Monday 30 December 2013

mundane monday - #30 - annual round up of 2013 !

So here come the curtains down on 2013... Another year, another medley and mix of the good, bad, and ugly... lets look back with contentment and look forward with hope...

Wish you all a very Happy 2014 that fills your hearts with peace and happiness... 

Here is a collection of my favourite mundane monday photos posted over the year - though there were lots of gaps in between, and many mondays missed. Lets see how the coming year fares !


Here are the links for the individual posts of each pic above, clockwise - 









Monday 23 December 2013

mundane monday - # 29


ok, i'm officially in hand-sanitiser heaven. being a germaphobe, i always carry around hand-sanitiser in my bag.

while your regular purell or germ-x does the job efficiently, i got a set from the pocketbac range of bath&body works, and was delighted with the delicious fragrance. yup, delicious :)

from left to right, the scents in the picture are crisp golden pear, winter cranberry, fresh balsam, vanilla cupcake, and sugared vanilla wish.  i'm using vanilla cupcake right now, and it smells great! havent opened the others yet.

From mundane monday

and coming to other things, there is just one more monday to go before the year winds down. i dont know if i'll be posting anything much in the coming week - maybe something to wrap up - but i hope to be making some changes around the first week or two of 2014. will let you all know how that goes, and meanwhile, wish you all a happy and joy-filled holiday season ahead !

Monday 2 December 2013

mundane monday - # 28


today's mundane monday  pic is one from the archives... something i took more than a year ago, last fall... was just looking through old pics in the folders and came across this one, so thought i'll 'refurbish' it a little and use it :)


From mundane monday


or, in today's world, maybe listen to TED talks while you are doing the dishes.

in the pic, are some chai-spice shortbread cookies that i made last year. The quote is that of Tasha Tudor, an american illustrator of children's books, who lived an 18th century lifestyle in the 20th century. read more about Tasha Tudor here and here.

oh, btw, by posting this, i dont mean to take a stand pro-housewives or pro-working women. i just believe everyone has a reason and a right to make their own choices, and no one should be judging or questioning the choices of another. if only every housewife had a dollar every time someone asked them "you are just a housewife ?" or "what do you do all day", they'd be sitting on a pile of dollars, trust me.

Sunday 24 November 2013

mundane monday - # 27


i'm probably the only south indian on this planet who doesnt like pickles. i probably shouldnt even be brazenly admitting this, since there is a good chance that it'll get me ostracized from south indian society.

anyways, that doesnt stop me from loving the traditional indian pickle jars (called 'jaadi' or 'bharani' ). they are smooth, ceramic, and generally come in a cream-and-brown(ish) colour combo. its not feasible for me to get very large sized ones, but got myself a couple of smaller ones. there are a lot of things you can use them for - store dry goods in your pantry, use as canisters for salt or sugar, or as a caddy for holding your spoons and forks.

i had washed one of them some days back, and took a pic when it was out drying in a patch of sunshine. (somehow i liked it with the sepia'ed effect. i have a major soft corner for sepia.)

From mundane monday

Tuesday 19 November 2013

mundane monday - # 26


It was the south indian festival of Karthikai Deepam this sunday and monday. this is probably the most beautiful of festivals, where every house has rows and rows of earthen and brass lamps lit at dusk, and as it grows dark, the whole area lights up with the beautiful glow of these rows of lamps, giving a very bejeweled look to the doorsteps, terraces, balconies, walls and any other place where they are. The lamps are mostly terracota or brass, have cotton wicks and are lit with oil.

sweets most commonly made for karthikai are balls of peanuts and puffed rice, mixed with a syrup of jaggery, which is a traditional,unrefined indian sugar.

this time, personally, it was a very small-scale karthikai for me - neither too many lamps nor too many sweets - of late i find myself too cynical and reluctant to put in the efforts for any big celebration - so i just decided to cut myself some slack and take it easy.

the lamps, however are a must have for me, at least a few of them - they are such a beauty to behold, and i definitely couldnt restrain myself from taking a few pics.

