercoil about the absence of the famed Kerala Road Transport Corporation killer buses, but other forms of slow transport had their laugh at us. Had lunch at Nagercoil and was tired by the time we reached the Padmanabhapuram palace. The palace (fully constructed with wood) was very good to stroll around. I could only sigh at the Rajas who ruled the place. Opulence and vanity were their keystones probably. Wrongly took a country road (nothing, but huge potholes as a road) to go to Thirparappu Falls (most of the folks speak Malayalam only and what we understood was probably not what it was) and by the time we reached there, it sapped us of all energy. This waterfall is called an alternate Courtallam.

Thirparappu Falls - Mini Courtallam?

Skipped Pechipaarai dam and headed towards the Mathur aqueduct, which connects two hills to move water between them which was once, one of the tallest aqueducts in Asia. Spent around half an hour there amongst the greenery and headed back towards Sucheendram and the traffic on the National Highway (Trivandram to Kanyakumari) was flooded with college buses reminded me of Bengaluru. It was bad, real bad. Went to Sucheendram for a quick darshan and by the time we were on the road to Kanyakumari, it was already dark. The plan was to halt for the night at Madurai, visit the Meenakshi temple and then head to Thanjavur.

Mathur Aqueduct - The bridge goes
on and on ...

After finishing dinner again at the Vivekananda Kendra canteen, started for Madurai. We were delayed by almost 3 hours and we were still in two minds whether to stop-over at Tirunelveli for the night or head towards Madurai. Took the latter option, as it was a dual lane highway and hence night driving would be easier and it was close to midnight by the time we were in a hotel at Madurai. The next morning, had a darshan of Meenakshi Amman and Sundareswarar, and since it was Navarathri, a lot of the sannidhis were decorated pretty well. By a quirk of fate, had to make a full circumambulation of the temple in the hot sun on the Chithirai streets looking for a promised 'crystal' at Kodaikanal to El Niño, in vain. Maybe some 'punyam' at least should have accumulated. :-)

West Gopuram

Headed back post lunch to Thanjavur. Drove by for a visit of the place where I stayed with parents and siblings till I finished college. Driving before the house slowly in the college's staff quarters where we lived, elicited some curious glances from some kids going back to their homes, post school. The place was almost the same, save for the fact that a lot of families living there currently own cars which were parked in makeshift sheds or under trees where we used to play street cricket. The place abounds with trees, especially neem, and is very close to a towering wall of granite, around 100-150m high, which is a section of a hillock shaped like a elephant and at least 4 kms long. I used to tell Señora/kids that they could see peacocks as common as crows around there and yes, there they were, crowing around.

Spot the Peacock

A lot of things had changed on the main road, however. There was now a 4-lane tollway to Trichy, where there was once 2 lanes. Took a different route to Thanjavur after squabbling about the best route and reached there in the evening, possibly late by an hour, at least, due to a wrong decision. :-)

There was one tubeless tyre causing trouble from the time we were driving to Kanyakumari as there was a leaky puncture. Got that fixed at Thanjavur. There is a cascading story of this tyre causing severe trouble on a succeeding trip later (subject of another travelogue :-)). After unwinding for a day and a half (eat-sleep-watch TV-snack-do nothing routine, no questions asked, isn't that great? :-D) at Thanjavur, headed back to Bengaluru with a short detour to Srirangam, on the way, to buy a 'portable ammikkal' (அம்மிக்கல்/flat grinding stone) from shops inside the temple premises. These shops (கண்டா முண்டா சாமான் கடை :-)) sell these and a variety of kitchenry like knives, choppers and similar weapons :-), spatulas of all kinds, shapes and sizes, tawas in iron, cast iron etc, leaden vessels (rasam tastes heavenly when made in this. ஈயச்சொம்பு ரசம்) and 'once upon a time, traditional game-boards and accessories' like பல்லாங்குழி, சோழி, தாயக்கட்டை etc (pallaankuzhi-14 hole board game with shells [ಅಳಿಗುಳಿ ಮಣೆ in Kannada], sozhi-cowrie shells [ಕಾವಡೆ in Kannada], dhaayakattai for playing dhaayam-Four faced dice, usually metal, for rolling (ಪಗಡೆ ಆಡ in Kannada, ಚೌಕಾಬಾರ is a variant)). I love the sound of the shells being dropped one by one into the pallankuzhi cups and the grab of the shell collections at the end of a turn. Hmmm...La Niña and El Niño play it at times, with their own rules and end up with a fight, taunts and a huge racket.

