Two worlds..

In my quest to finding a reason behind their (the street children) happiness i find that there are innumerable reasons for them to be happy .. evne though there may be innumerable+1 reasons for them to be sad..
I as a photographer try to capture their happiness...unlike the myriad photographers around the world who aim at capturing the sufferings... the mishaps.. the dirty environments....

Here's a discussion i was having with a few photographers with respect to an image of mine..
I find it so surprising why the foreigners connect street children with being sad.. being hopeless...
************************************************************************
[Photographer 1]
How can children be so full of joy when they are "in prison" like here? If you want to tell a story by this image which one is it? It's not clear to me.



[My reply to above]
Hi ****** I appreciate it...As a photographer i have failed as i have not been able to bring out what i wanted you to percieve ..There was no story that was meant to be told regardin this pic.. the kids are not in a prison.. just that these kids have so many dreams.. but most of their dreams are just left in dreams and nthing is really achieved.. Thats the thing that I had wanted to show.. Just my two cents on this..Regards

[Photographer 1 replies to me]
Hello,Thank you for your message. We are living in two different worlds. In my world i cannot imagine that children "in a cage" are having so much fun. On the other hand it is just human to have dreams of better worlds in a material or an immaterial way. Thats universal.I looked at a few other photos you made and i must say that there are some very interesting pictures amongst them. See you,Pieter007

[Photographer 2]
I disagree with [photographer 1] ... I think it is a believable story that those who have the least stuff have more hope and look forward to using what they have ... I really like the story told here ... I like the capture of the look of hope in the kids eyes and the colors work ....



I must say .. I was impressed by the way [photographer 2] replied back.. and i find it just fitting to my findings..

One night @ The Commercial Street

With the desire of exploring some more low light and slow shutter shots; we decided to "Shoot"; the commercial street last saturday.

Reached Woody's at around 5:30 pm and waited for others to join in.The question in our minds were what were we going to shoot!!People there were in plenty, but one wondered if they would get offended at we "shooting" them.It was an exciting shoot as shooting in flower or vegetable market the people are just too happy to pose for you or give a smile. So the challenge was there.We were joined in by a few senior members it was nice interacting with them.

The subjects were varied, with street and people forming majority of t them. There were jewellery, people, roadside vendors, vehicles, kids (my favourite), the beggars, the Bright lights and the awesome sky to choose from!

It was a great exploration! with all shots hand held. The few small altercations and the interactions with the vendors made things really interesting!! :P

Thank God it did not rain!!!

Some snapshots of the shoot:
Psychedelic


Another Face of India


Indian Essence

Locked Dreams..

Dreams..
Of making it big..
Of surviving..
Of being happy..
Of remaining loyal and faithful to family..
Of a better tomorrow..


What does it take??

With barely a meal a day...
The smile remains..


The hope loiters..
Hard work...?
Dedication in what one does...?
Faith ?

Too many questions..
What do they do?
What do they become?
The innumerable street children across India...
The homeless...

.
..
....
the answers haunts the soul..

...there I was; spending some time with them.

What is it that connects me so much with these street kids...?
I am game to go and spend some time with them any time...
their smiles makes me forget my sorrows... the situations that i have landed myself in seems futile...


it gives me hope to survive... and survive smilingly ... taking each day as it comes...
without worries...
a stranger to them i am .. and they to me...
one line that i recent read..
"If everyone is a stranger, then everyone is free" this line in the article makes so much sense...
Isn't that what the world today is becoming..full of strangers??
people disowning families...
forgetting relationships... just to FREE...
and hence becoming a stranger to all...and above all a Stranger to Oneself...

Am I also ?
Yes I would say...
running away from the situation is no way to handle the situation...

Help me o lord...
Show me the light...


Lemme be like the street kids...
Carefree.. Happy.. Satisfied..

Time

How time flies by...

I arrived here in Bangalore just exactly a year ago..
Landed here at the so called Silicon Valley of India..
The land of opportunities in India..

