inspired by lavannya's pictures (which inturn were inspired by Trent Parke, photographer extraordinaire!) i tried my hand at this.

i am enjoying f/2.8 with elan, shall i say?! trying to design something with my picture, can't seem to sleep... need to get up at 4 am to pick up mom...
oh.. by the way, 36 chowringee lane is a bengali restaurant on Lanford road. read more about it here.

you can see them everywhere!

...

one of the best places to spot these trees is at the Public Library lawns in Cubbon Park.

the whole city is pink. these tabebuias are such a delight in bangalore. if you live in the city you must have been blind if you haven't noticed these lovely beings. a native species of south america, looks like they feel right at home in our lovely garden city...

a village at Aihole

Aihole

few pictures from the final roll. Badami.

a house on the street, Badami

Badami caves

street life, Badami

a portrait of a passer-by, Badami

Badami

agasthya theertha tank, Badami

shadows on sandstone, Badami

streets of Badami

street children at banashankari

parched earth of the banashankari tank. Badami

pigs, the rulers of Badami. ...the pigs were the ultimate fascination for me. they symbolised absolute greed, a perpetual sense of urgency to eat; as if they would die if they weren't looking for food and the kind of disgust they were buried in was an absolute interest for me. i tried quite a few shots of these pigs, some nice moments went past without the shutter release because i stood frozen by their actions. some of them were actually hostile and made noises scary enough to keep me at bay. but i liked them, deep down i do think they are nice beings and i shall always nurture my dream of having one these 'cute' creatures as my pet some day.

banashankari temple, Badami

banashankari temple, Badami

tonga stand, Badami

children on the streets, Badami

women at the agasthya theertha ghat

caves at Badami

celebration, Badami

view of the town, Badami

house among the rocks, Badami

native, Badami

on the banks of the Agasthya Theertha tank. Badami.

morning at the doctor's garden.

a guest at neel kumar's.

Sunrise at the Sharavathy Valley WS

an oil lamp for the night. one of the many rewards of a trek into the interior malnad is a chance to time-travel. the moments that i spent with these wonderful people is something i will always talk about. we sat down in the foyer after a really tasty dinner and conversed looking at the flickering faces. they still use the aeon old oil lamp and it seemed to perfectly fit into their lives. i wouldn't change a thing about it. yes, the towns had electricity but their houses aren't yet ready to bring in the damned thing. well, thank god!

an evening try to frame the sky and the stream. standing on the wooden bridge i thought this was a nice way to get the two...

children playing near the wooden bridge. a huge tree had fallen across this stream and its trunk was neatly chiselled away to form a bridge.

neel kumar's house. we passed this side of his home as we started on an evening stroll.

just wandering on the hills..

another view of the valley behind his house. the place with rolling grasslands is a haven for campers. i couldn't think of a more perfect place to set up a camp...

we explored neel kumar's backyard in the evening. we were so glad that neel kumar's kids and their cousins showed us how they spend their holidays here. they run down to the stream to take a dip... have hot akki rotis for breakfast, climb hills all day, pluck wild gooseberries, herd the cattle back to the shed in the evening... i was so happy they shared a day of theirs with me...

this is what it looked like when i lay down under the cool trees at shaale mane. we proceeded to neel kumar's house after a while.

shaale mane, our first day's destination. we reached here at around mid afternoon. although we did go to dabbe gowdru's house we hadn't come planned to get down to the dabbe falls. i had a nice chat with the dabbe gowdru's son. dabbe gowdru is no more by the way. it was almost a month since he had passed away.

a picture after a long long time. i wasn't in the right frame of mind to do any of this.
ok, this one was shot on my last trek to the kanoor fort. i wanted to start posting pics from the start to the end of the trek. so this one was the very first sight of green landscape that captivated my friend and i. Shyam was on his very first trek; he said he wanted to do one these treks before he finishes his intership and gets back to his home town in andhra . so we started as only the two of us trodding this beautiful land...

am leaving for kanoor again. will be very similar to last september... i deeply hope that i reach one particular place that remains in my memory. its the jungle path that merged with the flowing stream, it was nothing short of a pure blissful experience.

budangiri

Jamalabad

sun and straw, jamalabad

ruins at mandu, madhya pradesh

dandeli