From mundane monday


and one more where i tried to blur the focus on the wicks for a sort of 'bokeh' effect (but not that successful) -

From idle time output !


(oh btw - this monday post got posted on tuesday, but since the pics were taken on monday, i decided that it still counts ! )

Tuesday 12 November 2013

why life is like... a pot of soup !

this morning on tv i happened to catch a few random scenes of the movie kaakha kaakha being shown. the realisation hit me that it has been 10 years since this movie was released, and my head was filled with thoughts on how much water has flown under the bridge these 10 years.

i cant forget how much everybody was raving about it when the movie came out, and i liked the movie too, for so many reasons. (the songs are a big reason to like the movie, if nothing else ... )

i cant help feeling amazed at the ever changing kaleidoscope that is life. in the ten years that have rolled by, people and relationships in my life have changed so much. people who were so much a part of my life then have chosen to fade into oblivion that i don't even know their whereabouts. people whom i didn't even know back then have become so much a part of my life that i feel that i've known them since the beginning of time. there are people who have strengthened me with their love and there are people who've strengthened me with their lessons. there are people whom i know i've hurt irreparably that i end most of my days with a prayer for their hearts to heal.

one thing though, i have no regrets, i rue no relationship. good or bad is all a matter of perspective, and i believe its the 'bad' which makes us value the 'good' more.

relationships in life are a lot like a pot of soup (or if you prefer a more south-indian version, rasam or sambar as the case may be).

life, soup, pot of soup, soup for the soul

image source - from here 

they need time. you need to allow them time to simmer to reach the peak of perfection, to absorb all that you have put into them and give out the best of flavour and aroma in return.

you need to know when to let it simmer and when to turn on the heat  - or else you could end up with just a hot mess stuck to the bottom of a blackened pot. some of us maybe natural cooks, but a good many of us may need to blacken a few pots in the process of learning - and i guess thats ok. its the learning that you get out of it that matters. dont grudge the spoilt soup - its your lesson for the day.

you need to experiment to know what you need to put into it, to get what you want out of it. - you can keep adding whatever you want, but remember its going to take time to perfect the process until you figure out what works best for you. its not a bad idea to keep changing your approach to the recipe - adding all that you got, till you reach what you desire.

remember we all brew several pots at a time - some might be instantly ready with just a little heating, some might need continuous stirring, and some might need constant supervising so that they don't boil over and spill. with some others, you just might be done and over with - you need to know when to put them on the back burner or move them off the stove. (i see a lot of relationships run into trouble just because people constantly keep stirring the pot when its way past the time to cool down. )

but i think ultimately life gives each of us our very own pot - one that soothes us with its warmth, fills our soul with comfort on days when we are left feeling cold. it might happen sooner or later, but we know when it happens.

dont you think life is worth waiting ?



       


Wednesday 23 October 2013

Sitcom trivia - 5 locations from 4 sitcoms based in New York City !



October so far has been dragging me here and there, leaving me with disrupted internet access and little control over my time. Most of the month has gone off like this, so am not in the best of spirits. i've ended up having my finger in many pies, so disrupted plans and schedules had left me very annoyed the past weeks... theres a lot of stuff that i need to be doing before the end of october (if i dont want to end up cussing myself and suffer another bout of self-hating), so hopefully i should redeem the last week of october and try to make up for whats lost.

Moving on to other (and better) things, heres something i had managed to compile in the past weeks - and finally managed to get past the draft stage. 

Are you a sitcom fan ? Love the all-time popular shows like Friends,Seinfeld, or How I Met Your Mother ? Then this one is for you.

I love sitcoms and can watch them anytime, all the time. (I dont watch TV regularly everyday, but i loved the convenience of a dvr and watching them any time i wanted to. In the absence of a dvr, I try to catch old episodes on youtube.)

