Musings of an eccentric mind
Along one of the ends of Eliot’s beach in Chennai is a long colourful mural depicting city life in Chennai. Here’s one portion of the mural for this week’s Photo Challenge.
For more vibrant images, visit the Daily Post.
PS. I haven’t been able to catch up with posts from you for a while – I’m a bit caught up in the offline world. I’ll be away for some more time, although I’ll attempt a blog post now and then. Hope to catch up with everyone once I return to regular routine.
Delhi’s winters used to be chilly*, with icy weather in the peak season of mid December to mid January. But over the past few years, the winter season has become shorter and shorter – no thanks to global warming. This year was a huge disappointment. The New Year was exceptionally warm with many people giving woollens a pass.
The harvest festivals (Lohri/Makar Sankranti/Pongal etc), which usually fall on the 13th-15th of January every year, mark the end of winter and the beginning of Spring. Even as we prepared to celebrate, the lack of a proper winter was a bit sad.
Perhaps the thick air carried our dejection, and precisely one day prior to the ‘official’ beginning of spring, winter finally showed up in full swing. The cold wave has been here for well over two weeks now, and seems in no mood to leave in a hurry!
Meanwhile, the bougainvillea plant in our balcony seems to follow a different calendar altogether. Even as the other plants geared up to brace the winter chill, this plant began flowering for the first time in our home last autumn. Throughout the season, there hasn’t been a single day without a shade of pink amid the grey haze and fog.
On a lazy Sunday morning, I peep out from under the rajaai**. The curtains are only half drawn – there’s no need for them. The fog and frosted glass guarantee privacy. And the sun hasn’t been showing up for work for a few days. I coerce myself to get up, if only to wish my friend. I walk up to the balcony door. It’s all white and grey. A few plants are struggling to keep warm. Most of their leaves have dried and fallen. But one thorny plant stands there defiantly. I step out gingerly and wish her a good morning.
She wishes me in her own way. It’s cold for both of us and she doesn’t mind me going back inside. As I turn around, she smiles knowingly.
If winter is here, can spring be far behind?
* No, we don’t have snowfall or blizzards but day time temperatures of 7 degrees C are quite ‘normal’
** a thick blanket, usually stuffed with cotton
For more optimistic pictures, gather around the cozy fireplace of The Daily Post.
Several years ago, my uncle gifted me a bead loom kit. Seeing the actual tools used to make bead jewellery got me excited. I couldn’t wait for my holidays to start using it. My mother and I read through the manual and she assembled the loom. I drew out an elaborate design on the drafting paper provided with the kit and had begun imagining a bracelet on my wrist!
It was only once I had drawn the grid for the design of my bracelet and begun weaving each individual bead into the loom that I realised the effort that is involved in beading.
I have always found it difficult to haggle with street vendors selling these kinds of bracelets. Having tried it out myself, I don’t even think of negotiating.
This one with my initial is one of the handful of bracelets I weaved on the loom.
Explore all the alphabets over at the Daily Post
This week’s weighty photo challenge had me jumping with delight. A perfect excuse to share this picture I took at Anandagram last month.
Anandagram offers a beautiful and serene environment to visitors. It houses 3 private museums housing traditional Indian household objects, terracotta and textiles from across the country. The buildings, styled like traditional houses, are surrounded by vast manicured lawns with discarded objects turned into art installations! Kept spotlessly clean, this leaf was about the only item which ‘littered’ the place – and it too was pretty 🙂
For more interpretations of this week’s Photo Challenge, circle over to the Daily Post!
Taking this week’s Photo Challenge rather literally, my interpretation of ‘Now’:
To see what others around the globe are doing this very moment, visit the Daily Post right now!
Those who know me, whether in person or via WordPress, know that I love collecting things in general – be it coins, rocks, feathers, chocolate boxes… And more often than not, the packaging of a product makes my heart jump for joy!
Here’s yet another addition to my ever-growing box of knick knacks!
For more interpretations of this week’s Photo Challenge, be sure to gather around the Daily Post!
Oops! We were a little messy with the chocolate sauce. Normally, I would apologise for the poor quality of the photograph. But since the Daily Post specifically asks us to share photographic (and/or photogenic) disasters, I won’t 😉
More chocolaty images from this series in the archives: Death by Chocolate.
Have a sweet weekend!
As kids we would stuff old socks with rags to make dolls. We’d use rubber bands to create the ‘neck’ and ‘waist’ and buttons for the ‘eyes’. I’m not sure but perhaps this may be related to the Hindi phrase ‘आँखें हैं की बटन!?’ (Do you have eyes or buttons!?)
For this week’s photo challenge, I would like to introduce you to Mr Button – he has a pair of eyes of his own!
For more images portraying transition, be sure to check out the Weekly Photo Challenge: Transition
This is post #28 in this year’s NaBloPoMo, or as Ra calls it Nano Poblano
NaBloPoMo = National Blog Posting Month = Thirty straight days of blogging
Musings of an eccentric mind 