OF RAINBOWS AND... NOTHING ELSE, REALLY

Belated, of course, but then that's just me. When is it that I've shared holiday pictures just as I've returned? God forbid I try uploading photos while on vacation itself. Gasp!

So - *drum rolls* - here is a gorgeous rainbow over Cairns, Australia, taken in November 2012. Thankfully, such dreamy images don't come with an expiry date.

SQUIRREL IN THE CITY!

Not something we see too often. :)

ARE YOU SEEING THINGS? OR MERELY VIEWING?

You know how when you're on vacation you're trigger happy? I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I'm one of the gang. I've been known to take a crazy amount of pictures - in high resolution, no less - that have on occasion resulted in a frantic search for additional memory cards. A mad dash to the nearest store in whichever city, and then only do I breathe a sigh of relief. Actually, not even then - I almost always run out of battery towards the end of a long, happily satisfying sightseeing-y day. Of course, Murphy being Murphy, I'll miss the best photo ops just then. Sigh. Such is life. To combat that, I learnt to bring with me a fully charged cell phone; that way there's a (possibly feeble in terms of quality) backup, but a reliable one nonetheless. But just to plug the iPhone here (and no, I'm not getting paid for this), rest assured that the iPhone 5 does an awesome job. Not remotely feeble. 

But back to the topic at hand.

I was in the middle of taking the most breathtakingly beautiful pictures at The Twelve Apostles, alternately gasping in awe (yes, it's that awe-inspiring) and peering through my (camera) lens. That's when I realised: do you really see as much as you should? Or do you merely view through the lens? Get the difference? While it may sound like merely a subtle nuance, I'm now thinking otherwise. In our rush to capture the image for posterity, do we then wind up actually seeing it only when home, while sorting through the myriad pictures? Would I have seen more, remembered more if I were to see the place, take it all in, absorb its magnificence - albeit sans a camera? I'm not saying no pictures, all I'm thinking out loud is, maybe a little less camera and a lot more eye.

So at The Twelve Apostles, while my camera did a fabulous job, my mind and eyes worked still better: those waves lapping at the rocks, the pristine sand, that wallaby in the wild, the gull soaring effortlessly into the blue... not all on the camera, and not stuff to be forgotten in a hurry.

ISTANBUL THRU' A FRIEND'S LENS

A beautiful mosque near the Spice Gardens, Istanbul

DRIVING MISS DAISY

And Agnes. And Tina. And Mansi. And Me.

Yesssssssss!!!!!!!! Jubilation, folks - just got done with a 225 km drive from Mumbai to Lavasa, on the Lavasa Women's Drive 2012.

More details (and pics) later - am about to drop dead with exhaustion and cantreallythinkanymoreeeeeeeee.........

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

While on a visit to one of the more rural locations in the country.

Notice the amalgamation of modes of transport: bicycles, auto rickshaws, motorbikes, other four-wheel drives... and cows!

VOTE FOR... ME!

So I've signed up for a car rally that comes up later this month. No, it's not some thousand people tearing bumpers off each others' cars or kissing lamp posts in a bid to wind up trumps, but 300-odd women, in an all-women's rally, supporting a cause of their choice. How it works is nice - you don't have to turn into roadkill, or worse, turn innocent bystanders in to the same, but drive along at a good - if steady - pace, and any kind of rash driving/ crossing speed limits gets you penalised. The more penalties, well, too bad - you'll be (a) driving all day, and (b) coming last... waaaaay last. Kinda diametrically opposite to the conventional definition (or human understanding) of a car rally. I like. And ergo, we come to sentence one of this extremely long-winded paragraph - So I've signed up for a car rally that comes up later this month.

Right now, though, it's fingers crossed - given the large number of enthusiastic ladies in this part of the world, there's obviously a limited number that will make it through - that 300-odd mentioned earlier. How do you get to be one of them? Well, you register, and then get your family, friends, co-workers, the lady who smiles at you in line at the convenience store, the cute guy at the gym (hmm, this should garner a good number of votes, methinks), neighbours, babysitter... uhh, you get the drift... to vote for you via email and/ or SMS. And I see you asking me to stop rambling on, so... The more the votes, the better your chances of driving through, supporting your cause, your car reflecting the same (yes! you can decorate), the wind in your hair (no, I do not drive an open-top convertible, sigh) and a (tuneless, in my case) song on your lips.

