As I prepare to step outside, I keep my phone camera handy.
Click!
I turn around and tell my mother how I interpret her drawing. In the 30 seconds it takes to get down the staircase, we have had a full conversation of the different ways in which we perceive the world around us.
Amma‘s drawings on the floor are my inspiration – a world of art that flows effortlessly through the stone powder – a new one, every single day.
Colourful keepers of memories – Gifts from my mother, aunt, sister, sister-in-law, friend, a complete stranger (and even myself).
The typewriter and keyboards may keep our memories safe in a digital locker. But they will never be able to replace the smell of paper, the crisp look of bound books and the firm grip of a clasp — reassuring a sentimental fool like me, that her priceless emotions are locked safely.
The Daily Post has a guest this week – ROY G. BIV. Head over and say a big hi!
PS. I always fancied that some day I’d be famous and my journals and sketchbooks might become collectibles — maybe even included in an auction. I know it’s unlikely. But a girl can dream 🙂
This week’s photo challenge is off-season. When I read the phrase, the first thing that came to my mind was the off-season sports people had. More specifically, I thought of the tennis off-season. So I gathered all memorabilia from matches I have had the pleasure of watching, to depict this.
Speaking of off-season, I seem to be in the middle of one – unintentionally! Hopefully it will be shortlived and I’ll see you soon.
Be sure to check out what off-season means to different people across different parts of the world, only on the Daily Post.
This freshly picked Marigold was kept atop a potpourri tray. I clicked a picture using my phone, and conveniently forgot about it! Rediscovered this image today in my Dropbox and edited it in an online editor called befunky.
A friend referred this web app to me many months ago, and I’m really loving it. For the functionality it offers, the ease of editing and the speed at which it loads within the browser, I think I might skip using PhotoShop! I especially love the feature where you can upload images directly from your cloud storage accounts like Dropbox and Google Drive. If you’re interested, the editor can be found here. Have fun being funky! (Haven’t tried this on my phone, though)
Here’s the edited photograph for this week’s Photo Challenge — Vivid.
On our road trip to my grandfather’s house last year, we were treated to some amazing scenery — palms and plantains; paddy fields and elephant grass; street art and intricate architecture; flowing rivers and the magnificent ocean…
Here are two of my favourite photographs from the trip, shot through the window of our car.
Train Tracks Towards Trichy!
Paddy Fields and Palm Trees
For more images of journeys by bloggers from around the world, don’t forget to check out the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge : On the way
A couple of weeks back, the Daily Post asked us to show forces of nature.
While I did not have a photograph to show, I was inspired to paint something involving as many forces of nature, and a few forces that are influencing nature. How many can you identify? Who’s the strongest of them all?
My grandmother often says that of the several artistic abilities our family possesses, the ability to throw, is the one that we need the most! At our home, when things break, our instinctive reaction is that of fixing them. So for this week’s photo challenge, broken, I had quite a few options at home! Except, of course, they had mostly been fixed, or have become something else. For instance, the beads from several broken bracelets and necklaces have now become a gypsy-style garland. And all the broken seashells from our collections have now become a decorative wall hanging.
* * *
We were in Old Delhi to meet relatives and decided to explore Qudsia Bagh in the evening. Clean jogging tracks surrounded by palm trees and Laburnums in full bloom, the park was a sight for sore eyes and sun-drained explorers like us. Large pots of water and benches with bird feed attracted birds by the dozen.
“What are you waiting for? Take out the camera!” It took me a little while to react. My brother nudged me as I stared at a kite sitting atop the earthen pot. Before I could take a clean shot, it flew above us and onto a tree branch. Another one swooped down and flew low, before joining its friend on the branch. They didn’t seem to mind the people around them — little children swinging on monkey bars and groups of evening walkers.
We continued walking, and it wasn’t long before we spotted a wall behind a few trees. An old building! After several months, we discovered something old in Delhi. An entrance gate of some sort, with a staircase on the side leading up to the roof; an old locked up lodge that seemed appropriate for some mystery novel; and a mosque under renovation — we hopped from one building to another, trying to cover as much ground as possible in the little time we had left in the day. But with daylight fading and our stomachs grumbling, we had to head back.
As we were returning, I noticed this minaret-like structure. It turned out to be at the exact same place we saw the kites earlier. In our excitement of seeing the kites, I’d missed this one entirely.
Minaret at Qudsia Bagh
I clicked a few more photographs of the park just as a peacock came out for its evening walk.
We may go and visit Qudsia Bagh again. We might climb the gate, inspect that old house more closely, and perhaps, find more treasures.
From Wikipedia: Qudsia Bagh is an 18th-century garden complex and palace located in Old Delhi, India. Constructed in 1748 for Qudsia Begum, this complex was largely destroyed during the Indian rebellion of 1857.
The sky was overcast and a gentle wind greeted us as we stepped out to buy a mango shake.
‘It won’t rain, ma’am. These clouds do not bear water,’ the office boy said.
We were going to return within 10 minutes. But I took my umbrella, to be safe.
As we soon found out, it wasn’t the umbrella we needed, but goggles.
On our way back, the wind grew stronger, kicking up dust all around us. I covered my glass of mango shake with a lid the juice vendor gave.
We couldn’t see much around us. Partly because the air was saturated, but mostly because we could barely keep our own eyes open.
With the dust coming straight at us, we tried to shield ourselves with our palms and narrowed our eyes as much as we could.
Only a short distance to go, we walked as fast as we could with our eyes closed and turned into the street in front of the office building. The dust storm ended a little while later, with a light drizzle cleaning the air.
That evening, we headed home covered by a fine layer of dust from head to toe. The evening sky though, was a treat for our dust-laden sore eyes.
Enveloped
We later found out that the wind speed was around 80 kmph. Tree branches had fallen all over the city. A streetlight had fallen on a metro power line, crippling the public transport system.
Sometime back, I unearthed old drawings from the depths of my cupboard*.
I’m not sure what this drawing is about and what was going through my mind at the time I drew this. Perhaps it was my subconscious trying to communicate to me. A few random thoughts escaping the labyrinth of my brain, and finding their way to the paper.
From what I can imagine, it is likely that it started off as a tranquil hill. And then somewhere down the line there was turbulence of some sort — a storm at sea — which tossed away all notions of peace.
What do you think? How would you interpret this?
Abstract art – thoughts in motion?
For more ‘moving’ images, check out the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge – Motion.
It took me a full week to try to get up early. And this morning, I finally managed to get up by 6 am. Unfortunately, in these parts of the world, six is well past sunrise. Still, I tried. Although the next challenge is already in motion (bad pun, I know), I wanted to share this picture of the sleeping hibiscus in our balcony.
She was still half asleep, rubbing her groggy eyes and taking a big lazy yawn, when I saw her. It would be another three hours before she would be in full bloom. By the time I see her next, she would have moved on to another world, never to be seen again — until she takes a new birth, and opens her wide eyes and gives her best smile, to brighten up someone’s day.
Musings of an eccentric mind 