Out of the box!

Mussoorie Magic!

2010-01-14T01:54:00.001+05:30

Mussoorie Magic!
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

i was recently in mussoorie with my wife and we enjoyed our time walking up and down the "mall road".. there i met a couple of these guys who earn their living by showing the tourists five "important landmarks" in mussoorie with their telescopes - a century old temple, a lovers' point (that's a popular one!), an old library at the other end of the 2 km long road, a king's castle now converted into a museum and.. i don't recollect the last one - all of this for just ten bucks

.. what i was amazed about was that one of them - jai singh - has been doing that same thing for the past 25 years!.. imagine, standing at one place on this road, talking about the same five "important landmarks" to complete strangers all through the day... for 25 long years! amazing, isn't it?!

what do YOU do for a living?

What's up, Bud-dy?! :-)

2009-08-01T21:54:00.001+05:30

What's up, Bud-dy?! :-)
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

I find that I end up capturing lot of reds in my pictures, but if asked, I may not say that red is my favorite color! ...let me re-think :-)

A Love-ly bouquet

2009-07-21T19:39:00.001+05:30

A Love-ly bouquet
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

There were quite a few "flower accessories" sold in this market - and I'm sure this would be the case at other flower markets as well. This one, for example, is kind of a stand which can hold a bunch of flowers at its top..

Beautiful remains..

2009-07-19T02:18:00.001+05:30

Beautiful remains..
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

These tuberoses seemed to have been abandoned by their seller, perhaps because they were no longer as fresh as some others.. lying quietly in a corner, to me they appeared so beautiful, calm and serene i could not have missed them..

Will be glad to hear your comments..

BTW,Tuberoses in Hindi are called Rajnigandha (derived from the two words - Rajni, meaning night, and Gandha meaning smell/ fragrance in this case. I guess the fragrance of these flowers is strongest at night). Well, there seems to be no direct translation between the names in the two languages :)

Blooming in harmony..

2009-07-17T16:20:00.001+05:30

Blooming in harmony..
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

One more from the Flower Market Series..

Garlands Galore!

2009-07-16T20:20:00.001+05:30

Garlands Galore!
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

Marigold is a very popular flower in India. Large quantities of the flower are used to prepare garlands and used for decorations in festivals, weddings and religious events.

Love is in the air! :)

2009-07-15T19:50:00.001+05:30

Love is in the air! :)
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

my wifey - too fond of flowers - enjoyed her time at the flower market while i was clicking away to glory :) in between i gifted her roses and daisies :)

Spreading love all around..

2009-07-15T03:37:00.001+05:30

Spreading love all around..
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

she saw me clicking her and seemed both shy and happy about it :) i had clicked a few flower vendors at the market - i'll try to print those pictures and give a copy to each one of them on a future trip..

Roses for everyone from the Flower Market series!

2009-07-14T22:26:00.001+05:30

Roses for everyone from the Flower Market series!
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

bunch of gorgeous red roses ready to be sold.. i liked the contrasting colors in this picture offering an overall nice balance.. your comments are most welcome!

Flowers for Everyone! Welcome to the Flower Market Series

2009-07-12T00:38:00.003+05:30

Flowers for Everyone! Welcome to the Flower Market Series
Originally uploaded by ManishJaju

So here I am, back to my blog after a rather long hiatus! The last few months I have been keeping a bit busy with things, and my online presence has been more on Flickr, and then I discovered I could actually use my time on Flickr to post my pictures on the blog here! So here I go with the first one!

I am calling this the Flower Market Series and I intend to post a few pics in this theme. The flower market is located near Cannaught Place, the heart of New Delhi.

I'll be glad to receive your comments - on what you liked and what you didn't. Feel free and generous! :)

Flight of Fantasy!

2009-01-15T01:37:00.001+05:30

I shot this picture during my recent trip to the Keoladeo National Park, formerly known as the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. More information at: www.bharatpursanctury.com

All Topics on the Web!

2008-09-08T20:24:00.011+05:30

I came across this useful website called Alltop - a very handy site, which collects stories on "all topics" (that's how it gets the name, Alltop) on the web.

Alltop groups these collections — “aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on a wide range of topics such as environment, photography, science, Muslim, celebrity gossip, military, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, Macintosh... the list is long! Each Alltop site displays the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs.

Here's how the Alltop site works:

Alltop imports stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and displays the headlines of the five most recent stories. When a reader places the cursor over a headline, it displays part of the story so that the reader can decide if he'd like to read it. To read the story, the reader has to click on its title. To go to the home page of the site, the reader has to click on its domain name. Alltop claims to update the feeds approximately every ten minutes.

I went to my favorite topic - Photography - and whoa! what a quick way to check the latest on the subject. There were dozens of collections from across the web. Here's a 'cropped' snapshot:

At the end, I would say that Alltop is a great way to introduce your friends to RSS, if they are yet to be initiated on the concept. A simple explanation would say that Alltop aggregates RSS feeds from various blogs and sites from the internet and categorizes them by topics. Each topic then gets its own page. So, all feeds on photography would go to photography.alltop.com, all topics on iPhone would go to iphone.alltop.com and so on. Overall, a useful experience.

Something both money and MasterCard can't buy!

2007-09-12T00:25:00.000+05:30

City Buses

2007-07-17T02:56:00.000+05:30

They say "A picture is worth a thousand words"... Do I need to say more?

