Hello Monday !!

Hey all !! so how was your weekend ? mine was good.... my baby Shruti was here with her parents and aunt to say her goodbyes. together we went shop-hopping and also for a little picnic at Dakshinachitra on Sunday...

It is amazing to see how much the little lady is growing everyday... but more on her and Dakshinachitra later today... perhaps tomorrow... for now just two photographs from our trip yesterday .......

see you soon....  enjoy !!

Lend your voice.... AWAAZ DO !!

In India UNICEF has been working since 1949 to help ensure that each child in this country gets the best start in life... yet the fact remains that there are 8 million children in India who are denied their basic 

right to education.

Awaaz Do is a movement started by UNICEF which dreams of an India where 

every child is free to live a happy childhood ,

every child knows the way to school...

To this day several have joined the cause and the support of many more is required 

to help Awaaz Do realize its dreams...

so....

    lend your words, lend your support

champion the cause and show them the light

join  Awaaz do  and help bring the change you want to see in India tomorrow....

[HRI runs a school for the children of the nearby villages. the photograph was taken by P. Bandopadhay during a program at HRI where the children from the village-school participated.]

Have a wonderful loving weekend !

i do not entertain email-forwards too much. but few days back i received one from my friend Rachna, which came with the added note.... "please dont miss it"  in bold ! since, a love stories are one of my favourite things i immediately started to read. It was an absolutely fascinating love story of  Narayan Murty, the founder-chairman of Infosys Technologies and his wife Sudha Murty.... how they met and set out on their journey together..... the mail was an excerpt from Sudha Murty's Autobiography.

Narayan Murty and Sudha Murty

i immediately knew that i had to share it on the blog. so ....heres a love story dedicated to all the lovely ladies who have unconditionally loved their men, stood by them through all odds and helped them live their dreams....

Have a wonderful weekend .. and..   please please please dont forget to read  this beautiful  fairy tale !!

remembering 26/11 ...

           

Hold your tongue or hold your breath 

and you can hear time whispering 

its existence and regrets...

                              

-Vimal C

 remembering 26/11 ...and saluting the brave and the innocent who paid with their lives 

                        for the fanaticism of a few....

image from

Happy Thanksgiving...

Norman Rockwell's Freedom From Want, 1943

i guess happiness is a contagious miracle..... 

and that is why the Thanksgiving-blog-posts with pictures of roast turkey, pies, mashed potatoes, bowls of fruits and
many many happy faces surrounding them...  are making me soo...ooo happy  and gay !! 

Wish you all Happy Thanksgiving while you all get warm and cosy around family and friends !!

[image found here]

Vanakkam Mamallapuram !

60km south of chennai is situated the ancient coastal town of mahabalipuram, earlier known as mamallapuram. the town is famous for its historical monuments... the Shore temple, Varaha caves, Arjuna's Penance and the Pancha Rathas and is one of the most popular tourist places near chennai.

few years back i had seen in a friends album photographs of the massive sculpture of Arjuna's Penance and had been fascinated by them. eversince i have been longing to visit the place.  however until last Sunday my plans always got dampened by something or the other that would come on the way.... so on Sunday, before day-break, when my friend Rakesh and me finally left for mahabalipuram, i was all excited ! we had wanted to hit the shores by sunrise. but somehow that did not happen. we were a little behind our schedule and reached there only half an hour after sunrise... the rest of the trip however went as planned. in fact it turned out to be much more delightful than i had imagined... 

With Lonely Planet as our guide we knew that all the historical monuments in mahabalipuram are spread over an area of 1.5 sq. km. so after the air-bus dropped us at a spot in mahabalipuram we decided to tour the place on foot... this allowed us to explore every nook and corner of the town and appreciate the sculptures that lay all over the place... this sculpture of the saint was the first one we came across.... i am not certain, but i think it was placed at one of the gates of Hotel Pallava Dynasty located on E. Raja Street..  

tourists usually go for the Shore temple first... however since we had already missed the sunrise so we deviated from the usual tourist route and walked 300 meters west of E. Raja St to find these beautiful extensive sculptures of Arjuana's Penance. In my mind mahabalipuram and this elaborate elephant sculpture had always been synonymous....it was this photograph that had fascinated me at the first place... so having reached my destination at the very beginning i felt pretty satiated......

