green

Being an admirer of nature, the life in flat (concrete jungle)makes you feel slave. Your eyes die for greenery, at the end of the day. May be a occasional display of your desktop screen can bring some comfort, if you have a scenic background for your PC. In the modern world, every thing is replaced with plastic. The occasional comfort of this green..is now artificially recreated with lifeless plastic plants.

Near to my cabin we have miniature maple plant, which I feel is of a Canadian Origin and may be made by the great oriental country. But the comfort I get when I peep out from the 3rd floor Lobby of the office..It’s all trees.
But i decided to have few plants at home..thought it will refresh the ambiance and it will bring more life. The dormant money plant seems to be in no mood to have a new tender leaves. Every day morning I visits the pot with curiosity to see any growth sign. I felt some thing fundamentally wrong.
The first answer I got was, it could have been the concrete cell with no direct sunlight when it moves to the south pole. or it could have been the lack of manure.

I decided to experiment, told my wife not to throw away vegetable waste and instead fine chopped them and dumped in the pot. I never anticipated any change. To improve the soil, added few coconut fiber, again fine chopped. Thought it would add the water and moisture level. To my surprise..hardly after a week, I could see the new leaf popping out. Told my wife my plant is responding to my tricks…! The satisfaction when nature responds is like an ecstasy, it does look good and feel equally thrilling like any other exciting thing.

Decided to sprinkle them morning and evening with the sprayer.  The bamboos also got the same treatment. The bamboo is now reaching my height..almost 6 feet. every morning the routine is to water them spray them..make them feel good and cool. Hope it does grow more and more, they make my mornings really very special.

Recently I was thinking about having a presence of water around the corner, may be a small aquarium with few fishes. My childhood hobby all of sudden came out. Decided to hunt for few fishes. The important task in the evening walk list was to buy a fish. My wife thought I am crazy. She felt bit odd about my idea of having an aquarium in a modified water bubble top dispenser. being creative, decided to convert the junk to a fancy utility to serve nature. After a few minutes walk, I headed for the fish vendor and to my surprise it was all shutdown, may the economic recession has made him to wind up his business.

But decided to visit the aquarium builder and told him I am on an experiment mission to try few fishes and to my surprise he agreed to sell few fishes. I felt he is a good businessman visualizing a future customer in me to buy a new panoramic wall mounted aquarium. To my curious question he answered the price of that..10K.. I told good.but being right now at a rented apartment it is hard to go for such fancy..but in future i might! He smiled and took me to his store room where he kept the fish. I decided to go for a Red Sword tail fish, which I thought will make a good contrast to the green plants when i put them. I got 4 fishes and asked him , if I can get few plants.he said sorry!! I walked back home..wanted to see how these fishes looks like. Checked the tap water of the chlorine impact. Smell was not that to severe. Decided to put them gently.

The fishes were careful..not hurrying up to enter the new tank. if they had memory, they will feel sad to miss those big gang. But here too they have a small gang..4 of them. felt the infrastructure was not well decorated. Thought they should be given more sand and plants to make them comfortable. The next day I got few plants from another shop and planted them in the stone bed on the floor. it  looks really fresh and crystal clear water. A really relaxing involvement to observe them..The bright orange in the green backdrop with sunlight passing through them in the evenings…makes them really special..a treat for my eyes and I love it..!!!

Filed under: Uncategorized

Onathumbi:seasonal dragon fly:

The wet rainy days spread a gloomy mood for the Onam. It was overcast and there was no golden sun rays for this Onam. Still there was a special visitor of the season, the dragon fly.

Which appears on the Onam season. he became the star of attraction for ym small digital camera. I knew the zooming will spoil the clarity and decided to get closer to the fly. I need to shoot him in a macro mode. I knew it is a tough task. The inspiration was Sir David Frederick Attenborough of Animal Planet. His programs make me hooked to the TV set.
Decided to get the dragon fly as close as I can. Every time i came closer it flew away but as a magic it came and sat back on the same rope. Felt as if it was bit attached to me. Is he a popularity hungry sort…? I decided to keep quite…waited patiently.

