Category: Photo Challenge

For Susan’s Macro Moments challenge Week 3

Sorry no idea about lens and other stuff – just a simple phone camera 🙂

Quite unafraid as I clicked her – or perhaps frozen with fear? She does have a wild look in her eye doesn’t she?

Have a grand weekend 🙂

 

Hello to everybody and welcome to another round of Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. This week’s theme is Bridges. For this challenge, I have chosen two remarkable bridges – one that is built and the other grown. Don’t quite get what I mean? Dive in Scroll down.

Øresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark. Pic taken from the Swedish side.

Øresund Bridge, an engineering marvel,  is the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge for both road and railway. The bridge connects the Swedish city Malmo to Copenhagen the capital of Denmark. Running across the Øresund strait, the bridge, consists of 3 parts – a bridge, an artificial island and a tunnel.  It runs nearly 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait and goes underground before emerging in Denmark – it looks pretty cool from the air. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of that but you can have a look here and you can read more about it here.

And as I said, my next bridge is one that isn’t built but grown – have a look 🙂

Living root bridge, Mawlynnong village near Shillong, Meghalaya India

The living root bridges Meghalaya (or Abode of Clouds) one of the seven sisters of the North Eastern states of India, are one of a kind in the world and are a sight to behold.   These handmade living root bridges are tangles of massive thick roots, which have been intermingled to form a bridge that can hold several people at a time. The trek to these bridges is pretty steep (at least by my standards) so despite going to Mawlynnong, to my everlasting regret, I didn’t actually see these marvelous structures and instead had to rely on the pictures which our son clicked.

The local Khasi people are experts at ‘growing’ these bridges. They make the pliable tree roots to grow through betel tree trunks which have been placed across rivers and streams until the figs roots attach themselves to the other side. Sticks, stones, and other objects are used to stabilize the growing bridge. The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they’re extraordinarily strong – strong enough that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time. Since the bridges are alive and growing, they gain strength over time and apparently survive for hundreds of years.

So what do you think – do let me know and thanks for visiting 🙂

 

The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge topic for this week is Opposites. And I couldn’t resist posting these photos which are colored but turned out to be black and white! Have a look 🙂

So what do you think? Did it work, any you like? Do let me know!

Thanks for visiting and have a super weekend 🙂

Hello everyone! I am back again with some photos of clouds – remember On Top of the World? Yes well in my defense, this in response to the Daily Post’s prompt Clouds. And these are fresh clouds – not just any fresh clouds but the monsoon clouds – on which almost everything in India is dependent on. About 75% of India’s annual rainfall occurs during the monsoons – between June and September. Oops does that sound too much like a geography class? Anyhow, Delhi is usually the last to get the rains and we often ‘hear’ about the rain lashing this city or that much before we actually get to experience it. But for me the real wonder is to experience contrasts in a matter of hours.

Last weekend we took a trip to Mumbai which is heavily monsooned at the moment and… Hey! How about joining me on a quick trip from Delhi to Mumbai 🙂 Seated? Belted? Off we go!

 

 

Rain lashed Mumbai – don’t miss the heavily overcast sky

So how did you like the trip? Do let me know 🙂 And for those of you who like pics and missed it – there are two more that I posted yesterday – Oddball and Walk

This in response to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Walks – indoors or outdoors

For a musical treat – click here

This is response to Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge week 26.

This is in response to the Daily Post’s Discover Challenge on Doors. The City Palace (built between 1729 – 1732 AD) at Jaipur, India has these 4 magnificent doorways. The four gates (known as Ridhi Sidhi Pol) are adorned with themes representing the four seasons and Hindu gods.

The Northeast Peacock Gate (with motifs of peacocks on the doorway) representing autumn and is dedicated Lord Vishnu.

The Southwest Lotus Gate represents the summer season and is dedicated to Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati.

The Rose Gate with repeated flower pattern representing winter season and dedicated to the Goddess.

The Northwest Green Gate, also called the Leheriya (or wavy) gate. The greenery represents spring and is dedicated to Lord Ganesha.

This post is in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge: Curve

On the track of the curve

A simple curve

Woody curves

Stony curves

Arched curves

Organic curves

Intricate curves

Bejeweled curves

Hairy curves

And finally the curve(s) that sets everything straight 🙂

PS: If you would like to see more of Jaipur, please click here and here

Yoohoo – it’s me again 😀 Sorry to disturb you again, but Cee’s Odd-Ball Photo Challenge (again thanks to Irene) got me thinking.