Arjuna's Penance

we spent the next two hours walking up and down the slopes seeing and photographing the monoliths and rock-cut-outs, sometimes climbing flights of tall steps, marvelling about the height of the people olden days, marvelling at their motivation to keep at the work and create such beauties as the Ganesh Ratha, Krishna's butter-ball, Trimurti cave, Varaha cave, Rayar-Gopuram, Mahisasurmardini Mandapam, Krishna Mandapam.... we did this till we were tired and hungry... 

Ganesh Ratha

Varaha Cave

Rayar-Gopuram

Sculpture at Mahisasurmardini Mandapam

the caretakers at Krishna Mandapam

....and felt desperate for a sumptuous south-indian-breakfast.  the place where we finally seated ourselves was a smallish street-side shop... while i can't vouch for the food we had there.. i can certainly say that the food they served wasn't too bad....

next we walked down Beach Road to see the Shore temple. at the site of the temple, there are two shrines  namely the Kshatriya Simheswara and Rajasimhesvara which are collectively known as the Shore temple. from the plaque displayed at the entrance we gathered that this historical monument was built by the Pallava King  Narasimhavarman-II around 700 AD and it marks the culmination of the architectural efforts that began with the cave temples and the Pancha Rathas....

the shore temple...

built on the shore of the Bay of Bengal, the shrines of the temple are continuously being affected by the rough sea and salt laden winds. though the archaeological survey of India has lately undertaken efforts to check the effect...  a closer look at the structure reveals even to the naked eye that what stands at the site of the shore temple today is but a weather-beaten-remain-of-what-used-to-be-a-magnificent-structure-once....

by the time we came out of the shrine complex it was 11 am. with the sun shining overhead we did not feel upto it to walk to the Pancha Rathas yet.... so the next few hours we indulged ourselves in shops, beach, food and more shops.... we spent quite sometime at Elangovan's shop no 6. he was a pleasant man and showed us a lot of stone carvings which we hadn't seen before... i was particularly impressed by the pieces cut out of the onyx stones... they looked lovely and i surely had a hard time trying to resist my temptation to own one of them...

Elangovan, shop no 6.

the shore temple as seen from the beach..

one of the many curio shops at Othavadai St, Mamallapuram

our next stop was the Pancha Rathas. these stand at some distance from the Othavadai Road where we had stopped for food and window shopping. being exhausted from all the walking we finally took a auto-rickshaw to the site of the Pancha Rathas....Though the name suggests, from the plaque displayed at the site we gathered that these temples have nothing to do with the Panchapandavas of Mahabharata.... the Pancha Rathas are a group of five temples resembling wooden chariots cut out from a single huge rock sloping from north to south.... this project was initiated by the Pallava King Narasimvarman-I (AD 630-688)  and the five temples were executed as models of south Indian temples and not consecrated ....

by the time we left the premises of the Pancha Ratha it was around 6:00. it was time for us to take our ride back to Chennai... so we took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest bus-stand and while the sun set along the western horizons we took our ride back towards home........

[all the photographs displayed have been taken by my friend Rakesh and me...]

Hello Monday !

the seashells.... mamallapuram

Hi there ! so how was your weekend ! mine was great.... by far the most delightful weekend i have spent during my one years stay in chennai... we, me and a friend, went for a days trip to Mamallapuram. there is a lot about the trip that i want to share... but that i shall do after office today..

since i could not contain my excitement any more i thought i'll drop in and post a picture from yesterday. Hope you all had a wonderful start to the week and are back at your desk refreshed and rejuvenated ! Happy Monday and have a great day !

Have a great weekend !

.... yet another week comes to an end... two more Fridays to go in-between and then i'll be home :D

on tenth december i am leaving chennai for good. the rounds of farewell parties and good-byes have begun and its time to start the shifting process... but i am not yet headed that way. my parents are coming here to help... so right now i am only procrastinating...

since this time i'll be moving to another country i am both excited and a-wee-bit nervous...

but we'll see... i am sure something wonderful is in store for me..

i am also excited about next weekend. for my dolly-darling Shruti baby will be here next Saturday to give chotoma a good-bye kissy....  O baby chotoma can't wait to see you again !

in india the festive season ends with Diwali... however with so many blog-posts on thanksgiving, i am still feeling a little festive at heart. so over the weekend i have decided to set my hands on a recipe or two from Kevin's Closet Cooking and also decorate my place a little with plants, flowers and lets see what else...
i might go site-seeing too... for the sun is shining bright after days of raining and is inviting me outdoors...

see you next week ... till then eat well, take care and have a great weekend !!