How the year has been.. ??
Full of anguish...
Some joy..
Some pain..
Lost Hope...
Old Dreams shattered..New ones built...
Broke for a while...
Hope re-ignited... Passion rebuilt..

I am...

I am the horizon..
the nearer to me you come.. the farther i go...
catch me not...


I shoot..
Come close to me..
and I will shoot..


Bare foot...
on the sands of time..
i walk into myself..


walking...
in hope of a better tomorrow...

Photoshoot of NRN

Not many times does one get to meet an idol .. or better still shake hands with them..
but this one happened just yesterday ..
I was invited/asked to do a photoshoot during an interview that NRN was giving..!
I must say .. i was simply thrilled at listening to him...




The down to earth personality that NRN our boss is made me realize one thing for sure...
Dream!! The world is waiting with its arms open to listen to your ideas...provided that you stick to the values and the honesty and hardwork in whatever one does..
A small shoot.. but definitely enough to leave impressions.. that will take a good time to fade away...

In love with Flowers

The freshness that these flowers emit are a welcome sight anytime!

Child Relief and You

Just recently with these discussions about this reservations and all.. there was a nice thing that i came across..
This was one of my friend contributing some part of his basic salary as a donation to CRY ( Child relief and You) .. I did feel a bit ashamed at not having done something similar..
and will probably will do it for sure in the near future..

However.. my connection with the children goes back long.. probably right from the day i started photographing...
The look on the kids faces, their innocence, their carefree laughter just fills my heart with joy...



They have become a favourite subject of shooting for me...



The expressions that these kids give simply amazing and at many times they do touch the heart and makes you want to do something for them...

Who doesn't want a Happily married life...

Leading a happily married life....

Red color significance in Indian marriages.... do u picturise a marriage without this?
do u picturise an indian wedding ceremony without the color red cloth?? or do you visualise a Indian marriage without the Bangles??

Bangles a necessary paraphenelia of the married women in India...

remember the familiar sight in yester year movies when the "indian" bride would invariably break her "red" bangles at the news of the death of the husband followed by a shreik "nahiiiiiiiiii...."



************************************************************************************

Adieu East India.. Will be back soon!!

I write this .. on my last day in Bhubaneshwar on this current...
Sometimes i wonder if I will ever be back to this place.. but i have to be here... someday soon.. as I will be definitely be going to the Konark and Puri temples again.
Currently had a chance to go to Kolkata and i simply was amazed at the photographic opportunities that the place provides.

The Victoria memorial at Sunset...An architectural marvel!!!


Its been a great one month here...but at the same time it also fills the heart with grief seeing the poverty around...
I covered some parts of West Bengal and also roamed the areas in and around Bhubaneshwar. Wish I could spend more time with the people here and the kids on the streets.. Orissa being one of the poverty struck state with the natural wrath troubling it all times of the year.. the cyclones, the drought, the floods are really a sorrow site to witness.

3 Kalis and a Shiva!


I will be back Orissa and West bengal!

Express Yourself

Laugh!!


Tease!!


Scare!!


or

Blush!!


But,
EXPRESS YOURSELF!!!

All over India before I turn 30

With dreams of joining Lonely Planet or National Geographic sometime in my life i took this rather challenging job of roaming all around India before I turn 30.
Now thats a tough call...
Tough I say because India as one may say is so diverse? And how does one know when they have travelled wide and far across India? After all what comprises of India?
The metros only? or the towns and villages included?
Having gone around south ( Done with Karnataka, TamilNadu, Kerela ) and the East (Bihar, WB, Assam, NE, Sikkim, Orissa) of India...
Me just dying to head Northwards (J&K, Himachal, Punjab, Haryana) and the West ( Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra) ...
Wish me luck..!