But first a little backdrop for the photo 😀

Some years ago, my parents had gone for a picnic not knowing that the place was owned by monkeys. As they sat down to eat, a monkey dropped in from nowhere and snatched the sabzi (cooked vegetables) bowl and climbed a tree. He sat there eating and occasionally making faces at those staring up at him. He licked the bowl clean and was considerate enough to throw it back.

Later, when my mother narrated the incident to my then 4-year-old niece, she listened in silence. “Granny, are you telling me a story or are you lying to me?”

She put is quite succinctly didn’t she? A few years later, we stopped here for tea. Like long lost friends, they turned up to share our cuppa tea. Nothing to go with it thank you – an empty packet of chips fluttered down from a tree 😀

Notice the drip marks? Poor fellow couldn’t quite drink from the cup. He tried his level best before pouring it over the bench and licking it up.

We have been honored at other instances too – take a look 😀

We dared not open the window until the babies were all hatched and gone. I did have a snap of the babies as well but mama squirrel seems to have snitched it on her way out…

This was perhaps the fourth time we were playing nursemaids. On a couple of occasions we had to be cruel to be kind – building nests in the most precarious places, one gust and the whole thing was bound to come tumbling down. A council of war was held – we bit the bullet and got rid of the nest – better the nest than with the babies.

Another squirrel with more exotic tastes, was particularly impressed with the exhaust fan in the washroom. She set about nibbling at the blade without any further ado at odd hours of the day and night – giving me nightmares. What if somebody switched on the fan?

During my hostel days, I had in a moment of kindness, allowed a pigeon to make it’s nest over the cupboard. The chicks hatched and chirped – they were so cute! It was time for them to learn how to fly. Mama pigeon would by catch them by their beaks and pull them up, forcing them to flap their wings – everyday – at 4 am.

Yet the worst was when I entered late one night. I switched on the light and fan – there was a flutter and the pigeon lay beheaded on the floor. I don’t remember anything more. Another true story.

We got rid of the aspiring exhaust fan resident ASAP.

Another day it was raining heavily, when these two looked in – I am afraid we weren’t renting 😉

Did you read about when we had a cat-burglar? Seem like too much of a circus or a zoo?

Less than what we had in our childhood – frogs, snakes, leeches, jackals, elephants. Again all true.

We lived on the banks of the Ganga – elephants often dropped in for a bath, jackals howled as they are known to, frogs crept inside during the rains and the snakes followed suit.

Those were pretty exciting days. One morning Mother called Father to take care of a snake – almost ready for school, we watched with avid interest. Half asleep, he asked for a stick. Mother handed him one but it turned out to be a dried sugarcane with no backbone. There was uproar – the snake left us to our petty squabbles.

Another time, the dining table was out in the backyard as the house was being whitewashed. Father had just left the table while Mother was on her last bite – she looked up to see a snake sitting on the chair across her with its hood raised. She froze and sat until the snake got bored and slithered away.

Among the locals it is considered bad luck to kill snakes – apparently snakes have a camera in their eyes. They can capture the image of the last person they see. Their mates use this image to identify the murderer and take revenge. So the protocol was either to burn the snake immediately or (preferably) offer it some milk and wait for it to go away on its own.

While playing on the fields, we often saw small, yellow and black colored snakes and leeches too. In retrospect, we were pretty mean as children – we got morbid pleasure out of putting salt on leeches and seeing them melt. I also remember watching unflinching and with a clinical eye, the slaughter of a hen.

The youngest and the late entrant of our group had a particular liking for bees – oh yes beehives and wasp nests lurked in every nook and cranny, sometimes even inside the house. Coming back to the brave young one – he insisted on a deep study of the bees that infested one corner of his house. And what better way to investigate but to taste it?

Poor chap couldn’t even drink milk from his bottle for a few days.  The unfazed little pugilist continued to flash his adorable, albeit lopsided smiles. Undaunted, he turned up the next day with a swollen forearm.

Oh goodness me! This was supposed to be just a-one-photo post! Hope this doesn’t violate the photo challenge rules. Memories are amazing – you think you don’t have any but once you start…see I forgot about the dog we had (not me, my little sis) and the wingless parrot pet.

That reminds me – the parrots were the worst. They ate up all the mangoes leaving only the seed hanging from the trees…

Enough about my memories and time for you to share yours! Surely you too have some wonderful memories? Do share them 🙂

Have a good day all of you and catch you all tomorrow, again 😀

Thanks for reading!

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