[photograph taken by Rajesh Gupta, HRI,2004]

when you realise that you want to spend the rest of your lives together.... 

you want the rest of your life to begin now....

thus our life-together began on 18th September 2004 

and after an year in a grand family affair we tied the knots on 18th November, 2005.

.......and then lived happily ever after.............

                     happy anniversary, Ni ! the past six years have been lovely............

                                                         Thank you so much for everything.....

 love and kisses...

yours wifey...

[quoted from Harry met Sally]

Coz all you need to bring back that zeal ....

on a swampy soggy groggy rainy day

....... is a cup of piping hot chai, few anecdotes and a lots of inspiring words.....

verses from If by Rudyard Kipling.

aadab hyderabad....

yesterday while doing my rounds of blogosphere I stumbled upon 

Madhu Gopalan's lovely blog aadab hyderabad where she celebrates hyderabad and everything hyderabadi ! 

it reminded me of my hyderabad visit this august.

 i was there for the math-congress. but inspite of my 10 days stay, 

 i did not manage to see, smell or taste enough of the grand old city of the Nawabs and the Nizams... 

i however did manage a visit to the Charminar and  Laad Bazar, - the lane adjoining the four towers

which lies dotted with a myriad of colourful lakh and glass bangle shops....  

here are some of the photographs from that colourful  Hyderabadi lane...

me and sweta inside Charminar..... a narrow flight of stairs lead us there....

Inside the Charminar....

an ariel view from Charminar of the surrounding galis...

Mecca Masjid, as seen from Charminar..

The Hyderabadis....


the four towers and the tower clock...

Charminar, Hyderabad, August, 2010 .............
 till next time ... Khuda hafiz hyderabad ||

Art Love...

me and husband are extremely fond of art. we visit art galleries whenever we can and often return with a bundle of art-prints ..... besides others, we both have developed a special appreciation for the strokes of Van Gogh and the forms of  Hussain.... so yesterday when while surfing online I came across this art event where serigraphs of Maqbool Fida Hussain and Sayed Haider Raza would be exhibited, I just knew where I would be this evening !   ... and so at 5pm today i and a friend were at Sumukha Gallery,  glaring at a wall with The British Raj at one end, Asoka at the other and an array of Hussain's Kerala-Jaisalmer and horses in between....

Kerala, Hussain

Since our print-collection does not have a Hussain yet I was hoping that today i would find one... but serigraphs were all that they had.... i however did not return empty-hand... for the gracious lady at the gallery handed to me a booklet of limited editions which had this message by Hussain in it....

                          it made me smile... for we are certainly the class with more taste than means......

"Coz life looks better in snapshots !"

last night while surfing on FB  i came across a friends friend who had an album by the name, - "Coz life looks better in snapshots !"   i instantly fell in love with the album name and felt an overwhelming urge to post a photo befitting the name..... nothing in my albums would suit the title so much .... so i borrowed this photograph from Soumyajit's FB album. 

isn't one of those picture-postcard-shots !

Hello Monday !

after the long festive weekend and yesterdays all-day-rain...
 all i wish for  this morning... is the sun, a Large cup of Cappuccino 

     and a table to myself in a lovely Coffee lounge like this one ...

tiling the bits....

 our pre-Diwali late night sessions...collaged courtesy  Picasa 3

my sis-in-law Sweta left sometime back. after an extremely busy 3-day Diwali preparation, right now i am feeling rather laid back... yesterday evening was good. few friends came over. some helped us light the lamps and others helped with the last moment decoration touch-ups. smog from the crackers that had been burnt had filled the air outside.. so we decided to celebrate a peaceful Diwali with lamps, diyas, time-less melodies by R.D Burman-Salil Choudhury, sweets and samosas....

