Tuesday, March 31, 2015

OUR WORLD



Medley of colors in this bouquet of fresh flowers!



Lily has started blooming in our front yard. This is just the beginning. Soon there will be a splash of red flowers enlivening the space and uplifting my spirits.

Below: Blossoms ahoy!


Captured the flower beds at the compound of a gurudwara at Karnal, while on a visit there.

Linked to:
our world tuesday,image-in-ing,Nature Notes,Today's Flowers, I heart macro

Outdoor Wednesday

Friends, welcome here as always!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

CRITTERS OF THE WEEK


Starting a new day!  
Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers




                                                                                                
 OK, I won't talk to you!




 
I clicked these pictures at a place where I least expected to find such an opportunity. Actually, we were visiting our relatives at Karnal in Haryana. Accompanied by the lady of the house I went for a quick early morning walk. As we  reached a gurudwara (Sikh Temple),  my roving eye spotted the ducks and the pigeons through the gate.
I went back and brought my camera and captured them thus. Interestingly, I came to know that the young priest of the gurudwara is the one who is fond of cultivating diverse hobbies. There were monkeys and few other critters also. The white pigeons (above) are a special variety and command a heavy price in the avian markets.



Linked to:SATURDAY CRITTERS

Camera Critters,id-rather-b-birding



Friends,welcome here as always!






Thursday, March 26, 2015

SKY WATCH



Setting sun in the urban milieu.






I was away from the cyber world for more than a week. Our darling granddaughter and her parents were visiting us.There was lot of activity around them. However, I missed my routine forays into some sort of creativity.

Here is how i found the sky as i clicked it from the verandah of our house a few days back. The sun is going down behind a powerfully thick  single cloud formation

Linked to:  sky watch friday

Friends, welcome here as always!

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

OUR WORLD




It is fine with me!




The Urban Estate where we live, is surrounded by villages on two sides. In fact, our state Government carved out a couple of residential communities after buying land, which was mostly arid, from small farmers. However, there are a few with large holdings and have constructed palatial houses in their fields. They've built two room tenements for  their servants, who help in tilling the land and take care of milch cattle.

Now this woman is the wife of one of the servants and her duty is to make cow dung cakes, dry them in the sun and then these are sold to poor householders as fuel. The woman also gets perhaps three out of every ten she bakes.

Last week i decided to explore the area and saw her in the act. I talked to her and she very enthusiastically posed for this picture. You'd be surprised to know that she was happily doing the job and offered me all information as if she had known me before. She looked healthy, spirited and fully fit.

 Our world has infinite frames and each one is hallowed.
 
Linked to:  Our World Tuesday, image-in-ing



Friends,welcome here as always!





Saturday, March 14, 2015

MY CRITTERS FOR THE WEEK



'Click me fast, if you must.'



The sprightly squirrel (though she is my friend) was evading me like anything in the park nearby our house. I tried to capture her capering on the trees, but she was too nimble for the click. Finally I got her  in this posture on the walking path last week.



'Our ramp walk'


Yesterday I ventured into a new area for the express purpose of spotting some birds. I found this pair of peace loving doves having a walk in the afternoon sun.

'Be off, I don't like intrusions.'



This picture of the duck is drawn from my archives. Last month, I walked into a community half a Km. away from our house. I saw her behind a net fence near a  large puddle outside the boundary wall of a private house. Clearly she was  the pet of the house owners. She quacked in disapproval when  I went near the fence for this click.



Friends welcome here as always!


Linked to:
camera-critters, Saturday critters, Id-rather-b- birding











Wednesday, March 11, 2015

THURSDAY CHALLENGE

This week's challenge is:

 "STREET" (Happy, Sad, Interesting, Typical Urban Scenes or Rural Roads,...)

 


Typical urban scene in the parking lot of  up and coming commercial establishments in a nearby community. It fairy represents the trend and affordability of owning  different  types of commuting vehicles by middle and upper middle class households. 
Picture taken yesterday afternoon on my visit there.


 Friends,welcome here as always!               Linked to:Thursday Challenge




MY INNER VOICE





 'Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking'. H.L. Mencken.

'I' Is for 'Inner Voice'.


Let me name my inner voice.                               


Will it suffice-?


If I call it a pulsating monologue,   


That shakes, jolts as well as electrifies,


Throbs with eeriness of a mute dialogue.  


Litterateurs name it ‘streams of consciousness’,


A flowing shadow forever supremely enthroned,


In the recesses of our private preciousness,


All pervasive, soul stirring, multi-pronged.


Yet, it is a rambling whole,


Going back and forth into then and now,    


Sneaking deep into our journey’s keyhole,


Reliving regrets, peppered with some moments wow.

.....
Truly, man is one of its kind,


Holds the mirror to his own mind.


Friends,welcome here as always!

Linked to:ABC Wednesday,JOSIE TWO SHOES,Wordless wednesday


Tuesday, March 10, 2015

OUR WORLD



BRIDAL HUES

Yesterday, I's out, camera in hand to scout for nature's bridal wear. I knew the delicate flowers  had been spoiled by the unexpected hailstorm the previous night. As i entered one of the parks of our community, I spied this yellow beauty shyly hiding itself in the foliage. I clicked it there and then.


Covering the boundary wall of the park was this bougainvillea plant resplendent with rich and bright reddish pink flowers. These shimmered in the blazing light of the noon sun. My outing proved fruitful.