I first stumbled on the location of the "Monk's Diner" that is a regular feature in Seinfeld. All the exterior shots of Monks are of a real restaurant in New York City called Toms. The sign which says just 'restaurant' was used on the show.

image source - Panoramio
Location - 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025 (near Columbia University)

Seeing that made me curious to google the locations of some of the other popular sitcoms, and i found these :

If you are a F.R.I.E.N.D.S fan (and its very hard not to be one), you'll be excited to see this building that was used for the exterior shots of Monica's apartment building.

                                                             image source - Flickr
Location - At the corner of Bedford & Grove Streets, Greenwich Village, New York, NY 10014




Love How I Met Your Mother ? Then you might be interested to see this pub in NYC called McGees, which was the inspiration for Maclarens pub in the show. The creators apparently spent many hours there before the show was created. (Keep in mind however that this was just the inspiration for Maclarens, and was not actually used for any of the shots nor does the interior look similar.)

Mcgees Pub, How I Met Your Mother
                                                      image source - Mcgees, NYC
Location - 240 W 55th St (between Broadway & 8th Ave) ,New YorkNY 10019


And lastly, from Will & Grace - here is the building which was used for Will & Grace's apartment - 

Will & Grace Apartment Building
image source - Flickr
Location - 155 Riverside Drive, Manhattan, New York, NY


and this is the building which was used for Grace's Studio (Grace Adler Designs) - 

Grace's Studio from Will & Grace

image source - Flickr
Location - Puck Building, 295-309 Lafayette Street, Manhattan, New York, NY




These buildings were all only used for the exterior shots - keep in mind that the real shooting happened on sets in studios in California. I hope to be adding at least some of these(esp the friends one !)  to my to-do list when i make it to NYC the next time. Do you like sitcoms ? Which ones are your favs, and would you be adding any of these to your to-do list if you get a chance to be in NYC ?

Monday 16 September 2013

mundane monday - # 24


yet another mundane monday post today after a long gap !

today's pic is that of two traditional indian soapstone lamps. these are simple, beautiful in black and the designs on each piece hand-carved.

From mundane monday


soapstone pots were once commonly used for cooking in india, being heavy, sturdy and heat resistant. soapstone is called maakkal (maa-kal, kal meaning stone) in tamil. its a naturally occurring stone, and easy to carve, due to which it has been put to many uses - from temple sculptures to cooking pots and other decorative accessories.

these soapstone/maakkal lamps are meant to be lit with oil and a wick, but i dont intend to light them anytime soon - i got these just to use as eye-candy :) - as decor around the house... they are quite heavy too for their size.
i also have a mortar & pestle in the kitchen made from soapstone.

read more about soapstone here . the hoysala temples of karnataka also use soapstone extensively in their architecture, and you can read more on it here

this is another pic of the lamps that i took -

From idle time output !




Saturday 14 September 2013

an FCUK you didnt know - sherlock holmes's grandma !

hope you've all been doing fine while i once again managed to vanish for more than a month. august seemed to go by in a flash, and now so has half of september. whoosh. meanwhile been having some things in draft, which i thought were never going to see the light of the day. well, got around to making some progress finally, so here goes - a french connection UK from the most unlikely source you'd have imagined !

last month, i saw on the google art project's google+ page this post below -





i saw that the painting was by the french artist claude vernet, and the very mention of the name triggered thoughts of Sherlock Holmes in me. if you are as much of a holmes junkie as i am, you probably know the connection too. i could probably do a marathon of 'explain with reference to context' or 'who said to whom' type of questions from sherlock holmes stories.

anyway - the connection is that in the case of the greek interpreter, holmes says that his grandmother was the sister of the french artist vernet. 'art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms', says holmes, speaking about his brother mycroft's powers of deduction, which he says are superior to his own.

coming back to vernet, a bit of wiki'ing around shows that there are four generations of vernets who have been artists, and holmes doesnt mention a first name as to which vernet was his grandmother's sibling. sherlock holmes is supposed to have been born in 1854, so assuming that any grandmother of his would have been around 40-50 at the time, the most likely candidate seems to be emile horace vernet, 1789-1863. - grandson of the aforementioned claude vernet.
(on a side note, this vernet was apparently born in the louvre. born inside the louvre ! lucky bloke, hmmm.)

why all this research into grandmothers, if you ask, i'm afraid i dont have any convincing answer except that as a holmes-o-phile, i was so caught up in it the moment i saw the word vernet.

and as a side-effect, here are a couple of sources if you want to read the complete sherlock holmes collections online - see here and here. i'm so happy to have found these, since my fat old book lies battered and tattered in my parents' home.