A very big thank you to all our friends who made the evening special for us..... 

Images, clockwise from the left:                                                     .            

1. aum Ganesha namah !. 

2. no décor can ever be complete without a touch of green

3. burning the midnight lamp preparing paper lamps, 4:00AM,4/11/10  

4. sweta working on the lamp shade at 1:30 AM, 5/11/10  

5. the golden embellishments .  

6. the first look.... 3:30 A.M, 5/11/10

[few more pictures of Diwali Preparation, 2010 are displayed in the side-bar-slide-show]

Happy Diwali !!

Have a wonderful year filled with peace, happiness and prosperity. 
Wish you all a very Happy Diwali !

postcard from my life...

After working on the lamps till 4 in the morning, we realised that we did not have a paper cutter. so last evening we had been to the City Centre Mall to get the necessary supplies... Now our lamps are almost done.. believe me the lamps look quite amazing. we are indeed pleased with our efforts and enthusiasm... will post the pictures tomorrow night. some preparations are still to be done. will take care of them in the morning...  good night and wish you all a very happy  Diwali !!

Diwali extravaganza... HRI.

Vidhya apartment, HRI, 2008, photograph by Shubhaditya

I do not have very explicit memory of how I spent  Diwali before 2003. yes, 2003 is the year I got admitted in HRI and eversince Diwali has meant much more to me than it had ever meant before... This is how the two hostels in HRI look on Diwali....

Hostel 1, HRI, Diwali, 2006

My husband, Nishi spent his first graduate year in this hostel. His room was the the fourth door on the ground-floor....

Hostel 2, HRI, Diwali, 2006. This is the hostel where I used to live from 2003 to 2005, till I got married to Nishi...

till date, every year with equal enthusiasm, the first year graduate students of HRI collect funds for Diwali,  hand a part of it to Mewalalji, - who very diligently gets the diyas in advance, soaks them in water over night and then helps the students to line them up in the hostel corridors and on the road sides... so that they can all be lit up by 6 pm on  Diwali .


this morning my sis-in-law Sweta has come. i told her about my plans of making the paper lamps. she said she had done it before and volunteered to help me out with some of the finer-time-taking-details of the project. we'll go out shopping this evening and later at night we have plans to plunge into our lamp-project. hopefully things will go well and tomorrow i'll have some nice pictures to post... how are your preparations coming up... i hope you all are having a great time this festive season !

Lamp Inspiration....

in my previous post i had mentioned that i'll be posting photographs of Diwali-celebrations in HRI through the rest of the week. so is a photograph of two lamps that Archana, Shrobona and Ipsita had made last year at HRI.

aren't they simply gorgeous ! I love the peacock.. its so intricate... so beautiful... one can easily see how much effort had been put into making that lovely lamp... yet all the effort and all the hard work did not budge them from making eight such beauties....  only the superwomen of HRI could do anything so elaborate just for an evening !!

lamps lighting the entrance of hostel 2, HRI. 

I had finished my Ph.d by then and was at home for Diwali... so i couldn't be a part of this Diwali extravaganza.... but had i known in advance about their plans, i would have certainly made an effort to be there..... i am contemplating making such a lamp for my apartment this year. 3 days to go... will i be able to make it... wish me luck... i'll really need it to match it up to anything as beautiful as the ones displayed above !

Smitten....

The photograph is a rangoli that Archana, Nabamita and Suvankar had made in front of a hostel in HRI for Diwali, 2005 most likely..

another four days to go before Diwali. but noone seems to be excited enough..... 

had i been at my Alma mater i probably would have been busy with the preparations... planning for the decorations and the lighting arrangements.. right now i am desperately missing the pre-Diwali-late-night-sessions with Archana, Priyotosh and Subho wherein creativity and gossip would go hand-in-hand accompanied by intermittent rounds of
adrak-wali-chai (ginger-tea)....

during Diwali, HRI is certainly the place to be.... 

smitten by nostalgia, i have decided to post some old photographs of Diwali celebrations at HRI throughout this week... so expect bright sparkling photographs in the next few days.... and here are some photos of Diwali celebrations in HRI, taken by Girish Kulkarni and Nishita Desai in 2008.