Divine Presence

Just yesterday.. or was it today.. i read an article in the TOI in the speaking tree section if i remember well saying that there was this guy who had a dream about god inviting him to dinner the next day. Thus he goes for dinner without informing anyone where he is going and to meet whom; at the predecided hotel and waits and waits from 8 PM onwards. However God does not turn up and his uncle does. So finally feeling very low at not having met God he tells everything to his dad and his dad explains about the omnipresent God.

The day i shifted to my new house that was in August 2005... I was awestruck with this coconut groove that was there just in front...If there was one thing that i always wanted to do with this groove was this.. take a picture with the sun rays..

Every Morning during the winters I would wake up and see this sight just outside my house...thinking that ok.. tomorrow I am going to take "the picture" and the very sight would fill me enthusiasm...days passed... so did weeks.. untill i realised that the days will pass by and I may have to wait another year for this to re-happen...So finally one fine morning.. with intentions of finishing the loaded roll in my Vivitar .. i shot a couple if these shots...and i could not help but Thank the lord for his presence in the snap...!

Probably this was God's way on entering my heart which did seem as complicated as the coconut groove that lay there.

And this was just in front of my house in Bangalore!!
Its really sad that I have to relocate to some other locality and the one thing that I am gonna miss about my current house is this.

The world as I see it

Following is an essay that I came across while surfing the net... made an interesting read...
***************************************
The world as I see it - Albert Einstein
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
**************************************

Wonder how much of it is actually true even in my case. I have been reading the similar thoughts in the book "Five people you meet in heaven.." and the question keeps strinking my mind... and the thoughts start to play crazy games in my mind... wonder when I will find an answer to these questions...
Philosophy... spirituality... there has to be a common platform for all.. some say all philiosophy is spirituality and some vice versa... which to go with ?? the mind flickers from one end to the other... in search of the perfect answer...

Ten Rules for Being Human

Just stumbled across this article...!
Wonder how much of it we follow!!
**************************
Ten Rules for Being Human by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Darjeeling memories...

The following piece is a advice to anyone who is planning to visit Darjeeling.
********************************************************
If u reach Bagdogra by 2 pm you can go and hire a taxi and reach Darjeeling the same day.
It takes around 3 hours by taxi from Bagdogra. Try avoiding traveling on the hills in the evenings and the night especially in the month of February as there is always thick fog and the visibility is not very good. The drivers are real experts though.
If u leave from Bagdogra in the morning u can leave by around 7 am. This way you will get enough time to visit some places in Darjeeling the same day.

Is Darjeeling hotels are easy to find and u can find them in almost all gullies. Hovever for your trip to be more exotic I would suggest this.

Staying in Darjeeling.
Try finding a hotel from whose windows you can get a clear view of the mighty Himalayas. The sunrise over the Kanchenjungha mountains is simply splendid and what can be a better way to start holiday morning with the picturesque view of the mighty mountains. Therefore the very first question you should ask a person when you reach the reception is whether the window gives a view of the mountains? Our dormitory used to have such a view and lemme tell you … right from 4 in the morning to 7 in the morning there is a very unique thing that one gets to witness. Its this .. in the moonlight you can see the mountains in the yellowish color and as the morning makes it way into our lives you will find the color change from yellow to purple to red to orange to golden to white…!!
It leaves you mesmerized and the beauty thrilled. Hotels near “The Mall” are nice and good. So u can try that. There were no five star hotels there till we were there so I don’t know if one has come up recently.


Places to go.
There are quite a few places that you would want to go to depending on what excites you.
You will not find discotheques or pubs .., but what you will get is your full of Nature…
And it’s the best thing to enjoy there…

You can go to the main points namely the
Botanical Garden ( it has a huge and awesome collection of Orchids and the flora of the Himalayas )
The Zoo (There are some nice species there.. The Himalayan Bear, Pandas, Snow Leopards, Siberian Tigers to name a few)
Make sure you visit the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Here u can get the actual view of the paraphernalia that were used by Tenzing Norway in his Everest Expedition. This place also has an indoor rock climbing place where you can try your hands.
If you want to try rock climbing or rock rappling on the real rocks then you can try them at the Tenzing Rock and Gombu Rock.

