Which Way Photo Challenge by Alive and Trekking.
Explored another hill today. The meandering road, bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, looked beautiful.
Which Way Photo Challenge
Month: November 2020
Friendly Friday Photograph- Unique
This post is for Friendly Friday Photograph which is hosted for the week by Sandy
This week’s theme is Unique and here are few of my unique photograph collection.
I met this couple on my evening walk. I wasn’t having my camera and so had to use my cellphone for the photograph. The wild vine coiling around the wire of the towering pole!
I am sure that someone might have noticed the vine at the early stages of this affair. They allowed it to lean on the wire, which is probably, part of some communication tower.
No vine might have ever reached to this height and I am trying to imagine the network of xylem and phloem vessels extending from the ground level to the tip of the plant, transporting water and nutrients..
The setting sun poised for a moment atop the pole, giving a perfect illusion of a Sodium Vapour Street Light.
This mercury vapour lamp giving the illusion of full moon peeking behind palm leaves.
This adenium is something akin to a four leaf clover. Shaped like an angel ready with her blessings, I never found another one like this in my garden.
Atlas holding the weight of a giant spectacle on his back.
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Do find the details in her below blog.
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Check out my book
Lover’s Felled
November Photo A Day Challenge, by City Sonnet, Day 26
Slow
Under years of siege by water and oxygen from the air, these iron poles of erstwhile streetlights, gave in, slowly turning to rust.
It also had tangles of some indistinguishable vine, looped around.
Like a lover who did not want to part even in death, the vines wrapped around the rusted poles, in love’s last embrace.
The dying vine formed a beautiful curlicue on the rusted poles which made me stop and pay tribute to this lovers felled, as a photograph for posterity.
One Liner Wednesday- November 25
Stumbling on Memories
There were boulders of many sizes and forms near the marsh. As I leapt from one to other adjusting my position for some photographs of the faraway hills, I stumbled, but thankfully regained my balance before I toppled into the water.
When I scrolled through those photographs, words took form. I could see my feet moving, from now to then, on the boulders of memories.
The distance between
now and then
bouldered with
obstinate memories.
I stumble on some,
evade others,
crush a few
under my feet.
Then,
in the now
I wait for tomorrow.
Black And White Ripples
I asked the Man to skip stones for me, so that I can take some photographs. Instead, he collected multiple stones and flung them all together.
That’s how he skipped skipping stones and created these artful ripples.
I didn’t get what I wanted, yet I am delighted with what I got.
Candle in the Wind
I got a call from one of my students of 2016 batch yesterday morning . Year 2020 had dealt another blow. We lost our friend, a 20 year old girl, her mother and her 15 year old brother in a car accident.
The car rammed into a stationary truck; probably the driver must have fallen asleep at the wheels. Father and the driver survived. The newspapers did not reveal much, only a brief report with the names and ages of the deceased.
She had called her friends before they started on road, from Gurgaon, where they had gone for Diwali festival. They were making plans for her birthday celebration.
She was a candle in the wind, snuffed out too early, by a moment, when it opted to blow too strong and too close to the flame.
Her name was Devika. She was the kind of girl, conspicuous, only to the ones who observe, as she chose to remain at the wings. She wished not to be drawn out to the front, content to be the shadow to her extroverted friends.
She was an artist and a good basketball player.
I took this series of pictures of her, on the day of Grade X farewell. The day when she stood before a crowd and spoke, shared her dreams and laughed and smiled. This is the image of Devika, I wish to commit to my memory.
But I still cannot help thinking… Would she have been sleeping when her car collided?
Did she suffer so much or only a moment of pain?
I knew her parents too from numerous parent- teacher meetings.
Having lost his family to fate’s cruel finger snap, where is her father going to draw the strength to get through?
As we live each day, we never think that, today could be the last tomorrow for some of us.
The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you left behind want to stop living.
Fredrik Backman
You Are What You Eat.
November Photo A Day Challenge, by City Sonnet, Day 23
What if you could eat all you want and still stay fit?
These days everything I eat seems to gather around my face. Don’t you agree with Julia Child when she says
People who love to eat are always the best people.”
Julia Child
If I start posting my food pictures, there would be no end. I love to cook, and before I sit to savour that blessing, I take a photograph of that platter, spread with love and effort. I never cook the same dish, in the same manner twice as I play around with the recipe everytime.
When I narrow down and select a few of my favourites, it would be these.
Honey Chilly Potatoes will be the Top Banana in my vegetarian starter list.
For main course, Chicken Biriyani anytime, served with date chutney, salad and papadoms ( deep fried flat bread made of lentil flour)
For dessert, I would opt Tiramisu without batting an eyebrow.
Then the ultimate comfort food which spells HOME in bold. It is the traditional vegetarian spread of Keralites which is served on a banana leaf. With 15-20 dishes, it takes hours to prepare and hence I wait for Onam festival to go full steam.
After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
Oscar Wilde
The Tightrope Walker on the Street
I was jolted awake from my peaceful Sunday morning sleep by the sound of old Hindi Movie songs blaring outside my open window.
Generally, waking up to loud music is a phenomenon which occurs on Independence Day and Republic Day . It was quite unusual for a regular Sunday morning.
The music was coming from a battery operated system, clad in bright pink cloth, and placed on the road, next to a sweet shop/bakery at the junction.
A family of street performers were setting the junction ready for tightrope walking. The father was erecting about 1.5 m tall poles, while a slender girl, probably 13-14 years of age, assisted him. A baby was asleep on the pavement, laid on a blanket, oblivious to the music or the people stirring around buying milk and bread from the shop.
The show started, with the nimble- footed girl, walking on the tightrope, without any props. Some passersby stood back to watch and dropped money into the piece of cloth spread out below the rope.
She raised her performance to various levels, as her mother handed over a variety of props to her. Her dance on the rope, was now with pots of different size piled one over the other, balancing on her head . The long baton held between her hands helped her to maintain her graceful poise.
Her mother then handed over a flat steel plate. For a moment she had it under her feet, then was rolling it along the distance of the rope.
She let go of the plate and now had the steel rim of a wheel, balanced between her feet as she walked the rope. There was no cushioning beneath and she never faltered once, during the 15 minutes show.
Her act came to an end, with a crisp salute to the applauding crowd.
People were generous in dropping money into the collection box. The family might have managed to earn enough, for at least, simple three score meals for a couple of days .
The sleeping baby was awake now, while they packed up and moved ahead on foot, looking for the next busy junction.
I am not thinking about the ethics of the whole show, where a child endangered herself, while her adult parents managed the backstage. My thoughts are around the young girl who must have put herself through vigorous practice so as to get the show on the road.
Does she know to read and write? What if she falls?
In the course of life, sometimes we do turn the other way, when we see people bend rules to sustain their lives, doing what they know, rather than beg or accept charity . This naked and raw display of the struggle of a family of four, with nothing but the acrobatic skills of a child, to keep their life moving forward, would suffice to change our sheltered perspective of living.
Musings of a Wandering Dryad 