Monday, October 31, 2005

zondya



My last friend in the Campus. Zondya. Nitin. A good feller.

Time has come to leave. Leave the childhood behind. We are shifting out of the place we have been staying for the past 20 years. The years of fun and frolic. School. College. My teens. The chor-poolice whole day. The football in the middle of the night. The fights. The parties. The night-outs. The TT mania. The "she is not for you". The place where I first fell in love. The place of my first heartbreak. The place where I used to take lots of walks in the rain with her.

One time, when I had finished my Std IV exams we visited a strange place in Kalina. We travelled from Tarkhad Village via Vasai. The occasion was the visit of the Haeley's comet. A large telescope had been put up on top of a large mysterious building. In the darkness I could see lots of mysterious people and children. The feller with the telescope showed us the comet. He also explained how to find it (it was not visible to the naked eye) with a pair of binoculars. I have memories of tracking it down and finding it. That hazy fluffy patch of sky seen through a 20x50 Zenith. I had always been interested in the heavens.

That place was the University of Mumbai Campus. That building was the LN Library building. Those children were to be my friends. That was the place we were to shift to, flat no.4, bldg. A, my father's newly acquired quarters, and to my new school before it started... That was March 1986.

One part of my life comes to an end.
Adios.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Ganpati Pule



Konkan Road Trip [day 4]

It was our fourth day. We reached Ganpati Pule (and civilisation again) quite late. The mood was very pensive. It had been a long day. Next day was last day of phase I. Sujay had decided to leave for Mumbai from Ratnagiri while we would continue.

We slept right next to the Mandir. With the sea in front, the moon above, and the wind around us. The security guards did not own the place, so we could do pretty much what we wanted. We did. We got spiritual on the beach in the stiff breeze late at night. We talked (only after dinner).

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Birthday Greetings

My dear friend Prashant Achrekar's birthday today.

Happy Birthday dude.

Late afternoon at Janjeera



It was a mellow late afternoon at Janjeera. Mama is busy photographing the small sail boats which got us here. The old stone walls reflecting the soft light of the setting sun ...

Konkan Trip [day 1]

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

On the road to Vishalgad



On the road to Vishalgad. It was a bad road. Very bad.
Konkan Road Trip day 7.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Thursday, October 20, 2005

The Devrukh Afternoon



It was a hot acerbic afternoon. We had arrived earlier, tired, dirty and stinking, from Ratnagiri. Sujay had left for Mumbai, so it was only the three of us. Mama's country house is at the outskirts of the small town of Devrukh. The colony consisted of mostly retreats and country houses. It was all mostly empty and silent. The oppressive heat of the May afternoon quietened all life.

There was water shortage of acute proportions, so we had to abandon all plans of watery pleasure. We became spiritual instead. Raju started playing the guitar. Mama drifted into the sleepy surreal. I listened to the guitar and the silence and contemplated. There was no large tree, so a chair sufficed. Sometime in between I clicked a photo of the mood.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Se7en things...



(seems like this is a to-do... I am finding it exceeding difficult a job.)

7 things to do before I die...
1. Con a girl into falling for me.
2. Know a bit more about life.
3. Give back all I have taken. And some more.
4. See the world.
5. Make some good photos. (err... to be honest "many" would be more accurate ;)
6. Write some good Lisp code.
7. Learn to paly my harmonica (well).

7 things I can do...
1. Crib (mostly only about chick(s))
2. Talk (not necessarily sense)
3. Enjoy anywhere anytime
4. Not complain (exception : chicks)
5. See (but am in serious doubt about the "what")
6. Solve Problems
7. Unnecessarily Argue

7 things I say the most... (I really dont pay all that much attention to what I say. You shouldn't either)
1. abe chu***a,... (lots more of these types)
2. ummm....
3. hmmm....
4. bol
5. Kya baat kar raha hain
6. abe chup
7. aur bata (got this thing from MJ, imagine how bored she must have been to talk to me. hehe.)

7 things I cannot do...
1. Keep my mouth shut
2. Not be sarcastic most of the time
3. Not sprout excessive quasi-wisdom most of the time
4. Not get depressed now-and-then about my love life (hehe, I love this one)
5. Trek (with damaged knee)
6. Be very helpful (except on rare occasions)
7. Be organised.

7 people who have to make this list...
1. MJ
2. Himanshu Mhatre
3. Mama Salvi
4. Rajendra Velluri
5. Vivek Rao
6. Happy
7. Harshawardhan Gavankar

(phew!)

5km outside Dapoli



5km outside Dapoli it happened. I was riding with Mama as pillion. We got ourselves a rear flat tyre. We just had had a very passionate 15 minutes about overtaking in a unknown town scene with Sujay in Dapoli. But all rallied and we got working. They got working, while I sat and did the all important task of guarding the bags and the damaged tyre (which, I must point out, was still attached to the bike). The sun had gone down 15-20 minutes ago. We were on the road to Harne at the edge of a tiny hamlet on the outskirts of Dapoli.