City Buses (above) in Delhi (Read the Citizen Charter put up by Delhi Transport Corporation)

City Buses (above) in Singapore (Read the Customer Charter put up by SBS Transit)

Religious Recourse

2007-02-23T08:44:00.000+05:30

Seen here are images from my last weekend trip to a religious destination 'Khatu Shyamji'. The place is a two-hour drive from the Pink City 'Jaipur'. Devotees drive down to a village on way called Ringus, which is 16 km before Khatu. There they perform pujas and religious rites and may opt to cover the remaining 16 km on foot (!) They carry with themselves something called 'Nishaan', which is a pole (long wooden stick wrapped with usually yellow/orange cloth) and a red/yellow flag fixed at the top. The pole itself is mounted on a 'pocket' made in a kind of a band of cloth hung around the waist diagonally across the shoulder. The journey may seem arduous to the onlooker, but the devotee himself finds it effortless chanting hymns all the way to visit his lord 'Khatu Shyamji', an avatar of Lord Krishna. The fact that the 'Nishan' has to be held above the ground (it can't be rested anywhere on way) may sound all the more challenging! There is another kind of devotee who does not walk the distance but covers it by - if I may call it so - crawling. (See image alongside) Well, there is a third kind of devotee (I belong to this group), who neither walks nor crawls.. he drives in the comfort of a car! :-)

Honeymooning in Malaysia

2007-01-09T02:51:00.000+05:30

View of the city Kuala Lumpur from my hotel room. On the left are the Petronas Twin Towers, while on the right is the The Kuala Lumpur Tower (officially known as Menara Kuala Lumpur; referred later as KL Tower), the former being the world's tallest twin towers (452 m) while the latter the world's 5th tallest tower (421 m). Incidentally, the hotel where I stayed in is the highest hotel in KL (!)

By the lakeside... Naukuchiataal, India

2006-09-23T03:45:00.000+05:30

Naukuchiataal, India

2006-09-23T03:38:00.000+05:30

"Shikara" at Naukuchiataal, India

2006-09-23T03:35:00.000+05:30

Seoul in the night

2006-05-02T19:41:00.000+05:30

See the Hope in these Eyes

2006-04-05T21:42:00.000+05:30

a few weeks back these and more kids visited the organization which i work with. in case you're wondering what is special about them, it is this: they are living with the hope that one day they will win the battle against the life-snatching disease, cancer. spending those four hours with them was an absolutely humbling experience for me. watching them bubble with the same enthusiasm, same innocense, same joy and same love as any other 'normal' kids, i could not but wonder 'are they children of a lesser God?'

High Seven!

2006-04-04T21:00:00.000+05:30

seven things i want to do before i die:
1. bungee jump
2. put up an exhibition of my photography
3. go on a himalayan expedition (ladakh is the place)
4. support a child's education
5. learn to play a musical instrument
6. own a house
7. see sydney harbor, london bridge, grand canyon, statue of liberty and the alps

seven leitmotifs:
1. hey / hi
2. damn
3. absolutely fabulous
4. sweetheart (a late addition!)
5. arre yaar
6. shut up
7. bloody

seven things i can't do:
1. wake up in the morning
2. sleep in the afternoon
3. sleep before midnight
4. talk loud in public
5. forget conversations
6. feel jealous
7. leave things disorganised

seven things that attract me to anyone:
1. calm headedness
2. passion
3. honesty
4. thoughtfulness
5. a sense of humour
6. unpretentiousness
7. thirst to learn

Cutie Pie

2006-03-24T13:50:00.000+05:30

suddenly missin my li'l cutie pie "pari", my loving neice; so thought of putting her pic up here to catch her glimpse whenever i visit my blog. she'll be four months "young" next week, but she's already wanting to speak out all the time! she's particularly fond of an interesting object that we know as............"celing fan"!! "curtains" come a close second in her list of "interests"! look at her eyes! such a curious li'l thing she is! miss you "paru" :)

How the Human Mind reads...

2006-03-19T23:13:00.000+05:30

very interesting finding... read this one on one of the blogs recently:

Only smart people can decipher this:

Can you read this? ? ? Olny srmat poelpe can. Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!If you can raed tihs psas it on !!If not dleete it !!!

Gol Gappe & Paav Bhaaji in Seoul !!

2006-03-19T02:35:00.000+05:30

yeah, you read that title right :-) that's what we had for dinner yesterday in seoul! we had gone to this indian restaurant in itaewon called 'chakra', where they offered a buffet dinner - a "holi" special one :-) so we had a number of dishes: gol gappe, bhel puri, samose, chhole, paav bhaaji, masala idli and paapri chat! oh yeah, we also had roti and daal...

Landed in Seoul

2006-03-19T02:09:00.000+05:30

just landed in seoul yesterday evening by singapore airlines. flight was good, with a short stopover in singapore. watched a coupla movies during the journey - kiss kiss bang bang and elizabethvilla - were ok, not any great. the cocktail "singapore sling" was fabulous :-) it is supposed to be famous the world over, so once back to india, will have to find out a place where they serve this fab thing :-) after landing, took a limo to the gwanghamun station...from here i was to take a taxi to the guest house...this was when all the confusion started...the irony was, just to avoid this i had gotten the guest house address translated into korean by one of the air hostesses, and it turned out later that she had done that incorrectly! anyway, the cabbie was a real helpful chap...he called up a few numbers to find help (the nos. i had of my colleagues just did not work for some strange reason i don't know) finally we landed up at a nearby police station! studied the area map with the cops and somehow located the place tentatively...the cop came along and after a while we finally reached the guest house...but that was only some 11 thousand and 700 wons later!!! the distance was not much, however, here in korea "time is money" :-) so, while we were busy strategizing with the cops, the cab meter was steadily (and happily!) running up!