Perumal Saevai (salutation) at Srirangam had to be from the outside as it was a Saturday and getting into the temple meant crowds and delays. Off went the chance to have scrumptious authentic Iyengar puliyogare or vadai or any prasadam from Srirangam. (Slurp! Vada Poché) Will have a go at it next time, after a proper darshanam, maybe. :-) Headed back to Bengaluru from there, uneventful, after a break at Adyar Ananda Bhavan at Salem for lunch. Home, sweet home, it was!

The car's trip odometer read 1900 km at the end. It was time well spent. And until I find time to write my next travelogue, a road trip to Jog Falls and Karwar, which was as adventurous as it can be, ciao.

Food Mélange - Data (Mis)Interpretation

Guess the day's food menu based on the following data! :-) If anyone can derive an 'acceptable for all' menu (if it does exist with this set!), they shall be awarded an MBA by this blogger.

All characters anonymized below are real and existing with the listed characteristics and under an identity protection plan. :-D

• [C] likes idli, but [D] doesn't, [A] and [B] don't care.
• [D] likes dosai and so do [B] and [C].
• Crisp dosai only for [D] and need not be so for [C].
• Toasted Bread is preferred by [D] and raw it is, for [B] and no bread for [C].
• [B], [A] and [D] like sandwiches and [C] does not.
• Cheese is loved by [B] and [D] and not [A] and to an extent [C].
• Mint chutney favoured by [C] and [B], [D] doesn't care.
• Non-hot chutney-pudi for [B] and hot molagai podi for [C] and [D] to go with idli/dosa.
• Breakfast cereals okay for [D], [A] and [B], but not for [C].
• No fruits for [D] except orange, fruits okay for [A],[C] and none for [B].
• Fruit juice is okay for [B] and [C] and to a far lower extent [D] and [A].
• Masala Dosai preferred for [B], but not for [D].
• Coconut Chutney okay for [C] and [D] and not for [B] and [A].
• [D] likes Dosa with Vaththa kuzhambu, but [B] hates Vaththa Kuzhambu.
• Snake gourd curry for all but not for [C].
• Direct roasted potato for [B] and [D] and cooked and roasted for [A].
• Ladies' finger (Okra) fine for [C] and not for [A] and [B].
• Ketchup with chapathi for [B], but never for [D] and [A].
• Upma with onions hated by [C] and okay for [D], [B] and [A].
• Rice for [A] and need not for [C] and [B].
• Avalakki (அவல்) bhath for [C], but not for [D].
• [B], [C] and [D] love noodles, but [A] does not.
• [A] can live with just curd rice, but [B] runs at the sight of it.
• [C] hates capsicum, but okay for [D] and [A].
• Pav-Bhaji anytime for [D] and [B], but not regularly for [A].
• Curds and rice, go well for [A] and not for [B].
• [C] and [A] do not hate Pizza, but [B] loves them.
• [B] and [D] love pasta, but [A] does not.
• Chapathis anytime for [B] and [A], but not for [C].

Hmm... No wonder Señora is 'very happy' in the mornings as she plans for the day. ;-)

Note - MBA is Maestro of Breakfast/Lunch Administration

Travelogue - A 1900 km drive (Part une)

Certain highlights define any visit to a place to be archived into memory. An eventless visit usually is like a fog; it lifts off after sometime and doesn't have a recall factor.

October is a time of a break in Karnataka because of the Dussehra celebrations and schools are closed for the mid-term. Decided to take off on a visit to Kodaikanal and then decide thereon, on the fly, if Kanyakumari was apt to go to, as a typical tropical depression had set in on the east coast. And so it was, and we (self, Señora, La Niña and El Niño) left over a Thursday morning, to stay there long enough to idle around without an agenda and the haste of a typical tourist.