Monday 29 July 2013

mundane monday - # 23


this week's pic is one from the archives, taken around the same time last year. i had been taking the monday pics intermittently since march-apr last year, but started posting them on the blog only much later. this is one of those from last year's album...

tennis ball
From mundane monday



as a bonus, here's a pic of some lovely vintage tennis ball cans that i found online on flickr -

Vintage cans of tennis balls

Monday 22 July 2013

mundane monday - # 22

i'm not sure why this one didnt make it to the monday series so far - considering its a favourite of mine, and is a very photogenic one as well :)

anyone who has owned a fossil watch will know about its unique packaging. for those who dont, fossil watches come in a beautiful tin box, which by itself is a collectible. the brand designed their packaging with the intention that it should have an enduring relationship with the customer, and they couldnt have been more right ! so many days i have seen pictures of fossil tins and wished i could just buy them, without the watches ! (of course one can endlessly spend time ebaying for them ...)

fossil tins have become iconic and their team produces new designs every season. they are simply eye-candy !

From mundane monday

ok, i know i rambled on so much about the tins, but pictured just the watch ! that is for another day.

meanwhile, you can see some awesome collections worth drooling over here, here and here... well, just do a google search or a pinterest search for 'fossil tins' and you could be occupied for hours !
i'm also so tempted to buy this book someday. 

and no, i wasnt paid by fossil :) i just love their tins :)


Saturday 20 July 2013

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious


its been such a long time since the last time i ate pizza, i cant even remember when was the last time. *gasp*. 

hit an unsatiable craving last evening, but finally ended up having today.

supposedly, earth is an ideal place for life to thrive, owing to various different factors - water, temperature,etc etc...( i am not going into the details, i just assume you paid attention in geography class.) 

pizza ought to be added to that list. seriously, who would want to live in a planet without pizza ? or chocolate cake ? or ice-cream ? or chai ?  or ... well, you get the idea. if i make a list of the things which i count as blessings, these would probably top the charts.


this tweet which i saw some days back pretty much sums up my feelings.

have a good weekend, all of you, and indulge yourselves. guilty pleasures are the best pleasures of life. anyday. 


pizza, pizza hut, veg pizza

i know that pic looks quite unappetising. i realise i'm no good with a mobile phone camera whatsoever. i dont know how people use it all the time, i'm never happy with pictures from a phone camera.

(if, by now, you are wondering what the title means, or what it has to do with anything in here, i just chose it because i couldnt think of anything else. if you've never heard of it before, check out its origin and meaning in the wiki here :) )


Monday 8 July 2013

mundane monday - # 21

plumeria, frangipani, mundane monday


i think if you can begin your day with seeing flowers around your house on waking up, you should count that among your blessings.

but then of course, with all the things that keep bogging our minds, we hardly make the time to stop and smell the roses.... 

Tuesday 25 June 2013

my d-i-y version of alphabet photography

there are some people in this world who are able to tightrope walk at a height of 1500 ft above the colorado river.
and then there are people like me, for whom there comes a time when even the most routine tasks seem to require a great deal of effort.

of late, i have the feeling of gotten into a rut. my mind feels numb and dull, my brain feels like a clogged sink with nothing flowing whatsoever. day after day goes by in dreary succession, and i have not been able to do anything productive or creative. i hope this is a phase which i get out of soon.

meanwhile, at times like these, looking through old pics is something that i do to give myself a break. i have been going through last year's pics and dug something out. something i did and forgot and allowed to gather dust.