At last it came so close to me, then decided to open my shutter and put the setting to macro. Once its sat on the rope, it had 2 ..3 modes of closing his wings. First step was on alert as if some thing will attack and be ready for a take off. The next close mode is some more folded to the body which it does when it feels safe. The next extreme fold is once it really feel relaxed and confident. I was really close enough and reminded me of my childhood..my parents use to tell me I was really a sadist in catching the dragon flies and ties their rear tail by a natural string teared out of the edge of coconut leaf. I bet none of the new generation kids knows about such horrible fun..I honestly feel now so bad and sad about those cruel ways of playing. Those were smaller dragon flies normally glide on the ground levels. You can see them in green and grey mix as well as burgundy shade, blue as well as black.

But the one right now I am focusing is more orange  and red combo. At last he became very nice and silent to me and posed for my different angles. It was real time pass with nature which I can hardly find in the city life.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Another journey to Cochin

Onam, beginning of festive days in Kerala. Every one loves to be at home, with their parents and siblings and enjoy the flavor of the nostalgic surroundings.This time it was 4 months after my last visit. The nature had changed its coat to lush green and wet. Every where water, and lilies is on the surface. These were invisible on the dry land in the last summer. Lot of migratory birds and Cormorants are busy in fishing.

This time the whole north malabar was hit by the unusual fever called chicken gunia. The after effects are really bad. My parents were suffering from joint pain with swollen ankles. We had taken preventive medicine to escape the mosquitoes.

For some reasons I felt this years Onam was dull and sober, it was raining. Many of the native friends are vanished sow as not in a mood to hunt them and find out where they are. Few phone calls to renew my presence and to prove I am alive. The traditional flowers has vanished now the flower carptes called “pookalam” are made of  imported from the neighboring states.

Pookalam

 Had some good time with my cousin brother and sat on few bottles of good danish beer as I missed my favourite ” Kalyani”. Had a great lunch at home with home made mom made delicacies with a exotic and delicious payasam. It was all in a rush the same day I need to come back to Cochin. I was feeling dull and low and bit nostalgic to leave the native. It is a great feeling to be with parents even if you grown up and grown old. Do you all think so?

Wife  was busy packing, the return trip luggage usually used to be less of goods.  But the baggage was not ready to get reduced. The native bananas and dinner came in as parcel. I was thinking is it going to test my endurance especially being a festive day it will be very hard to find rickshaws on road but tuned my mind to proactive thinking, there will be autos especially for you. Let us see when it reaches Cochin. Coming day the villain was the heavy rain and god knows this time the villain will a auto rickshaw.

 

pookalam

 My brother dropped me and my wife at the station and I gave him few encouragement and motivation, told him to take care of Amma as she has joint pain. Hope he remembers all these. It was sunny bright afternoon, the rain clouds are scattered and not so heavy. The announcement was going on, mind started reloading the work mode and the life different from here.

Tasks, projects, reports,creativity, client, chats, blogs and tweets came in…then thought why to think too much in advance, then came the thoughts about the train. The onward journey was like a prehistoric or a vintage. The air conditioned chair car was a mess. Apart from seats rest of the things were all worn out. No trays  to keep your food no cup holders, some seats the tray frame was there and tied with ropes some seats the push back was in meditation mode rather call it static mode. As i always think, thought about a compartment worst than this.

The  final bell…seems train is reaching the station. It was boggy number 4, C1 seat number 57,58w… rush was not much as every one was celebrating onam. To my surprise the ambiance looked new and bit face lifted. It was like a middle aged lady with a coat of bright lipstick trying to say I am still young. But comparing the regular compartments  she was stunningly beautiful. In my last journey back home, one of the A/c mechanic shared me his pathetic story about compartments..some of them has more age than his total experience, too old… he even told me how to identify the age of a compartment…

I was just searching for that number in my onward A/c coach..it was more than 25 years old..seems some second class compartment might have got renovated to an A/c. As i got in to the train it was refreshing feeling for the first time. The fan was blowing on to my head, made me feel it was going to freeze my brain. I took a chance to look back to find out which polar bear has landed here. To my surprise it was boy sleeping like a sloth, hard for me to reach the switch to off it… I was feeling bit uncomfortable and in my second try this boy was awake and told him to switch off the fan. Seems to be a well groomed obedient boy. Next came the issue of tea, hardly these days you can find tea vendors, instead its all coffee vendors. Don’t know the reason for this. Is coffee making more profitable than tea? need to do a survey.