The Thalaiyar falls (Rat tail falls) are visible in the top and centre of the montage
The water from the falls flows into the Manjalar dam visible at the bottom
Collage defined using Picasa

The drive into Kodai was uneventful with the weather playing a perfect host. The uphill climb provided a wonderful view of the Rat Tail falls (a.k.a. Thalaiyar falls, the third highest waterfall in India from a straight drop perspective, but this waterfall is practically unreachable and is a day's trek to and fro, from what I heard). This is visible at around 8 kms from the start of the ghat section. The Silver Cascade Falls, just before Kodai, was in a perfect flow. Never thought that we would get tired of seeing waterfalls, but the thrill of shouting "waterfall" ebbed in a day as almost with every other bend in Kodai, we ended up sighting one of them (some of them gushing streams and some, real waterfalls) and the unseasonal rains at that time had increased the water flow.

Clockwise from top left - Silver Cascade Falls, Bear Shola Falls, Fairy Falls,
Anju Veedu Falls (2 angles), A stream cascading off Pillar Rocks
Collage defined using Picasa.

Our hotel was around 6 kms away from Kodai overlooking a valley and the pain of the distance came to the fore only when the stomach grumbled. The restaurant was decent, but I wanted something South Indian. And then began the first of the many trips into the heart of Kodai from the hotel, and at the end of which I could drive almost blindfolded on that route (well, that happened one night, when a thick layer of fog engulfed the entire route :-)). There is a very good vegetarian restaurant, the Astoria Veg, close to the lake and on the main road in Kodai (Anna Saalai, as I recollect). South Bengalureans may have heard of Woody's vegetarian restaurant in J P Nagar on the Ring Road (adjacent to the new Bangalore Central Mall), which has branches at Kolar and Kodai. Searched in Kodai for it and drove into there at around 7:00 PM. This place is off the main road and the place was so eerily deserted (no one in the restaurant, but it was open!) and a stone façade that added the character of a haunted house, that we scooted our way back to some semblance of civilization and La Niña christened it Bhooth Bungalow. That was the end of the visit to Woody's at Kodai and further attempts to pay a visit there were shot down because of the Bhooth factor. :-)

Noticed that the town starts to sleep after around 6:00 pm when darkness sets in. This was very similar to what Bengaluru was when it was a real "pensioner's paradise". Streets go empty, the noise ebbs, the street lights glow a foggy yellow or white, you hear the crickets loud and clear, the rush of a nearby stream, maybe, and the town starts to ghost and by 9:00 PM, soundly asleep. :)

As my opening para of this post states, one highlight of the visit to Kodaikanal was the trek to the head of an almost unknown waterfall, 'Anju Veedu falls' (Five House falls), which is probably the name of a village close by. This waterfall is in Elephant Valley (Vilpatti Valley) and reached via a detour on the Kodai-Palani road towards Ganeshpuram. This falls was almost a kilometre inside the jungle, and we had to cross a stream (fed by the water from Silver Cascade, upstream) and is a place frequented by elephants. Elephants had been there a week or so back, and we were told that there weren't any explosive booby traps planted, which are used when an 'elephant watch' is on. It was hot and humid as we walked our way towards the waterfall moving through the dense foliage, wondering how the elephants manage to walk through inhospitable territory.

Anju Veedu Falls - Up, close and personal
Used Avidemux, Audacity and Free AVI MPEG FLV Video Joiner to edit the video.

The waterfall by itself, is not a huge torrent, but is of a substantial flow. The drop must be probably around 40-50 metres and falls in two different branches. It was surprising that the falls have not been prominent as they were discovered during the time of the British who built a small check-dam upstream to control the water flow towards the falls in lean season. We waded through the rushing water to a dry patch in the middle of the rock face, with water flowing on both sides and stood 2-3 feet from the roaring, vertigo inducing vertical drop, looking down at the gorge (the video above). There was absolute silence except for the roar of the falls and gurgle of the stream. Spent some time there and returned back, on the way plucking some wild oranges and limes as memoirs. Just before we crossed the stream bringing us back from the jungle, Señora and El Niño noticed that their legs had been targeted by leeches. :-) One was still active and was plucked out and salted to die a bloody death. We then returned back to Kodai.