As I type, the leading lady apparently has over 6000 (whaaaaat??!!) votes... and I'm guesstimating at a less than 1000 for myself. Ahem.

Watch this space for more. And wish me luck. And votes - loads and loads of votes.

FEAR

And you thought nightmares = fear. So did I.

Until January 01, 2012.

Here's the lowdown: On holiday, the significant other and I are happily last-minute shopping at a prominent mall on one of (let's call it) City B's busiest streets, when we decide to head back to our hotel and check-out, in preparation for our flight home. It's around 03:30 on a bright and sunny afternoon, when we hail a cab, one of those regular meter cabs that are available for hire. About five minutes into the drive hotelwards, the cabbie gets abusive, drives off the main road onto a freeway, then off the freeway into a rather seedy area, and holds us to ransom, at gunpoint. No, I don't know whether the gun was indeed real, and no, I don't know whether we were merely being small-time conned, but when faced with a gun - you don't really want to find out, do you?

The city in question is very, very touristy; you have about a gazillion people hopping into these cabs all the time. So did we, for a full three days prior to this. And then we landed up with this cabbie. That done, we were about USD 70 lighter, dropped off onto a deserted freeway outside of city limits - forced to find our way back to the hotel in a foreign country, wherein even the street signs were not in English, or any language that we understood.

What did we do wrong? Nothing, apart from the fact that we were sheer unlucky, to be in the wrong cab at the wrong time. Did we argue with the cabbie? No. Did we fight? No. Were we abusive? No. Guess we were just destined to be one of those 'we-have-been-mugged' statistics.

In hindsight, it could've been a lot worse - our passports were on us, we were alone in a strange land. Guess we got off lightly. A week after, we're glad to be alive, and whole.

What a start to the new year.

Nightmares are made of this.

On the bright side, there evidently is a God, isn't there?

BEAUTIFUL CAMBODIA

Just back from a wonderful, wonderful holiday. (Did I mention wonderful?) Visited Cambodia, or more specifically, the Siem Reap province and all the breathtaking sights it had to offer. Yes, yes, Angkor Wat! While I will write more on the place, and all it had to offer, I 'll leave you with some pictures for now.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

A close-up of bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat

BUSINESS TRIP

After ages. Nice.
Good to meet up with people from other locations. It's interesting, the viewpoints you get. The same routine you follow gets a fresh perspective, with new ideas from your counterparts.

Hmm. New things to absorb and learn.

TAKE THAT, TRAFFIC MONSTERS!

Hah! *evil leer* Defied the Traffic Monsters this morning: reached work in half the time it normally takes, which is no mean feat, I tell you. Anyone who lives the horror that is Mumbai traffic will vouch for this. I dunno why and how, but I sure ain't complaining!

TABLE?!

Sure, if you insist. That's what it is. A table.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really, now. *rolling eyes in head*

Okay, if you've finished laughing and picked yourself up off the floor, here's the lowdown: this was a table we - the significant other, a couple of friends and self - sat down at to dine. Okay, seriously, stop laughing! :D Where, just so that you know where to go for your next dose of entertainment? This restaurant at a budget hotel in small town India.

Buuwwahhhhahahahaaa.

'EXCUSE, PLEASE ADJUST'

I'm really not a fan of the local trains.

People, enough to populate a tiny island somewhere, all crushed into one tin can labelled 'Andheri Local'.
Picture this: Four ladies cramped on to what is essentially a seat for three, when along comes Polly and says, "excuse, please adjust". Which means that the three afore-mentioned members of the fairer sex are to pack themselves into even smaller proportions to accomodate Number Four.

Those car keys? My best friends, I tell you!

SRI LANKA IN PICTURES

Here you go:



And here's another:

HOLIDAY!

Or rather, celebrations.

So the significant other and I celebrated six years together last month. Not bad, given that see-saws and relationships are virtually synonimous, don't you think! Six years of marriage, six years of 'in sickness and in health' (which we did go through on the anniversary itself, seeing that we were both nursing the most goddawful colds!), six years of just being together. Okay, for those married/ in committed relationships for longer, I can imagine that six years is baby food, but do humour me here. :)

Holiday? Always good!
A surprise anniversary gift? Even better!

So the husband planned an (extended) weekend to Sri Lanka!

Here's a picture of beautiful Sri Lanka:

OF GODDESSES & QUEENS

I simply love the concept that Indian goddesses are alive, deep in meditation atop a hill, possibly holed up in a smallish cave that's impossible for a human to access.

