MukhamaniIn many of our homes, big, round copper vessels are installed in the bathroom to make hot water. Beneath the vessel , from outside the house , there is a place to light the fire using wood or the dried fronds of coconut tree or the dried outer skin of coconut.
In these photos fire is being made for making the water nicely warm 🙂
Mumbai is a fascinating city, it is said to be a city of hopes and dreams. Those who have lived there do not like to be anywhere else. I was there from 1979 to 1982 studying BA. Few years ago we had been there.
The first photo is of my college, Wilson College, set up in 1832, is one of India’s oldest college. New buildings behind it.
Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan, building of an Educational Trust
Busy roads 🙂
New Bridges over the sea
City of Apartments, old and new
We wish you all a very happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I am very glad to be a part of WordPress.
Sitting at home, it has opened
a whole new world to me. Thank you.
This is one of my favourite quotes, by Gerald Massey.
” Not by appointment do we meet delight or joy.
They heed not our expectancy,
but round some corner of the streets of Life,
they of a sudden greet us with a smile:) ”
The beautiful golden yellow paddy field is so rich and warm.
Beautiful yellow flowers offered to God
This small, beautiful yellow wild flower
All those children, in the Army School, in Peshawar, Pakistan. They were killed indiscriminately and many, very cold-bloodedly. They were made to stand near the wall and just killed in front of all the others. This will always be a part of the lives of those who survived. Emotionally and physically scarred.
Why such violence? What wrong had the children done? There are no sane answers but those who killed have their answers. I really don’t understand why such acts are called ‘inhuman’ because they are so human. Only humans, amongst all animals, kill for the joy of killing. All those parents would have sent their children to school that morning never dreaming they would not see them alive again.
Life is so uncertain, we can never be sure about the next moment. Our whole life might change forever. But, life goes on and we live life as it comes. Days and years pass by. The year 2014 is coming to an end. I am reminded of a book by James Michener, The Source, which I had read a few years ago. By the time I finished reading the book, I had lived through thousands of years. Through those years, human life went on as it is going on now, the good and the bad sometimes moving in parallel lines and at other times converging to meet each other. People have killed each other in the name of so many beliefs and ideas, giving those killings a glorified name as and when it suited them.
Reading about the past makes us realize that in the larger scheme of things, our very short life is like a grain of sand. Just nothing. But, when I think that our life is nothing, these words of William Blake come to mind.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
For each one of us our life and what we do or do not do is so important. We see our world in a grain of sand. We live in the present. The long ago past and the far future are not very real. Our life is our life and it goes on.
This year in October, my father enjoying his great grandson 🙂
A few years ago, my father loves photography, his camera is always with him .
The Golden yellow paddy fields make the landscape so rich and beautiful:)
Sunset , the beach and the Arabian sea 🙂
My father-in-law looking at his great grandson, our daughter’s son. His profile reflects his love and affection.
These photos are of the road beside the Marina beach, Chennai. We were there for an early morning walk. The first photo is before sun rise and the second after. The street lights twinkle like stars.
Every evening, I see an old lady walking up our road, with a bag in her hand. She delivers milk and flowers to some house, quite a distance away. Maybe all that walking has kept her fit. I don’t think she really has to go herself, but it looks as if she enjoys herself. She is in her own world as she goes by.
Seeing her I am reminded of the vegetable lady, Asha, who comes every Friday, carrying a basket full of vegetables. She buys them in the local market and sells them in different places. She walks the whole day till all the vegetables are sold. She lost her husband quite some time ago, she has a daughter and two sons. Her hometown is in the northern part of our state and came here to find work, as her sisters and other relatives live here. Her daughter had been married at an early age and unfortunately she had been told to leave on the grounds of insufficient dowry. She lived with her mother. Asha was always worried about her. Sometime last year, a hardworking, nice, young man, from her own town told her that he wanted to marry her daughter. She was hesitant as her daughter was married. But, that young man was very definite. Fortunately with the help of the village elders her daughter got a divorce and within a few months married again. Asha was very happy. Now she has gone to her hometown as her daughter is expecting her first child. She will return after a some months. Before leaving she had informed all her regular customers that she would not be coming for some months.
All alone, with three children, she come here to make a living and it has been a life of struggle, lack of money and hard work . An extraordinary and ordinary person. They are so many people like her and that old lady who goes by every evening, without fail.
R.K Laxman’s ‘Common Man’ comes to mind when I think of such extraordinary people. What they are achieving may not be ‘news worthy’ in the commonly accepted sense but they are great achievements because they have been achieved in spite of so many problems. Truly, extraordinary people.
The Common Man – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Common_Man
The Common Man is a cartoon character created by Indian author and cartoonist R. K. Laxman. For over a half of a century, the Common Man has represented …
