Friday, February 09, 2007

mountain of a mole-hill







Well, am not really the writing kind, as you (those who've wandered through my domain) figured out by now. And it might seem like am making a mountain of a mole-hill, but i'd rather make a mountain, a mountain of a mole-hill and anything else, than spend my life mountainless, in lands where the only thing that rise higher than your self esteem are the glittering malls (they should be spelt MAULS) and not the lofty peaks, devoid of glass and steel.
Its been a little more than a week now that i've been battling my way through ceaseless traffic of expensive cars, blaring horns, mule and bullock trains, one green and yellow CNG motif in more than 5000 gasoline breathing supposedly-aesthetic mechanical wonders, all in approximately 5 square kilometers of concrete canvas. And it's not at all pretty i tell you. Maybe they are, and i just dont have the eyes for it, or the heart for it, lungs for it rather!
Places where an evening walk should be called a smog-walk, where driving and riding is not exactly the means to relax and where the only locality called Green Park is nothing but an extension of a car-park built to accomodate the shoppers that throng the diamond store near it - a diamond is forever! Try breathing diamond!
And where do I come from u ask??? I hail from the land of the mountains! That should suffice. Mountains with rivers. Mountains of snow. Mountains! Mountains that dont 'maul' you, mountains where you can be yourself, mountains where there's nobody honking from behind you, mountains where you dont need rear-view-mirrors for navigation, mountains that let you live! Mountains with snow flakes!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

down Aminabad, the grand old Lucknow!






















They're only faces, do you still have to have a caption for them???

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Portraits from Kanpur































The myriad of colours at the famous Shivalay Chudi Bazaar.
Visitors at the fountain in front of the J.K. Temple

Thursday, January 25, 2007

BATHMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




He's not a fool you see, he checks whether theres enough water in the tank for him to take his morning bath or not, else the robe stays. (Namchi Monastery, south Sikkim)

under the dish


All things divine, as they stand, at Sumin in east Sikkim

selfportrait


Sunday, January 07, 2007

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Bike Over Troubled Bridge



Bhusuk, almost an hour ride away from Gangtok!

GOOD MORNING GANGTOK











It's 4:30 am & Gangtok wakes up to a golden Khangchendzonga while the moon calls it a day, a night rather! And prayer flags welcome the sun an hour later at Ganesh Tok!

GOLDEN HARVEST



Sunday, October 15, 2006

the last ride















Shots from the last ride atop my trusty Royal Enfield Thunderbird 2002:
A close up of chaang, local millet beer.
A yak gets a heady wash in Tsomgo Lake.
Red cheeks adorn a little girl in Kupup (12940 feet) and...
...my steed, sadly i sold it some days back! Enter THE NEW BULLET ELECTRA 4S 2006

a happy dasain
























A front porch potrait of dasain celebrations in a village on the outskirts of Gangtok

Sunday, September 24, 2006

undisputed

















Meet the motormouth, Gangtok's resident SlimShady!
Given the opportunity she might outshine the Fred Durst & Shady Tag Team

watsbeenkeepinmebizzy



















nepali folk tunes by Binod, the sarangi player from Nepal and brilliant guitar accompaniment by DeoAshish from Shantiniketan at one of our many musical evenings at THE BookShop in Gangtok, I doubt if there's anything like it anywhere else for that matter.