Just spent the past weekend trudging up one such mountain top, a 16-odd kilometer walk-crawl that was seemingly endless, but so worth the cold, thin air and breathlessness. Okay, so I now have muscles I didn't even know existed, that are making their presence felt rather vociferously. Unrelenting.

Ah, it's a long way to go towards even a modicum of spirituality.

AWAY FROM HOME

Plan holiday. Book tickets. Go shopping. Get organised. Pack. Realise you've packed everything but the kitchen sink hence no space in luggage. Grumble. Unpack. Grumble. Repack. Fret-fume-done. Go on holiday.

Day 1: Have a good time.

Day 2: Still having a good time.

Day 3: Ho-hum. Not bad.

Day 4: Wanna go home!!!

Homesickness sets in quick! So much for the holiday; somebody put me on a flight back home!

DINO - C'MERE, BOY!

Dinosaurs have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. There was a time back in middle school when I contemplated becoming a paleontologist some day in the future (never mind that I could barely pronounce the word, let alone spell it). Okay, so that didn't happen, but the fascination (and maybe a teeny bit of awe) has still not gone away. This began with my reading 'The Lost World', by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - yes, the same brain behind the Sherlock Holmes series - and subsequently devouring any- and everything I could read up on the 'saurs.

Encyclopedias were my best friends. So the interest has now resurfaced, upon reading about the finding of a mammoth skeleton. No, not the wooly mammoth (ancestor to our elephants today), but the gigantic skeleton of a man, supposedly human and dating back to some number of years that you and I can't even fathom. Of course, we drag mythology / folklore (I always maintain that there is a fine line between these) into the picture here as well; guess it only adds that extra bit of zing to the tale.

Anyway, the point here is that we now have the remains of what was once a humongous man who walked the Earth, as it were. We're now gonna dissect every bit of him, analyze his DNA, examine his bones, his teeth and figure out who he was (I wonder if people had names back then?), what he did for a living (so hunting is an inborn survival instinct), how he lived (without FM radio, wonder how thrilling it really was), and finally, just how and why he died. I would personally be interested to know whether he had a pet dinosaur a la the Flintstones, or whether he preferred to while away his time making patterns in the sand.

Oh, this is when I'd like a time machine.

JAZZ IT UP, BABY!

"Dhadak dhadak
Dhadak Dhadak
Seeti bajaye re..."

This is the first of many songs in a loop, and then some. I've always wondered where on Earth do Mumbai's rickshaw-wallahs (drivers, to the uninitiated) get their music from. As I hop in to a rick en route from work, I'm uhh... treated to some such delightful numbers. The prerequisite for this is the word loud, and I do mean LOUD. I have a firm belief that they're remixed to the Rickshaw Beat purely for them. Blaring from torn speakers, delightfully distorted sound...you know, the works. Basically, the cute guy in the rick three lanes away should hear the din. And you'll cringe when you notice just how cute he is, and that he notices you in a 'singing' rickshaw. That's one. Second, the 'ambience' in most such ricks...

There are embellishments to set the ambience:
a. Pom-poms and sundry other danglers gaudy enough to put a belle at a local fair to shame.
b. Holographic stickers, the more gross, the better: pouty red lips, hearts with arrows stuck through them, knives through hearts replete with drops of blood dripping off the edge and the like.
c. Social service messages roughly translated from the local language would read thus: A girl educated signifies progress, A small family is a happy family, yadda yadda.
d. Now this is a classic: Names. These can include anybody and everybody that the rick guy dreams of / includes in his list of family and friends. (Pappu, Monty, Sonu, Chinky being favourites, whoever they may be. Sometimes I think they're arbit generic names, like Xerox for a photocopy.)
e. Posters of Bollywood stars, mostly female with loud makeup (specially enhanced for the said poster).
f. And traditionally, last but not the least, lights! Now these have to be in flourescent colours, running the gamut from pink and green to a sickly (and sickening) yellow. If some of them can be programmed to march, blink, flicker... Wow. Err, whatever.
g. The horn. Tinny, bullfrog, bass... It doesn't matter, as long as it's effective to make meandering cattle (both human and four-legged), other unsuspecting vehicles and various other life forms jump out of their skin and incidently, out of the way of Mr. Dashing's three-wheeler autorickshaw.

The rick flying over potholes, the speakers screech:
"Meri haathon mein nau nau choodiyaan hain..."