The potted cactus balls are keeping me company for the last so many years. With the change in weather, they're coming to life one again. I expect to see them gifting me the pretty mauve blooms in mid April. Keeping my fingers crossed till then!

Friends,welcome here as always!


 Linked to:

our world tuesday, image-in-ing, Nature Notes,Today's flowers,I heart macro

Outdoor Wednesday

Saturday, March 7, 2015

MY TAKE: CRITTERS



                                                      DONE FOR THE DAY




                                     LOOK, I'M ON THE TOP




Both these pictures have been clicked in the late afternoon on a cold and mildly hazy day, last week. In our vicinity birds have a tendency to perch on transmission lines any time of the day.

Friends,welcome here as always!

Linked to:
CAMERA CRITTERS,SATURDAY CRITTERS







Friday, March 6, 2015

SKY WATCH FRIDAY





For a few weeks I'd  been drawing pictures from my archives to post for the 'Sky Watch challenge'. So i thought enough of this short cut.Therefore, I remained vigilant about the appearance of some patterned cloud formation. Last week an opportunity came my way after a spell of light showers. Here is the view of the skyline in the midst of urban milieu. Pictures taken from a low roof.

Friends,welcome here as always.


Thursday, March 5, 2015

THURSDAY CHALLENGE

 This week's challenge is:

 "STILL LIFE" (Food, Flowers, Rocks, Shells, Vases, Books, Jewelry,...)

Linked To: Thursday challenge

  Set of twenty four volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica is our prized possession. Bought in  Canada in 1963 when my hubby was  doing his Doctorate in the University of Alberta, he shipped it to India after completing his studies.  He came back as he wanted to serve his country. Later after our marriage the one thing, which impressed me most was this set of scholarly elegance. It was  early 70s and both of us would sit and read enteries of common interest. We've moved home four times so far and these volumes had kept us company. These have become an integral part of our lives. We treat them as  heirlooms. 

In this age of instant information, their utility might have diminished but for comprehensive information about a topic at one place, nothing can beat them. 
This apart they're a solid link with the past,when these were of immense value to the researchers in any field.

Friends,welcome here as always!

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

LIFE'S HERE AND THERE


Source: The Internet


'H' is for history:

For a couple of days, my weekly brainstorming session stared me in the face,   obviously chiding me for dilly dallying and wasting my time. Finally, the inner voice  brought me face to face with the computer and the blank page eyed me invitingly.The ice was broken.

The discourse again would be about some aspects of the incomparable canvas of our life. The way we balance it and direct it to follow the righteous path. Our experiences play an important part in this balancing act.

To achieve even some semblance of success in life, it is imperative to incorporate some order, discipline, and historical perspective to the scheme of things.
Order in life is no less  important than other essentials of life. A chaotic lifestyle is an open invitation to defeat and all sorts of complications. It takes its toll in creating grave problems in domestic and professional arena. In short, it may ruin your life. In this context, we may learn lessons from the impeccable calendar which nature follows. We’re so used to change in seasons, the spontaneity of sunrise and sunset and scores of other precise happenings that we hardly give a thought to the extraordinary discipline of the natural forces, which makes it possible.

Another significant angle to life is its surprise elements, good or bad. Like the sea, life has multiple frames to its credit. For instance, our bumpy journey here is comparable to the frightful shenanigans, which play on the sea surface. There are times when the seawaters are calm and serene and yet they uphold mysterious, awesome grandeur. Sometimes storms rage on its surface signaling anxiety, caution and patience. There are tense hours and often days of this scary phenomenon and then all of a sudden peace and calm returns and soon the event retreats from our consciousness. Our life is also like that. Amidst smugness of normalcy, sometimes, adversity hits us like a bolt from the blue, disrupt our daily lives, test our resilience, and disappear as rapidly. All of us have gone through such testing times in the course of our lifetime.

However, many times we’re so overwhelmed by the severity of unfavorable circumstances that nothing seems to allay our insecurities. It is here that the history comes to our aid to stabilize us. Remembering the horrendous past events and occurrences, how we triumphed over them with objectivity and strength, reassure us to keep going. In the beginning, though these looked daunting and insurmountable.

 History reminds us that we don’t live our lives in isolation. The present  is linked to the past as well  as to the future. History may go back to centuries, yet it sustains a permanent link to the present enabling us to learn lessons from the infinite records of man’s victories and defeats in figuring out the cosmos and its diverse elements.


 Likewise, religious books of all ages written by great scholars are treatises on how to lead our lives with propriety and   justness in our day-to-day dealings.

Life is sum total of frequent high and lows and it is man who gives it meaning by his actions. Its great challenge is to live it.

From TOI's 'SACRED SPACE': Meaning of life

"What is the meaning of life? Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it.The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning." Joseph Campbell

Friends, welcome here as always!

Linked to:ABC Wednesday,JOSIE TWO SHOES

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

OUR WORLD






 We had a rain spell for a couple of days and venturing out was not a choice. Today fortunately, there is a lull, though it is partly  cloudy. I took  a chance and stepped out with my camera.One of my neighbors yard have these cocktail of flowers and i clicked these two(above and below).
 





Our own yard had this surprise waiting to be clicked. The new tender shoots on my Curryplant, provide unmistakable signs of slowly approaching spring.

The ice plant flowers are coming of age and embellishing our yards with their colorful presence.

Friends,welcome here as always.
Linked to: OUR WORLD,IMAGE-IN -ING,TODAY'S FLOWERS,NATURE NOTES,I HEART MACRO