sometime last year, i came across this site where you can order your name or any word from the collection of images they have. just google alphabet photography to see more images.

i totally liked the idea, and decided to challenge myself to come up with my own version of it - without stepping out of the house. so i used stuff around my home (mostly kitchen) to come up with the letters of my name. i used the collage option of picasa to make the letters together into one image.  here is the result -



if you are a black and white lover -


the 's' was part of the design on a metal shelf i had (a hanging shower caddy actually). 'o' is the top of a cookie jar. 'w', ofcourse, is a fork. it was a regular 4-pronged fork, but i cropped one out later :). 'p' is the handle of my favourite mug. 'a' is a lemon squeezer. the 'r' is a kind of tongs, used for lifting hot vessels off the stove in indian kitchens. (called pakkad in hindi, idukki/kidukki in tamil.)

not bad eh, for a first attempt ?  hope you like it too !

Tuesday 28 May 2013

phew...

has it been a month already, since the last post ? really ?  i've got myself tangled in so much stuff the past month that i ought to have been tugging my hair out. (in reality my hair falls by itself in generous quantities and spares me the trouble.)

one major thing that happened is that this post came true. yet again. only about seven months since the last time. and the more heads involved and the more number of people that need to be answered means things get waaay more muddled than you can handle, while still holding on to your sanity.

there are still quite a bit of things to get sorted out, loose ends to be tied. i think its going to take some more time for me to get back to taking pics and posting.

meanwhile for those in the US, memorial day has come and gone. i have been having memories of memorial days of the past few years, flipping through the pics inside my head.

here is one from last year, from a trip to south lake tahoe. tahoe is such a beautiful place, any time of the year. this particular photo was taken at emerald bay, one of the most beautiful spots in lake tahoe. cant believe its been exactly a year already since this pic was taken. time always flies, doesnt it ? can you remember what you were doing exactly a year ago ?

Monday 29 April 2013

mundane monday - # 20

have you sometimes wondered how much life changes over a few years ? or how much a few years change your life ?

about 8 years ago, i remember telling someone i didnt have much use for technology in my life. at that point, i didnt posses a pc for my use, and i had just started using a mobile phone - which was anything but smart :)

looking back, i can only ask myself, "what was i thinking" ! life indeed has changed me a lot - today i not only need to be connected, but also need to be so with my own devices, the ones which i am used to using everyday, the ones which have my own customisations, my own bookmarks. when you try to use another device for a few days, it makes you realise how powerful the force of habit is. how your fingers are so much aligned to the keys that you type without even seeing them. how it has a certain 'feel' that you are used to, that you can probably touch your device blindfolded and know its yours.

i would have never thought that i would be the person i am now, many years back. yeah, life changes you. sometimes you dont know if a change is for the better or for worse. if its a good thing or bad. but yes, you come to terms with the fact that its inevitable.


Friday 12 April 2013

sometimes all you need...


is a stack of books....


 .... and a cup of tea...

 oh, and a good amount of undisturbed sleep...


(btw dont ask me why the pics are all sepia'ed... just that i am in the mood for sombre... )

Monday 8 April 2013

mundane monday - # 19


From mundane monday

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
                                                           - Rousseau

Monday 1 April 2013

mundane monday - # 18

சிப்பியில்  தப்பிய  நித்திலமே ...



for those who cant read the words above, its a line in tamil, which is my mother tongue and one of the many languages spoken in india... 


for those who can identify that its tamil, but not fluent enough to read or understand, it reads "chippiyil thappiya nithilame" 

'nithilam' is a tamil word for pearl (in addition to the word 'muthu', which is the more commonly used one), and the full line means " (you are) the pearl that escaped the oyster". 
it is from a very famous tamil movie song from the 80's, 'andhi mazhai pozhigiradhu' - from the film 'raja paarvai'. the song itself is a very beautiful one, very romantic, and if i attempt to translate the meaning of every line, it would need a whole other post.

the monday posts in the past few weeks have become erratic, due to a lot of personal inconveniences. this particular post has been sitting inside my head for 3 weeks now ! it was seriously march madness at my end :) hope your month was better - did you enjoy 'springing' into march ? if its either year-round summer or still white winter where you live, i can empathise with you - i know how it feels :) 

hope you all have a good beginning to the month, and hopefully the posts will be more regular in the days to come - fingers crossed :) will see you soon, keep peeping in !

