A Trip to Gopalaswamybetta, Bandipur and Mysore

:)

--------------

The last weekend was an amazing time - took for a trip to the Mysore region with a gang of friends. Just after midnight, early Saturday morning, 7 of us (including self and the missus) trooped into a rickety old Qualis and made our way to Gopalaswamybetta.

We reached the hillock at around 7 am only to be treated to rib chilling cold and mist and fog! Some pics from the Godly place where mist hangs around till noon apparently!

A trip to the land of the blues - IV

Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

He he he.. I haven't given up on this series :) Not yet at least! Cos my best moments of the trip are yet to be featured! Anyway, am getting bored of narrating stuff. So planning to put only pics in the 2-3 remaining posts. Here goes...

The next day began at Ile Aux Cerfs (pronounced ee-loo-surfs) beach island - Awesome place for adventure sports.

Amazing ride this!! Zooming around and falling into the ocean!!

Me - almost reached the rubber thingee.

Wifey - swimming for dear life a few metres away.

We didn't realize the ocean was only 5 feet deep beneath us!

Tandem Paragliding - this wasn't scary at all! God knows how!

They dip you once during the trip :)

A cruise ship on the way back from Ile Aux Cerfs

Outside our hotel room - just after the rains

Ditto

Freshhhhhhh!!

The stillness after the rains

(reminded me of that blue-colored Alaipayuthey shot)

Carrying a tripod around helped!

This was the REAL colour in REAL life then (8 PM)!!

Never knew nature could be so strikingly colorful

Now on to some photography lessons of sorts. The following three shots appear pitch-dark because they were taken at around 10 PM with the auto mode set in the camera.

What follows are pics of the same frames taken with the controls set manually. Basically just had an extended exposure - about 15 seconds for the first and second; 30 seconds for the last. No flash was used for these shots. Flash kills beauty in the dark!

This last pic won me a photography contest :)

(The 30-second exposure pic)

That was Dec-31 2008. Celebs at midnight!

Just when we had almost retired for the night, the revelry began all of a sudden. Fireworks lit up the sky and the ocean. And a Sega dance troupe began performing. (Sega is the Mauritian Belly Dance). Here's a video:

Mauritius Pictures

IIMB - Independence Day Video

Sometime a couple of months ago, Rakesh came up with the concept of creating a patriotic video for IIMB. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was the last rage, and he felt it was maybe time to try out a new one. So we set out working on ARR's Jana Gana Mana.

The videos were shot in a single day - surprisingly almost everything went off well that day. We had fixed time slots for the shooting for everyone - from the director of the insti, to the housekeeping staff. We simply couldn't afford to get delayed anywhere given the packed schedule. And we also had to tug along the heavy camera, monitor, tripod, blowers et al and run all around the campus. Was a verrrrry hectic day! Luckily had a good cameraman - Mr Rafiq who understood exactly what I wanted. And even more luckily have a very devoted wife who wanted to be the 'squirrel' and ended up being a lot more!

Anyway, here is the final product of my first 'professional' attempt :)

A Trip to Elephanta Caves Mumbai

This was one of the trips I went on during my internship at Mumbai. Muru gracefully agreed to come with me and was a real pain in all the wrong places with his constant bickering at my slow pace.

Lesson #1: Never take non-photography-enthusiasts on a photo walk. Or if you do, make them the models. They will shut up for a while (at least, Muru did).
While it was a nice trip overall, and for once it was great to see a well maintained place of interest inside the subcontinent, the dilapidated statues at Elephanta are a sore sight. The more one looks at it, the more painful it is. And mind you, this is not the result of inept maintenance. A few hundred years back, the Portuguese landed at these caves, and used the statues as target practice and defaced them!! As a result, what we have today is a bunch of ex-statues. Really painful to see if you know the story. While one goes expecting 1000 yrs of history, all one gets to see is 400 years of misery.
Anyway, the sob story apart, here's what transpired in that hot Mumbai afternoon of April 2009.

Adra Sakka Adra Sakka!

It's quite a long walk (half a km) from the jetty to the base of the small hillock atop which the caves reside. There's a small train that ferries people along this route.

The principle icon of Elephanta Caves - The Trimurti

That's my model - Muru - posing shamelessly as passersby look on

Practical geometry!

1 kilo mutton paaaarrrrcelllll!

Frankly an awful pic. But liked it for some vague reason!

Trip to Elephanta Caves - pictures