Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikkaalam

Deepavali day (Wed, 26-Oct-11), around 2:00 pm at the Marina beach
[Click to view at a better size]
Panorama stitch using Microsoft Image Composite Editor of 5 individual photos taken in sequence

Nice horizon contrast with the northern side being bright and blue and the southern side growling dark with grey.

But, where were the crowds?

Maybe the plethora of TV movies kept them glued, or the new film releases kept them screened, or the intermittent rains reined them in, or the festival hogging kept them in sloth!

The beach looked fine from afar, but where the waves lapped, it was definitely yuck. Junk and garbage throughout, including an animal carcass. Less of plastic though, but lots of other junk. Maybe we (the people) will learn its value only after we lose it.

Spent around 45 minutes at the beach and as we returned back home, it poured for an hour or so. Guess we were plain lucky that day!

Note: The picture resolution and hence quality is reduced as to not tax the Indian Internet. :-)

Unworded - Is it a bird or a flower?

'Bird of Paradise' flower

Gifted, she is

I watch the Airtel Super Singer 3 irregularly on Vijay TV. Yesterday and the day before, there was a guest performance by last year's Super Singer Junior winner, Alka Ajith. What a voice! Could blow the current Airtel Super Singer 3 competitors away, by a mile. She is maybe around 15 years of age and already a playback singer in Malayalam and hear her sing 'Chiragengu' from the yet to be released movie 'The Train'. Lovely and gooseflesh inducing rendition! She sang that song day before on the show and 'Thohda Thohda Malarndhadhenna' from the movie 'Indira' and a snippet of 'Udhaya Udhaya Virumbugiraen' from the movie 'Udhaya' yesterday. Mindblowingly silken voice!

God (or Nature) gifts some with extraordinary capability and Alka is one such gifted person. It is so soothing to hear her and the clarity and range in her voice are astounding.

May she be blessed always and this child is one who will definitely scale heights. Thanks Alka for those moments of divinity on hearing you sing.

Unworded - Gubbachchi

Bangalore's Paradise lost - As happy as a lark - Rare visitor at home - Wake up to chirps

Unworded - Flower Beautiful

Hanging Flowers - Clicked at Munnar

Unworded - Color contrasts

Tamizh New Year Greetings & Wishes!

 

Lavender amongst shades of green - Jacaranda blooms

Bliss

 

If this isn't bliss, what else is?

Have a peaceful weekend

Zzzz.... 

[Picture courtesy: An image on newcapriusbeanbag.com, modified with Gimp] 

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

Unworded - Plane view - Crop Circles

Surprised how the farmers find time to do the patterns as these

Shot using Nokia N73, Downsized/adjusted with Picasa 3

This picture was taken approximately half an hour later on the same flight path of where this picture was taken. This region is the bread basket of the US.

Unworded - Plane view - Peaks and valleys

Shot using Nokia N73, Downsized/adjusted with Picasa 3, Effects with PhotoFiltre

Unworded - Beautifully symmetric, but it is also a scourge

Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead

The day India stood stupefied on an attack of immense proportion that it had not seen till date, a gross violation of its' self. This day, last year was when Mumbai was punctured.

There are so many people who give their lives for the sake of the country and there are so many who do not even know what hit them and perish. Unfortunately we remember the soldiers and their families only in times of crises (like Kargil). May all the souls of the people, including the unfortunately misguided perpetrators, who died then rest in peace, so that we have a better tomorrow..

The soldiers posted into a war zone wake up each day not knowing if that day would be their last. Their families suffer, day in and out and hoping that their beloved ones are safe. I bow to you, the soldier, who places their country above everything else including near and dear family for their supreme sacrifice in times of peace and also in war. [My brother went recently on a trip to the Himalayas driving around 3000+ kms across 2 weeks on his motorbike and he states that we better worship the jawans who live in extreme conditions and a terrain so difficult that we better quit cribbing about life in the cities]

The poem below from Tennyson drips of sorrow and is based on the family of a soldier, dead, and has a very silent and poignant feel to it. There are critics of this poem who state that this reinforces female stereotypes of living for husband and children, but I see it as a moving statement of the effects of war, orphaning the near and dear.

Here it is, from an English text-book of my school days,  now long forgotten.

Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'

A poem of a lifetime from Robert Frost

One of my most favorite poems ever. Beautifully evocative, and with a hauntingness to it, like Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper. This poem was hemmed into me since middle school. I studied at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Coimbatore before moving to Mani HSS and interestingly the correspondent for both these schools at that time was Chinnaswamy Naidu, a person of wonderful elocution. He used to end each of his speeches with the last 4 lines of this poem which are just engraved into my brain. Whenever I read this poem, my eyes well up for no particular reason and which I let be.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Wordsworth - His words are worth it

There are some poems which bring a visualization of their content right before you. William Wordsworth's 'The Solitary Reaper' is one and takes you far, far away. I have always wondered and imagined what may be there when I see wisps of smoke from a house, sheep grazing in some pasture, a farmer tilling his field with oxen, a solitary tree in a vast meadow or a lake / temple far away. The feeling is more intense especially when they are far, far away.

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Ad(t)tractive

I notice her at least 3 times daily at different places daily on my drive to/from work. Very difficult to ignore and stands out (literally) from the crowd.

The woman is, needless to say, very pretty, with lovely eyes and a mild smile (Mona Lisa-esque?), gazing somewhere, casual (dress, hair) and looking mildly amused (or is it interested). The lighting is natural. Looks zero percent garish (unlike the other jewellery ads where the woman is bedecked with jewellery at every possible place in the face and torso and dancing around with all that for God's sake, Grrr.. when I see Tamanna esp. with a silly expression and not to mention the nasal twang of a song.). The only jewellery visible on her is the necklace and it isn't prominent and she actually overshadows it with her presence.

Very apt tag line "VERY RARE. VERY YOU". Hats off the ad agency that commissioned this and to the beautiful lady gracing it.