U can also go to the Rock Garden and a Ganga Maiya park which is quite beautiful as it in the valley between pine trees...very picturesque environment. There are regular taxis that take you there. U go to the base of the hills so it’s a nice drive with tea gardens on the hill slopes.
On the way you might as well go and see inside the tea factory and get urself surrounded by tea leaves in the plantations… with ladies plucking the tea leaves.
Of course when you come back … do get some of the world famous Darjeeling tea… Nathmull’s is a good place to buy the right choice of tea. Very aromatic and sure to please ur senses…

When you go towards Northpoint you will come to the Rope-way to a tea estate below... It’s a wonderful ride as it takes you over the tea gardens… and it’s a beautiful experience…
Of course... just beside the ropeway is my School St Joseph’s College, North Point. If you happen then do get some snaps of my alma mater and send them over to me...

Inside and around Darjeeling there are other attractions like the Batasia Loop, just before the Ghoom Railway Station . If you have hired a taxi from Bagdogra, one can stop over and have a look at the amazing omega shaped railway track that the toy train takes on its way to Darjeeling. You also get a very pleasant view of the mighty mountains from here.

If the toy train is running still you can take a ride on it and imagine yourself like Saif Ali Khan in Parineeta!!!

Thupten Sangag Choling (Dali) and Yiga - Choling(Ghoom) - the Buddhist monasteries of Bhutan Busty and the Japanese Peace Pagoda are also nice places to visit.

Inside Darjeeling the best way to travel is on foot. Checking out the local cuisines and the Local handicrafts. There is a huge Tibetan community there who sell some really nice handicrafts. The momos are a delicacy there and you will find them almost everywhere.

Is you want to do shopping the best place is the Chowrasta and the Mahakal Market. U can even go to the Chowrasta for a evening walk or a horse ride. The Oxford book store and the Amigoz restaurant at the Chowrasta are impressive. There are a lot of foreign goods that are available there on the streets and in the shops…

While going towards the Chowrasta comes an old hotel by the name Glenary’s where you get one of the best Bakery stuff. A hot cup of coffee in the cafeteria there, on a cold February day overlooking the Himalayas pure bliss!!!! If you want to try burgers and hotdogs try some at the Keventer’s.

From the Chowrasta there is a way that goes to the North point (the place of the ropeway and my school ) that is around 2.5 kms and the Zoo, the Mountaineering Institute come in the way. Therefore I suggest to walk this small distance.

The taxi wallahs do charge exorbitant rates especially for tourists.
Darjeeling is not so big a town, and one can cover it by foot.

If you have a spare day after roaming the places in Darjeeling you can go for White Water Rafting in the Teesta river. The drive down to the river is around 2 hours through pine forests and Tea gardens. And the water of the mountain river is chilly but its fun…! I had gone there some 3 years ago and it was an awesome experience…!

Although it has been quite a while since I went to Darjeeling but the memories still is afresh and will be there all life long.

The other option that most tourists do is to hire a guide and they take you to some 5 or 6 points and say that’s it all is there in Darjeeling; which I don’t quite agree.

If you have any doubt ever in your stay in Darjeeling, Contact the DGHC (Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council) offices that is situated at quite a few places there. They will be able to guide you.

If you need anything else .. Just feel free to bug me .. I will answer it if I can!!!

living on the edge....

...For the past few days I have been down.. really down ..
depression..
frustation..
anger..
regret ...
Have landed myself in a horrendous situation.. a situation where one feels like just running away...far away from the crowd.. far away from everyone...and just be with yourself...

Have been reading "the five people you meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom.
Some excerpts from it...
"No life is a waste...The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone..."
"It is because the human spirits knows, deep down that lives intersect. That death does not take someone... it just misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed"

The book is a nice small cute book.. with some nice insights into domains that we are unaware of...
Its a story of a person named Eddie who dies on his 83rd birthday in trying to save a small girl...
So in one way.. the book starts with a person dying and his new birth in heaven. Interesting read...

