Calcutta's Water Park

Approx an year back, I had gone to Calcutta along with my wife on a short tour. We had gone to visit some of my wife's cousins and were there for only around 3 days. It is difficult to squeeze in too many things in such a short tour. I also wanted to see what are the changes that had happened since I was last in Calcutta (in 1996 end). The road from the airport to the new township of Rajarhat. One could see building and construction everywhere, so things seemed to be looking up. There was quite a bit of emphasis on getting the sunrise sectors (IT, Media, etc) to set up establishments; these tend to have a good effect on the overall economy of the city and by extension, of West Bengal.
As part of the roaming around I did, I was taken to a place called Nicco Park located on the outskirts. There is a big lake over there on which we did boating. There was a very pleasant breeze blowing, and the time spent was very enjoyable. As can be seen from the photo, the weather was overcast at that point of time. I had lots of fun.
The building you can see at the side may look like the Eiffel Tower, although purists would beg to differ. If you do say that it looks like the Eiffel Tower, it is mission accomplished for the owners, since that is exactly what they set out to do.

Auroville - A place of quiet splendour

This is another view from the Auroville. We were leaving the Matrimandir complex when the sun was setting, and I never can resist a good view of the light show that the morning or evening time presents. The trees against which the sunset is framed sorround the central complex, and I could easily capture the setting sun. It took a few photos to get this one, but I think that this photo worked out fine. I like the way that some of the flares get captured.
When I was leaving, even though I am not one of the ardent believers in the township or the philosophy, I did feel a sense of loss. This is a very quiet and peaceful place, and it does weigh on the soul when one leaves a place like this. However, there was no option. I noted down in my cell phone the exact date on which I had come to this place (Aug 19, 2006) for future reference.

Auroville contd ...

This is the epicenter of the central zone of auroville, the "Matrimandir". This is a zone of peace and tranquility. As can be seen, the place is still under contstruction, and has been for quite a long period of time. The Matrimandir has a central dome in which there is an inner chamber where one can do meditation. In addition, there are multiple rooms called petals (the raised parts that you see climbing a few feet sorrounding the central dome on all sides).
I went to one of the petals, and could see people in meditation over there. For me, I still am not in that mode, and hence even though I could understand the feeling that comes over people, I am not able to share in that feeling.
This is a place that I will want to come to again, taking some time out, maybe in a few years. Let us see whether the vision of the Mother comes to life and a universal township remains in its full glory. If that is that case, then it will be like an ocean of peace in this world.

Auroville - a different sort of community

I had gone last month to a place called Auroville. This is located in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is a pretty interesting concept. Read more about it here..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville
http://www.auroville.org/
Auroville is declared as a universal township that is constantly being built. It has a special legal status about which you can read more in the links above. Suffice it to say, the concept has a lot of converts, people who live in this township and people who visit frequently. I am actually neither of these, but still had a good impression when I was there. I am still not a convert, but can understand the sentiments of those who are.
The photograph above is of a big tree called the banyan tree. In Indian culture, the banyan tree has great significance. Because it covers a wide area, it has provided shade to travellers against the hot Indian summers for centuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan
The banyan is also the tree under which the Buddha is supposed to have gained enlightenment. In Auroville, the banyan tree represents a place to meditate and self-instrospect. It is a silent zone, and people are supposed to be silent under the tree. It forms part of the Matrimandir complex, the central zone of Auroville.

Camp in Nainital .. continued

This is probably the last post on the Nainital (Saataal trip). This is the 3rd post, and maybe one more will be 1 too many. This is the view from the camp (near the tent area). You get a view of the nearby forested hills along with a clearing. This clearing was the icing on the cake. It gives an excellent view of the sorrounding areas (primarily the green sorroundings). In addition, it gives a group the chance to walk around, play some games and generally spend some time. It is only at night that people are warned from walking to this clearing since it is claimed that wild animals come to this location. Telling such a thing to a group of young men is tantamount to issuing them an invitation to spend the night there; so the camp folk make sure that they start to push people out of the clearing at night. From this clearing itself, you can go for a few nature walks to the sorrounding hills. For people from the city, a walk in the hills can be quite an adventure, just pacing oneself and preventing the panting and wheezing within a few minutes of starting to climb uphill. Once this trek is completed, the feeling of accomplishment is great.