Earlier, while in a quest to get the forest department's permission (in the middle of town) to visit a lake (Berijam Lake) in the middle of protected shola forests, our car plonked into a ditch while I was reversing blind. Had to get help from a few passers-by to "lift the car" out of the rut. It was another matter that the officials played hide-and-seek with us asking us to come hither and thither, now and later and giving wishy-washy answers and we eventually had to back out of the plan to visit the lake.

While driving around later near the lake, the car conked off and refused to start. Some minor troubleshooting. including random scraping of deposits around the battery terminal, refused to get the car started. We still had a few more places to go to, but this vehicle failure deterred us a bit. The nearest authorized service station was at Madurai and we hadn't planned to go down towards Madurai for at least a day and a half more. Hail God for small mercies that we were on undulating roads and the time-tested method of rolling the car in neutral gear and then shunting the gear to kick-start the engine worked fine. But we (rather, me :-)), being "adventourists", refused to be cowed down and visited places which would have scared an ordinary mortal with a possible vehicle starter failure (Guna caves, Dolphin's nose for example), while always looking for a place with a downhill gradient to park and then doing the rolling maneuver to start.

The downhill drive to the plains seemingly took a longer time than the uphill climb, though we started off in the morning. Maybe our enthusiasm had waned or we were sapped of energy. Breezed our way to Madurai to check what caused the vehicle startup failure. It wasn't a starter failure, after all, but a corroded battery terminal, which led to improper circuit closure, and was replaced in a jiffy with a drain of around 500 bucks (we had anticipated 10 times more). Due to incomplete directions, we had gotten into Madurai city, when we could have bypassed as the service centre was right on the highway just beyond Madurai on NH-7, costing us around 1.5 hours with potholed roads and crawling traffic. Going into Madurai allowed me to show the kids, where my parents resided and the college where I studied. The city almost looks the same, save for the changes induced by growth (and maybe M K Azhagiri), but most of the landmarks I was used to, remain. As for the weather; I don't know how I managed there for around 8 years. Scorching!!!

Bins of interest

La Niña and El Niño had a whale of a time in Kodai and Madurai counting and photo-snapping, of all things, large garbage bins. There seemed to be lots of those everywhere. I haven't seen even one in Bengaluru, and the garbage is strewn all over, in many places. :-( Maybe something for BBMP to learn from there. :-)

And we then started off towards Kanyakumari, as the weather-gods graciously permitted, by having the depression weaken and cross the coast, well ahead of our rendezvous with Cape Comorin. :-)

(Rest in a sequel post...)

Hail Haile

The word marathon conjures up, for me, endurance runners from Ethiopia or Kenya, slim and athletic, running alone or in a pack of 3 or 4 with their arms close to their chest, their teeth grit, faces grim with concentration and determination, looking for glory in what was one of the earliest Olympiad athletic games. For whatever little I tracked of marathons or long distance running, Haile Gebrselassie, from Ethiopia, remained the most in the limelight. I don't recollect how and where my introduction to him was, maybe at some TV telecast of Olympics, in all probability. I liked the name the first time I heard it, and it sounded rhythmic and with a nice trail and tongue rolls, and so I liked the man himself. :-D

Image courtesy: Wikipedia page on
Haile Gebrselassie

In any of the marathons that I watched on TV, I used to look out for Gebrselassie and track him. It is a sport by itself, watching marathons, as the crowd at the start slowly sieves itself into multiple groups, as the lead pack slowly splits, the short sprints towards the finish, the looks over the shoulders, the pain of cramps visible on their faces. They even seem to have team strategies in marathons, like cycling, having pacers for the lead runners and study the routes to make the best out of it. Whatever it was, Gebrselassie broke record after record and that is what stands (or should it be 'runs') behind him.

Now that he has announced his retirement from active running, 'Hail Haile Gebrselassie', who has been an inspiration to thousands in the world, and to a small extent, to me as well, when I used to jog, some time (or was it a long time!) back. Hmmm. Now I have become lazy to even walk in the mornings, these days.

Unworded - As fresh as dew

ரோஜாக்களில் பன்னீர்த்துளி; வழிகின்றதேன் அது என்ன தேன்
One is obvious, Guess the other (the stalk is a giveaway)?
Imaged with a Nokia N73 in macro mode and composited using Gimp