Auroras

Auroras (well, not the ones from Punjab.)

I got an email about them. Actually, it was good to brush up about a thing from your school. The amazing photos got me yearning to visit those far off places of snow and coniferous trees. For more information and beautiful pictures visit Painted Sky: The Aurora, it's one of the pages of NASA's "Mission to Geospace" project.

"As solar storms disturb Earth's magnetic field, this field rearranges itself and converts some of its stored energy into the kinetic energy of fast-moving particles. These particles, partly from the Sun and partly from Earth, flow inwards towards Earth along the polar magnetic field lines. As they encounter the ionosphere, they are boosted in energy to 6,000 volts or more, and then collide with nitrogen and oxygen atoms to produce the auroral light."

I scared a kid

I scared the shit out of a toddler today. He was playing on the landing and I suddenly came upon him. He gave me the who-are-you-you-ugly-monster stare. Well I gave him a silent monster scream with horrible grotesque facial contortions accompanied with wild flailing of arms. That put the geebees in him. He started backing up and trying to cry. But he was too scared for that. Ha. He takes panga with me? Me ??

Then I gave him a silly smile (least his mother come around) and asked him to give me the crayon he was carrying. He refused (his cheek!) and on top of that, having probably taken courage from the fact that only a lowly creature could ask for a broken crayon, got aggressive and attacked me. His older (only slightly) sister came by and joined forces with him.

I had to run.

the moon

the moon, originally uploaded by _quasi.

Iqbal

Am just back from Nagesh Kukunoor's latest movie - " Iqbal ". The tickets, purchased in black, were worth every paisa. The theater of action was at Sion with Vaibhav, my brother and Rashmi.

The movie is smooth, exhilarating and has a great feel good factor. One feels warm at the end. The movie gives hope without shouting it out. The point which impressed me most was the treatment of the physical disabilities of the main character. Never in the entire movie do they seem anything like a disorder or an imperfection requiring sympathy. He is above them because of his courage and the simple acceptance of the others.

A must watch, if you ask me.

CloudBurst !!!

We just had a cloudburst over Kalina. This one is from our Takmak trek (previous post). We left and this happened.

Kille Takmak, Palghar

Kille Takmak, Palghar, originally uploaded by _quasi.

"The dry landscape of the Palghar region. Sarang looks on as I click."

It's been 2 years since Takmak. Seems like yesterday. The days go by. That dry day, the parched landscape, the exausting trek, the soft mud slides, the fight with VP, the rain and the back of the truck on the reti ...

Test post from Semagic.

umm... Let's see if this works.

Clouds over campus

Clouds over campus, originally uploaded by _quasi.

The other day, while I was coming back home, I saw some dramatic cloud over the campus. This is the time, the time of shravan, when these low dark monsoon clouds intermingled with bright skies are a feature. I love it. Luckily I had the digital with me . So here it is. It was a brilliant afternoon...

shades

shades, originally uploaded by _quasi.

This is a photo of my friend Uday Tamoskar taken at Arnala Beach. The sun was on the horizon and the shades were good...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.