This train is always punctual and fast, still so many seats vacant and to my surprise the next seat was occupied by  a famous writer of Kerala. the train journey always brings some celebrity faces in front of you. You get a chance to interact and observe them. I dont want to write more about him because it might become a long blog.

Filed under: Nature, travel

Goddess of Kollur

The once in a while a trip to your favorite temple gives you an unmatched satisfaction in terms of peace and tranquility. It is hard to define and it is beyond magical skills of the words.
The temple called Kollur, Mookambika…where goddess is worshiped is located on the Sahyadri Mountain ranges. From Mangalore it is 140Kms away and the nearest city is Kundapura and Uduppi. In terms of food the kollur is not well known but it has good facilities for boarding and lodging. The temple guest house provides good accomodation and there are few good private hotels as well. if you plan to travel by train the nearest station is BAINDUR and KUNDAPURA. The other alternatives are to travel till Mangalore by train and board a bus to Kollur or even break your trip to Udupi and stay there ata hotel. You can hire a cab for Rs. 1000/- to visit the temple and come back. The travelling time from Mangalore to Udupi is 1Hr45 mins and from Udupi to Kollur by taxi it takes 1hr 30 mins.

There are few unique social differences comparing Kerala, there are no special seats for women, people are so gentle and they coexist well with out teasing. All the buses are written EXPRESS in bold letters. The locals buses even have 2 TV sets with DVD playing some good hindi movies. The road we travel will be Bombay Highway and are pretty decent with out potholes.

The country side of Karnataka is really nostalgic, people looks very conservative as well as modern. Majority of the public are fair and good looking. Like Tamilnadu the flower is a must for a lady, hardly to find a women with out a flower on her hair. They are very devotional.

Being a vacation season I couldn’t get an accomodation this time at the temple town of Kollur, which used to be my regular plan of action. Reach Kollur by evening around 3.00pm and take a small nap and refresh and visit the temple for the evening pujas. Staying back at the temple complex till 10.00pm gives you an amazing feeling. As I said earlier this time I decided to get an accomodation in Udupi’s well known hotel called Kediyoor, which I am much used to stay.

Our regular temple priest also felt sorry that he couldn’t arrange the accommodation as it was too late to the date of journey. He was introduced to us by our relatives in Udupi.  Evening 3 pm we reached the hotel and decided to take a nap to get refreshed, the late night journey which was really record breaking.Instead of reaching tellicherry by 10.00pm the train reached in the wee hours of 3am. Almost 11 hours of journey. The very next day morning 9.00 am we caught the train to reach Managlore and it was inevitable to skip the sleep.

After a refreshing bath we took fresh Idlis and Vada ( Udupi is famous for vegetarian food) and decided to visit our relatives and headed to their home. It was really wonderful to meet them again. came back to the hotl around 8.30 pm.Arranged the cab to come by early morning 4.30am.

As decided we got up by 3.30 am and got ready and the cab was ready. I was just praying the driver should be an expert rather than the crappy one. It is hard to sit in a car if you know driving. It was a good looking Indica the new name for Taxi in India, which replaced the vintage Rover( Amby). When I came to front lobby the cab was there and security give me a Morning wish and a big salute ( which sounded from the bottom of his heart) instead of eeling sorry for him I felt he was proud of his job and a professional. he told me the driver has gone to buy the newspaper. Instead of getting annoyed I decided to wait and to my surprise I could see a white shirt and a dark  colored pant running towards me.  A man in his mid 40’s with a clean shaved face and a glass and he was having unusual Jakiechan hair style.

