waking up...

I guess I have been quiet for a while.

I knew that nations won’t go to war if I stopped writing. Heck, I thought no one cared. But what happened last week challenged all such notions of mine. I was asked 3 times, in a span of 48 hours, why I had stopped posting. And considering the fact that everyone suddenly got concerned after a span of almost 2 years, I have reasons to believe that the blog had started turning in its grave. Yes, I had decided to burry it. Now I need to dig it up, and create some magic, like Dr. Frankenstein did. And one of the three people who asked the question, happened my own dear wife, so I couldn’t just push it away. Hmm, well, you see, quite a few things happened in my life during this period. (We’ll talk about that, hold on…) So seeing this sudden spur of interest in my long-lost habit of blogging, I went back to the blog, and read it. It made me smile, several times. And then, I was convinced, I should resume writing.

So let me write about what I did last Sunday.

One of the best things that have happened to me after coming to Bangalore is BWS. BWS or Bangalore Weekend Shoots is a bunch of loonies like me, who want to make a life out of photography, (“A life”, not “a living”, there’s a considerable difference between the two, as you would notice) who consider their cameras and lenses as the most important possessions of their lives. (Contentious topic, I know… my reasoning is that you can’t consider your life-partner as something you possess!) So these guys, they get together on weekends, and shoot pictures as groups. Streets, markets, festivals, parks.. pretty much anything under the sun. So this weekend, I and a couple of guys from BWS went to a place called Shettihalli. This place has the ruins of an old church. I was out of action for nearly 4 months, so I thought, OK, come let’s shoot some church ruins and crank me up again!!! As it went, it ended up being much more than just a church-shoot.

We started early in the morning, by around 4:30, and my dear ikon was put to duty once again. She behaved impeccably during the entire trip, as usual. :) We managed to do Bangalore-Darshan for about 3 times before getting on the highway. For the un-informed, Bangalore-Darshan is what you do if you are not dead sure of your route. Bangalore-Darshan is what you do if you were chatting your way to bliss with your co-passengers in the car while unknowingly passing that free left turn. Bangalore-Darshan is what you do if there is a huge bus on your left side waiting to turn right, while you want to turn left. And Bangalore-Darshan is what you do if you find cops on the other side of the signal. We finally found our way out of the city, and were soon on the highway. I had to put all my driving skills to test while passing the huge trucks that ruled the road at that time of the day. Once we took the turn at Nelamangala to enter the NH48 which leads to Mangalore, driving was was back being enjoyable.

Before reaching Shettihalli, we stopped at two places, once near Kunigal, and again near Hassan. Okay, that doesn't make any sense, I know, so let me rephrase. Once near an old brick factory, which apparently belonged to a Mallu (wow!) and again, near a field were a man was tilling with two oxen. I was struck by the fact that how friendly the people were. After living in Bangalore, I somehow had developed this misconception that Kannadigas are not a friendly bunch of people. But as it turned out, they are much much more friendly and hospitable than my own state folks. Just so happens that Bangalore is..well, you know...depressing topic, let's leave it!
We took the turn from the Mangalore highway approaching Hassan, and suddenly, enchanting sceneries began to appear on both sides of the road. We were denied many an opportunity to shoot because of the intermittent drizzle. We kept going, fighting the deep urge to stop and jump out of the car despite the threatening rains, mentally noting down the places where we wanted to stop on our way back. We reached the church finally by around ten o clock, and all my weariness of driving so far gave way suddenly.

I dont want to try to elaborate the beauty of the place in words and ruin everything, just look at the pictures! (link provided in the end)

Weather kept playing cat and mouse game with us, and every ten minutes or so saw us running towards the shade, tucking our equipment inside our shirts. Well, if you can really call roofless walls as 'shade'! After a while, the sun peeped out for a few minutes, giving us the opportunity to click under blue skies as well. We decided to call it quits by about 1 o clock and as we were walking back, we spotted a group of women involved in planting paddy saplings. And how could we not!!! It turned out that we spent more than an hour with them, and as we stood up to leave, a small group of women and children came with food for the working women. And they asked us to have food with them. Though I was expecting it seeing the nature of people so far, I wasn't expecting them to be as persistent as they were. We tried refusing initially, but finally gave in for 2 reasons, One, they were extremely friendly and hospitable, and the offer was not just formality, they really wanted us to have food with them. And two, we were extremely hungry and none of us had any idea were the nearest restaurant was! You dont think much further when you have 'extremely' in both of the reasons! The food turned out to be good, and we collected addresses from them and left, promising to send them pictures by mail! I am sure they will be waiting for that!

And the weird thing about the entire episode was, none of us spoke very good Kannada, and they didn’t speak anything other than Kannada. At the risk of sounding platitudinous, let me surmise - When human beings connect, language is hardly a barrier.

And here are all the pictures for you:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lazystrokes/sets/72157605948634238/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Many many happy returns of the day? Maybe not!

Thus, Bejoy Babu enters into the thirtieth year of his  great struggle for existence against the elements of this planet last week. Like his very first year, he did it again in a hospital room. Talk about the ironies of life. Back then, he had a young and energetic father, who had sat hours on end admiring the red little thingy in a white wrapper (am hoping he did, most newly promoted fathers do, don't they? At least Ross Gellar of Friends did when Ben was born!). And now, 29 years later, his father was lying down weak, with tubes attached to his body, while he sat hours on end looking at him. Not admiring, but worried when his father will become alright, he will be able to go back, whether his leaves would affect his job, how the great plans of a first birthday together with his wife was spoilt etc etc. Oh 'cmon, there's no use being pretentious about it. Nobody enjoys this particular disposition. He didn't do it either, and he managed to kill time with 2 activities. 1
Read more

When it rains...

Silence.... I was almost tempted to use an adjective, but the silence contained nothing. An adjective would be most inappropriate. I try lowering the window gently, and suddenly, the world announces its existence loudly through the chaotic and sweet music of the rain. Water splashes through the top of the glass and lands on my lap, my hand and the steering. I raise the window back to its initial position. Silence again. I glanced around. I cant make out whether the other four persons in the car are asleep or awake. But for this moment, I realize, they don't exist for me. Mist gathers up in the front windsheild. I turn the a/c on, and try to concentrate hard on the road in front. The windscreen-wipers were doing the best they could in a frantic attempt to part the water gushing down to sideways. I can faintly see the dark grey of the tarmac, gently dissolving into the rain. The darkness all around comes out and reveals itself as greenery; occasionally, when a clearing is reached. Th
Read more

Puttum Kadalayum

"Puttum Kadalayum" doesn't really sound like something big enough to hinge one's career decisions upon. But it is. It was meant to be nothing more than a casual remark when Ch asked me yesterday, "Bangalore-ilo Pune -ilo poyal pinne puttum kadalem evidunnu kazhikkum??" But I know it, and he knows it too, that the Qn was a fatal setback to my plans to switch the current job for a better(?) one. I was crouching low down, ready to lift myself off, but this very innocuous sounding Qn made me sit back, and rethink. So what is it about Puttum Kadalayum? Apart from being my favourite breakfast...(I am no glutton, but this combo, with pappadam as the kinky sidekick, brings me to my knees, literally.) it represents everything good about working in TVM. There is a certain noisy chord inside me which is still chanting I should run to a metro. The fatter paychecks, the late-night discos, the cosmopolitan crowd, the rock concerts... hmm. Have you ever stuck yourself into
Read more