Set me thinking....
In the mean time... I am seeing my dreams being shattered...of not being able to do what the heart desires... What does one choose...Its a difficult situation this one... and I have absolutely no clue of how to get out of it ...seems like am trapped deep in the dark forest ... waiting for that one ray of light to set things going...

The question that arises is till when.. till when should one wait...

Finished "Chasing the Monsoon" and "The Class"...
Went to the book fair and got a couple of new books .. "The Sound of paper" and "The IITians"

My Camera finally got repaired.. so thats a bit of joy in the bleak life that I am currently experiencing..
Had gone to do some volunteering work as a Photographer for an NGO called "iVolunteer"
The dream of a Digital SLR however still seems distant...
The confusion a Nikon D70S and a Canon 20D is still lingering !

in a mess...

I have made this mess myself...
and it seems have to stick in it..
nothing doing about it..
lekin mess kya hai yeh batoge
having to do something u dont like ..
and not being able to do what u like.
what do u do ..
when u see all your dreams wiped out in a ziffy..
and suddenly you are made to realise that
all that u dreamt/ are dreaming is something illusional
and that there can never be a steady effort to see you trying to attain that goal

..so here I am..
stuck up in a rather good place..
with good people..
but still cribbing..
getting ready to face the harsh realities...
of doing this same thing for all time of life..
and having to part with my dreams for once and for all..
with no more enthusiasm for life..
and no more passion for doing anything..

loosing faith in myself..
the thing that has kept me going ..
the confidence that I had seems to be draining away
with each and every passing moment..
the expectations of the entire society
being thrown down the cliff in order to satisfy one person..

What do you do ?
run away or face it?
start something that you hated doing ...
start indulging yourself in doing things that you once loathed...

Try to forget everything and start afresh...
What is the solution??
Where does principles fit in...??
All for one person??
Is it worth it?

Pure Puri Magic

Just a few days ago.. in fact on saturday i had a chance of visiting a world
heritage site .. declared by UNESCO...and a couple of other beaches nearby...Currently on a transfer to East Coast Bhubaneshwar, i was cursing the authorities of putting me up at a "small city"... whose office is located in the middle of no-where...
But little did i know what was in store.. This was the Konark temple and the Beaches at Chandrabagha (3 kms from Konark) and Puri....

We started off well at around 7 am from Bhubaneshwar.. I was though not expecting
too good roads...thinking it too be a area constantly being hit by natural
calamities...But it came as a surprise when our OR-02AD 8057 Indica was hitting
100 kmph!!! Suddenly the driver used to take the break .. at places there are speed breakers
that the greeks would be proud to see.. completely omega shaped speedbreakers with
a lot of concrete.. and come without any warning...that send shivers everytime ur
vehicle crossed it!!The long drive along the country side with lush green fields with patches of
canary with the premises guarded by coconut trees was a welcome sight from the
concrete jungle and the vehicular pollution...

The roads just seemed to cut through the rice fields...it was indeed horrifying to remind oneself of the terrible times when there are floods and cyclones.. it was hard imaging the place with uprooted coconut trees and nature's fury all around...and poverty overtaking major areas. Temples sprout in the middle of nowhere... in the middle if fields...below trees.. alongside roads and at crossings...
Cruising through the villages with the characteristic odour of the morning blues... and the smoke from the chulah .. send me nostalgic reminding me of my childhood spend in village similar to this one
keeps constantly questioning on the question of faith we as Indians do in our gods...

8:30 am:
Reached Konark.. and the place left me stunned... the architecture of the temple was unbelievable and although there were places that were patched with renovated and redone sculpture, one could easily make out the difference

8:40 am:We hired a guide named Shankar for our highly interactive walkthrough of the
Konark temple. The fact that the guide was speaking such good english made the
stay more memorable. He seemed to be quite thorough with the various aspects of
the sculptures and the historical facts.The sun temple is beautifully laid, with highly skilled architecture.
After spending around two and half hours exploring the temple we set off for our
next stop.