So he nodded his head as a signal to start the journey. As ususal I was wonderring about the language to communicate, most of the Kannadigas knows Hindi and tamil and I decided to keep quiet and was curious how he take us to Kollur. he was good and the car was going in 80 kms and majority of the vehicles in the early morning were trucks and long route buses from Goa and other states. His overtakings were some what confident and I could sit with a peace of mind. There were migrant workers getting transported in vans like cattle. All looked liked from villages witha dull face and I felt sorry. The houses on teh sides of the roads were not filled with houses like in Kerala. There were cows and a huge storage of dry grass for the cattle. There were occassional temples. To my surprise I couldn’t find and political poasters or banners and came to know the reason. The election is only in May 2009.

The car was moving pretty fast lot of rivers and bridges it crossed. The towns we crossed were few in my mind and got unusual names with historical touch, Pidibidri, Surathkal…The reached Kundapura the next big town before our destination. Kundapura has some good hotels to stay and it takes only 40 minutes to reach Kollur so it obviously came to mind for a stay for my next visit.

From Kundapura ( 5.10 am) the road takes to the right and it goes through the real villages and paddy field and occassional forest area. Nearing Kollur there is a village school and the walls were painted with the images of Gandhi and Nehru. People were very less on the roads and occassionally few kerala registered were heading for the temple. The road was zig zag but well maintained. By 6.00 am we reached Kollur. From the bottom of my heart I felt it has been due for long and happy to be here at the most peacefull place on earth according to me.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Political ring!! 2009 Elections

The media is having a big feast of  General Elections in India. The alliances and broken alliances are at the centre stage. The largest democracy is going for the polls. The big political guns are forming their strategies to be succesful. Big questions is about the public verdict.

For the Congress it is going to be progress card time and for other it is the time to snacth the opportunity. Seems the Congress is much better and much impressive in their rule. Other looks for some startegy and 3rd front is also trying to gamble.  Allegations and counter allegations confuse the public. Some say the politics has lost its value. If you look at the southern state of Kerala considered as the best state in terms of Education and healthcare macthes the standard of life in health and education to western countries.

But the big question.. Are these politicians capable of understanding the development, that is required for the state. And if what is that blocking their moves…Aren’t they aware of the traffic blocks and aren’t they thinking of the alternatives? Who has to take inititative..the public or the elected representatives? Somany questions we have..

Majority of the time we see the allegations and denial… I feel the politicians should shed the neagtive mindset and work towards the proactive ways.. When many of us will read these small write up..you will tend to say that I am day dreaming…!

But i feel the politicians are changing…but the only thing is to shed the outdated ideas.. work towards improvement of the public..

Hope the change can be little bit more faster..

Filed under: Uncategorized

Summer Again

As we expect a raise in temperature due to the biggest threat of global warming, it is already showing the signals. These days the temperature has climbed more than the natural levels. The newspaper these days shows the alarmingly lower level of water in the reservoirs.

Interestingly the lunch break and tea break when we take a small walk to the canteen, we experience the impact of summer. From the chilled Air conditioned office to the raw world of nature gives a contrasting experience in terms of whether as well as the nature.

The good part is the small break away from the computer and get a chance to enjoy the trees and birds and falling leaves and grass. It comforts your eye sight and bad part seems to be the extreme level of summer in the initial month. Normally in the south Indian peninsula the peak summer appears only in April or May. Right now it has crossed above 36 degree Celsius.

The beautiful trees started looking pale and branches become naked. Ground is more of dead leaves and small shrubs try to survive some how. The birds looks very tired and they songs are pretty sarcastic..Could be they lost their partner or their family… The occasional watering from the maintenance authorities gives a good antidote of water to the plants and grass. Lucky the one who is with in their range rest is considered as wild bushes.

I belive this is time to think of the Monsoon days.. I feel the rainy days are better than the hot  summer days.

Filed under: Uncategorized , global wamring, summer

black and white

After a long long time the mood was up to take up pen and start skethcing few characters..As ususal the starting was bit shaky..ideas didn’t come well..thought its the time gap.