More about Nainital

This is another photo from the trip that I made to Saataal, near Nainital. Saataal means seven lakes. The photo is from when I was boating on the lake. The lake is not very big, it takes around 1 hour to go around the whole lake in a paddle boat. But the setting is incredibly beautiful. It is nestled in a natural valley between some relatively unspoiled mountains. Even to get to this lake is a 2 hour trip, so there is a lot of natual beauty left in this place. The other side of this story is that the lake is pretty famous as a good tourist destination, so there is a pretty decent road upto the lake, and hence the number of people reaching the lake will just keep on increasing.
The lake essentially is a 5 cornered lake, and these 5 are named separately after some mythological characters. The other 2 lakes are found elsewhere.
It is said that this lake is fairly deep, and that seems to be believable as the lake is essentially filling up the valley nestled between the mountains and the valley could be fairly deep.

This is from a forest camp located in a place called Saataal near Nainital. The camp is basic, they have some basic electricity using a generator to supply a few common areas. Other than that, for lighting at night, we used oil based lamps. However, the camp is a good compromise between having some amenities and roughing it out. You get a sleepable bed, bath and restroom facilities as well as food. There are nature trails, a lake nearby plus being able to do some amount of guided rock climbing. Not a bad place at all to relax, ideal when in a decent sized group.
We were there for around 1 day + night, and it being away from comfortable civilization was not as bad as I thought it would be. Can go there again some time later.

A lot of beautiful flowers

I don't even remember as to where I took this photo, except that it was in some relative's house. It was getting around 11 AM in summer, and the outside light was getting to be fairly strong, but not yet blinding. These are not very special flowers, but are fairly colourful and look very good in a big bunch. I took a few photos, but this was the only one that turned out to be somewhat good. These are locally called 'Gainda' in India.

Church along creek, Kerala

This is a small church located at the shore of an inland waterway. The state of Kerala in India has a large network of creeks which are used for extensive inland transportation. They also serve to service a large number of tourists who like to take boat / houseboat rides along these waterways. I was in a similar houseboat enjoying 1 day along these waterways. Many times the pleasure of spending a day [one whole day in this busy world :-) ] just having a leisurely cruise is fun. At such a time when I was watching the world slowly move along, I saw this small church. It looked like a place of solemnity without being very showy. I didn't stop, just saw it coming and then slowly receding as I moved on.

Looking at this photo again makes we want to go again and again to this place. This is the beach in Lakswadeep in the morning, and you can see the sun just starting to make its way up.
For this photo (and for most of my photos), I normally do not use the manual settings. I rely on the camera's preset settings and explore what is the best way I can get a good photo. This could mean taking a large number of photos at different time periods and from different angles so that one of the photo will turn out good. I think that this photo turned out good.

Fishing vessel in the Arabian sea

I never did mention which camera I am using. I have an Olympus UZ 750. UZ stands for Ultra Zoom, this camera has a 10X optical zoom which is a pretty large optical zoom.
This photo was taken when I was returning from the Lakshwadeep islands. I was on a ship, and talking to someone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this fishing vessel and it looked pretty amazing to me. The weather was clear and there was pretty good visibility. I hunted around for a good vantage position and took this shot. When I transferred this shot later to my computer and saw the image in its full size, I really liked the image.

This is essentially an ordinary photo, but I really liked this one for the colours that were visible in this. This is a shot of a rice field in the morning in Kerala, India. The green colour of the rice field was incredible. I sat for some time and just looked at the place. I was actually sitting on a boat when taking this photo.

My photos can be somewhat from different time zones and locations. For example, this is a photo that is from earlier this year. I liked the way that this photo turned out. It shows Londoneye in the setting sun. The fun part was this was on Valentine's Day when there was a large crowd, mostly comprised of a large number of couples. I was with my brother-in-law who was showing me around London.

Just after marriage (2 days after), I realized that I needed a digital camera. I did not have enough time to go to a dealer and pay inflated prices, hence I decided to buy a camera from the local grey market where smuggled items are sold. As it turned out, it was not a bad choice. The camera is properly working even 2 and a half years later.

The photos above are from the St. Francis church in Cochin, in the state of Kerala, India. It was a place where Vasco da Gama was briefly buried before his body was sent back to Portugal. Relevant link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama
The photos show the church interior and the place where his body was buried.

First photo to be posted

This is more of a run of the mill sunset kind of photo. I took this when in the Lakshwadeep islands chain on a ship. I like these kind of photos, very relaxing.
Took this photo with a Olympus UZ 750 (more about my purchase of the camera at another time)

Photos just like that

I am an amateur photographer, but love to use my camera to click the sun, different light and cloud patterns, anything at all that I find interesting. So I thought why not put them up somewhere along with a bit of text, maybe it will prove interesting (to me atleast !)