10:45am:
This was the Chandrabagha beach; some three kilometers from the Konark temple. It is said that when the temple was built the sea extended till the temple. The first rays of the rising sun was said to fall at the main altar of the temple where the main deity was kept.The beach lay there in its pristine glory... unperturbed from civilazation.. the thunderous sounds of the waves splashing against the golden sand...Pure bliss..!!managed to do some photography there.. would definitely suggest someone with photographic ardour to try the beaches that are still unexplored...The natural beauty of the beach mesmerised me and kept keeping me from going.. but due to the day progressing .. and having to return back to bhubaneshwar and a lot of miles to cover we decided to go

12:30 pm
on the roads again.. this was a picturesque drive.. with forests on one side and
the blue bay on the other...if the first drive was heaven.. this definitely had to
be "jannat"!!

1:45 pm
reached Puri and had lunch in a not so good restaurant...

2:30 pm
headed to go to the Jagannath temple..what a sight...!!took the entrance and what a surprise inside.. there were alteast more than 30
thousand people in the temple complex... as one passed the fellow pilgrims singing paeans in honour of the Lord Jagannath...Deep engrossed in my thought as to why they call Lord Jagannath and not Bhagwaan Jagannath.. we entered the main temple to get a "darshan" of the lord. hands up ... pockets with wallets all buttoned up...and shouting hare krishna and ho-ho-ho-ho we made our way further inside...an experience...never felt before... in fear of a stampede we put out feet forward
consciously.There were people of all age groups.. with all kinds of relatives...The question of Faith that we Indians have in our gods are indeed commendable...some must be praying for good career.. some for good health .. some for prosperity...the key there is to just let urself get immersed in the holy atmosphere and go with the crowd...for if you try doing something else you find a "danda" of the policewalaah striking you.. and they hurt badly...

3:30 pm:
Finished the Darshan by around 3:30 and headed towards the beach... A new discovery awaits us... the horn of our vehicle malfunctioned...and driving back to bhubaneshwar in the night may be a problem...but the driver takes us in his confidence...saying he will not have any such problems..

3:50 pm:
reached the beach.. the puri beach is very unlike the juhu or the marine beach..the waves are a bit more fierce and the height of the waves also large...strolled along the beach .. lots of faces .. lots of people.. playing with the waters rejuvinates the soul...the ambience is excellent...

4:15 pm:
suddenly a weird thought comes in... the sun does not seem to be going into the sea for the sunset...!! how could that be.. I remember seeing pics of the Puri sunset...Just then another thought takes over... Shankar had told us.. the beaches at Kanyakumari and Puri are the only two places in India where u can see the sun rise as well as the sunset in the sea.. waited for the sun to come down.. so that i could witness what turned out to be a sight that I had never seen before...

4:45 pm:
The sun seemed to set just at the line where the sea met the land...as a result of which the sand turned golden .. and the water and the waves lit exotically in the flames of the sun...the water was on fire...a fire that not even the waters could or would want to put out... a sight never witnessed before .. breathtaking to its core..add to it the people's silhouttes that one could compose ... awesome...! feelings inexplicable...the hungry photographer in me just had its full...with
many children on the beach it was indeed a photographer's delight.... It seemed the sun god resides in this very place...The sea seemed to be calling each and everyone present into it...the call of the
waters...

5:15
set to return...without the horns of the Indica though

6:30
stopped over in Pipli to check out the applique work done by the local people..beautiful lamp-shades and very interesting artworks done using only clothes...tok
some for a souvenir...

7:15
reached bhubaneshwar...and back to the guest house..
Missed a few people at times... but then as I said...onc can always come back with
near and dear ones...
This is one beach that I would defiitely love to come back...

http://kshitiz.multiply.com/photos