Started thinking few characters and try putting them on paper, but not sure they really came up well or not but I am not happy. Seems I should be sketching more to come back to form.

Filed under: Uncategorized , cartoons, Characters, Toons

New Year Again!!

New Year comes with a landmark date where we all try to make plans and thoughts to live a better life for the whole year ahead.
2009..numerically I am not sure how good or bad but still we can hope it should be better than 2008, a bit proactive thoughts and understanding of our own introspection can refine us further. I know it is hard to change all of a sudden but it is not impossible.
so smokers..try quitting it…!
big tummies…try avoiding fat!!
married men…try stopping bird watching!!
angry faces… keep a big smile..!!
So cheers for a better tommorow and good wishes!!

Filed under: Uncategorized , 2009, new year, proactive, resolutions

Festive Mood!!

India is a land of colors and festivities and the beauty lies in its differences. The different part of India has different culture and languages and its an amazing fact that the diversity makes it more united. As I belong to South India, the important festival of Kerala is called as Onam. The biggest moment of any Keralite is to be at native for the holidays. Like all other Keralites I too made sure that my train tickets are booked in advance. kerala again had a difference among it culture and custom. The down south to middle of kerala were ruled by Kings and the northern part of kerala were mostly ruled by Britsh, French , Dutch or Portughese. I didnt mean the whole of north Kerala. There were small kingdoms too.

If I take as an example of my native Telicherry, which had a big impact of the british rule. The custom got much liberalised. On the Hindu festive days majority of keralites go for Vegtarian dishes but in North part of Kerala the dominating part is Non Vegetarian food. The famous Biriyani from Kozhikode and Thalasserry is always so special. It can defnitely challange the hyderbadi dhum briyani. The fish is the another amazing item on the dining table. Comparing life in Cochin the fish available here are fresh and almost live. I love to buy the fish from the sea shore when the boat is just back to the shore with a good catch.

As usual on the Onam I decided to roam with my close friends and they decided to pick a fish and I too thought of joining the drive. The scene is set at a place called Dharmadam , where you have an Island and beautifull beaches and creeks and river. As we need to be back home for the Lunch we rush to see the Onam special fish. My cousin was the key contact for the fishermen and who arranged this deal. We were so thrilled to conquer the place. it is a placid river side joining the sea. The sand was much visible with much green coated bushes. The coconut treen are all over. From the narrow road we walked through the noodle stirng path which took us to the house where the fish is kept, we could feel the breeze and freshness. The monsoon was settling down, last 2 days didnt rain. so it is neat and dry land and we decided to march towards the sea shore. The narrow path took us to the huge rocks which were laid long back to protect the shore from the sea. After climbing the wall it is an amazing view of the Island far away and the shore is so plain and far….. It was an amazing panorama. We too few snaps and decided to get back to the deal as time was almost reaching 11.00 am. To our surprise the fish looked astonishing. The huge fish with a monster mouth open as if it was going to swallow some thing big. All were curious to see the details and I too clicked many photos of it gigantic mouth. wide open.. It was a really a rare view. I was curious to ask the fishermen of the whereabouts of the fish. He was well informed and has got much knowledge about it. he said this fish they calls KOLAVAN and it is a type which lives near to the shore. They like playing around the stones and cliffs. The whole group was so excited. It was an unforgottable moment for the Onam break. I could really felt it was like a National Geographic documentary.

Enjoy the snaps.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Idle Brushes

It has been many weekends i could make those brushes wipe through the canvas. They all stand like the armoury kept for action. The mood not settled to have a take off to the wonderfull world of colors.

Time is shared for many things. The priority of painting some times takes the backseat but still want to be in the front row. I am trying to do some thing really good. The thoughts really roam around to settle down to an idea which has to be visualised and implimented to perfection.

The green color really grabs me.. Check this out of my few collections

http://www.jithuaravind.com/paintings/

Wish this weekend is a colorfull one….

Filed under: Uncategorized , colors, drawing, painting