Sujay departed in the direction of Dapoli to search out a tyre repair shop. Mama and Raju and me discussed our night halt. I tried to go to the house on the opposite side of the road and try to get them to let us stay in their rather large courtyard. They declined giving silly reasons. Mama and Raju departed to explore further lands.

I was left alone in the darkness. The damaged leg deemed sundry movement unnecessary, so I settled down in the grass, on the side, under a large tree, to contemplate. I always try the large tree : maybe I will get lucky some day. Having spent some time in the fruitless pursuit of wisdom, I noticed that the camera was in range. And that the sky had turned deep indigo. I got it out. The tripod was beyond reach. so I decided to put the camera inside the large yellow helmet. I made all the necessary settings. The problem, now, was that I had to press the shutter in the self timer mode and make the camera steady inside the helmet within the stipulated 10 seconds. I managed that bravely, but the angle got crazy. It looks better this way, I tell myself. Those bands are the head or tail lights of the few motorised vehicles which passed by.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Janjeera, Inside



The ancient worn out inside. There is nothing to hide. All laid bare, all naked. The creepers, the branches out of windows, the fallen walls, the defiance of the one's still standing. One feels humbled by the sheer presence of decaying grandeur.

Nothing here lasts in physical form. Nothing.

Monday, October 17, 2005

landscape photos by Thomas Mitchell



Some Excellent Medium Format landscape photos at http://www.crowmountain.net/darkforest/DF1/ by Thomas Mitchell. People who love dark forests will love these for sure.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Metier



An epitome of durability, Janjeera stands proud, giving incessant rebuff to the salt waters which besiege it.

I was lucky to have got to see it. The accident, which I had later that night, would not have permitted me to jump from a small sail boat onto the fortress' steps. Well, only the knee is damaged - the spirit survives. I shall come back, O Janjeera... one day.

Music is my only friend ... until the end.



Hemant engrossed with the guitar, a day before Mhatre left.

Music is a natural intuitive phenomenon operating in the three worlds of time, pitch, energy, and under the three distinct and interrelated organization structures of rhythm, harmony, and melody.


Music soothes you. Music transforms you. Music makes you happy.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Vasu after day's work



That is Vasu after a day's work. We had just spent the whole day jumping from Dadar to Dombivilli to Karjat and back photographing. It was the final day of shoot. Karjat was because I needed to spend some time in an empty train which was stationary. The temperatures there were in the range of 38C (in the shade). Imagine a metal box in the sun. Imagine no breeze. Imagine yourself inside the metal box.

After Karjat, Naka was like a hill station. We managed to grab a minor bite before shooting 3 more rolls of Sandeep's expressions. We shot till the sun went down.

It was a tiring day.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Chandrakant Ghokhle



Chandrakant Ghokhle. Actor from the time gone by. The did some very famous Marathi b&w films. I am proud to have had the opportunity to take his photo. This was taken on the sets of a Marathi movie being shot in July. He was a special appearance.

Himanshu Mhatre



Himanshu Mhatre

of time [Kant]


1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence
nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena. Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled.

SS 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
SECTION II. Of Time.
The Critique of Pure Reason,
Immanuel Kant


Sunday, October 02, 2005

just

returning
Warje

murky glimpses and dismal sighs
all the goodbye's and the why's
the firey hell purifies the soul
all the abject heads roll
the mirage becomes the road
all senses on over load
then on the sweet innocent breeze
comes a quiet peace
and the distant horizon one again sees...



Note: I have added the photo on 13-3-2019 as it was missing for this post.

The Mahatma



Today is the Mahatma's Birthday. Let us remember him for a minute. Remember him as the Mahatma.

M K Gandhi . Org
M K Gandhi Photos (chronological)


Went in search of the Scarlet Flamingo today morning. Got up early and were out by 0530hrs. 4 intrepid adventurers : me; Vivek Beleker, Lecturer Psycho at the Univ and an avid bird watcher; Sujay Bhosle, general companion; Abhijit Bhongle, old friend. Finding the Gawdforsaken spot took it's time. After navigating through the forgotten lanes of the city through the thick smoggy dawn and moonscaped roads, we found the place. We hardly had any information to start of with. It turned out be the backside of the Shivri/Shivdi Fort. We arrived to see a drab grey seascape with darker blobs of mangrooves and the sea far receded with the low tide. No flamingoes showed themselves. But we saw a few other birds : Crows, Pigeons, European sand pipers, Common Kites, Egrets and a flight of 4 very beautiful and graceful Elbees.

The Bhandardara trip photos ...


more at the Bhandaradara Page

It was a nice trip.