Sunday Flower

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

Cityscape - A monsoon eve

The low, heavy, rain filled clouds float over the city of boxes. The lights represent the living in those boxes.

Lights. Boxes. And the wonderful rain clouds...

Sunday Flower

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
- Marcus Aurelius

Birds of Sangameshwar

It was fun chasing the birds for their portraits. I had good company in Jo, Rima and Animesh. Exploring the countryside early morning or in the golden hour of evening is so refreshing.

I had got the Sigma 100-400 just before the trip. It was almost a decade since my last birding lens, the Tamaron 200-400. I struggled a bit to get focus and finally shot mostly manual.

Sighting the hornbills was most exciting. The sunbird was so shy and required a lot of patience. The hoopoe was on the path and watched us with so much suspicion. The bee eaters used to sit still for long minutes, almost as if posing.

Those eyelashes!

Young and carefree

“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
Says the great Marcus Aurelius.

We are never as connected with our own soul as when we are young. The joys of those carefree times...

When I was in primary we lived at Tarkhad, a small village of about 50 houses. The road to my school passed through fields and small lanes in the interior of Vasai. During the monsoons I used to float a stick in the streams / gutters running next to the lanes. It was such great fun to follow the floating stick for as long as I could.

Serious Observations of a Funny World

Across the Katraj Lake

This is an experimental HDR from about 2011. It is shot from Lake Town township and looks across the Katraj lake and the Katraj zoo. By today's standards it is a primitive looking HDR but, hey, I said it was experimental. :)

Click on the image to enjoy in higher resolution and detail.

After the lockdown

It was late October last year. The sudden and vicious lockdown and first wave had taken its toll. We had all been prisoners of our homes. A few months earlier we experienced the anxity and tensions of having a couple of cases in our home. Father locked in his room for 3 weeks, Viv Rash in theirs. The kids, the dog, me and Jo juggling it together. Thankfully the patients recovered in time.

But the months were full of cleaning up, washing up and trying to keep the anxity down as day in and day out the news told us gory details of the pandemic. Our building experienced cases in almost all of its floors. It was a difficult time emotionally.

All we wanted was an escape. Me and Jo had been yearning to get back to the Farm of Happiness since our visit just before the lockdown. The memory of the open spaces had given us a few moments of peace in the otherwise restricted and tense time.

So when the travel restrictions were relaxed, we gathered some family and headed to the Konkan. The journey was long but with 10 people, it was fun. We paid a quick visit to Amey and family at his Devrukh house. He has been wroking from there the entire lockdown. It was so much better than his small apartment at Mumbai, he said.


The first evening we headed on the sada for a walk. The walk. In the wild open space, on the sada. It was a piece of heaven for me. We are so connected with Nature.

You can enjoy the photos full screen by clicking on them.

If you enjoyed this post you may want to read about our trip in March 2020 just before the lock down here: Deep Konkan and Deep Konkan the lucky trip.

Torna and the Clouds

The day started with high drama in the sky. A bright sun painting the dazzling cloud formations against the clear blue expanse. The thunderstorm and rain the previous day had cleared the debries from the air leaving it crisp.

Such a scene demanded black and white. Add the yellow filter and the skies deepend into near black enhancing the contrast with the glowing clouds. The experience in person was far superior to its 2-D representation. But such is the nature of life, I suppose?

You can see Kille Torna at the bottom - standing its ground and watching the unfolding play.

Sky of Molten Gold

What a brilliant sunset! The sky was transformed into rivers of molten gold. The photo does not do justice to the brilliance witnessed.

View in large size by clicking on the photo.