Sunday 10 March 2013

mundane monday - # 17


american kisses... the next best thing after the french ones :)


From mundane monday



since today's pic is coming after a gap, i thought it might as well be something nice :)

this one is from the archives... seeing it today, its also a reminder of some of the happier days gone by...

speaking chocolate-wise, hershey's kisses are one of the few american chocolates that i like. more than the taste, there is something nice about unwrapping a kiss and popping it in when you need a quick 'picker-upper'.
i grew up with cadbury's dairymilk as my first love, and so shall it be always. i even considered it a great personal tragedy when cadbury was taken over by kraft.

i think i first tasted hershey kisses when i was in my teens, and its one of the few from hershey's product line that i like to stock up on, every now and then...

everyone has their own favourite when it comes to chocolate. (i dont know if its humanly possible not to !) for me, somehow when it comes to chocolate, the american ones dont quite match up to the taste and smoothness of the european ones. ghirardelli is one of the american ones that i find ok, and is smoother and tastes much better than the typical hershey bar.

taste apart, sinking your teeth into your favourite chocolate and letting it slowly melt in your mouth is a delightful experience which lifts up your spirits, changes your mood and takes you to another plane of happiness :)

what is your favourite chocolate ? does it kindle in you sweet memories of happy days ?

well, i'll wrap up things for now, hope you all have a sweet week ahead ! see you pretty soon :)


Monday 11 February 2013

mundane monday - # 15

often, life feels messy and stressful because we keep on measuring it on some scale or the other. we think of life as 'successful' only when it meets some standard we have set, lives up to some expectation that we have.

how would life be, if we didnt think of things as 'success' or 'failures', and just lived life as an experience. truly live. not worry about what we have or dont have, what we have done or not done, what we have achieved or not achieved. not subjecting ourselves to the stress and pressure that we inflict upon ourselves.

and the worst kind of stress and pressure is to be living our life based on someone else's yardstick. life would  be so much easier if we didnt have to live based on someone else's priorities, someone else's choices, someone else's values, someone else's rules.

i realise its a blunder to judge oneself by someone else's standards. i try really hard to convince myself that its ok, if i dont live up to the expectations of others. its not easy though. sometimes its hard not to be hard on myself.

i want to remind myself that i have a right to consider my life as meant for my personal use - and not just meant to be cut to size, based on someone else's measurements.

measuring tape, tape measure, inch tape, mundane monday
From mundane monday

Monday 4 February 2013

mundane monday - # 14

when life gets you into a 'tangled' mess, you hope that it also comes up with something to straighten it out !

From mundane monday


this week's pic is that of a hairbrush...  when seen like this, doesnt it look like rows of army forces lined up on a battlefield, in a perfect formation ?

it reminds me of a chakravyuha, a battle formation mentioned in the indian epic Mahabharata. it was considered an extremely difficult formation to break, and required special knowledge to enter and fight one's way through the labyrinth that it was.
doesnt that sound a lot like life... ? hmmm.... 

Monday 21 January 2013

mundane monday - # 13

i should probably be calling today's pic 'anything-but-mundane' monday. unlike most other weeks where the photos are mostly of things that are in normal, everyday use, this week's subject is a bit different. its beautiful, vintage, and not something commonly used everyday.

this is a rakkodi (or rakodi or raakodi) - which is a traditional indian ornament or hair-piece, worn in the back-centre of a woman's hair. once a commonly worn ornament, it is today used only by classical dancers and as part of bridal hair-dos. it also remains a part of the traditional ornaments adorning deities in most south indian temples. and since such jewellery was originally meant for the use of temple deities, its called temple jewellery to this day.

the temple jewellery originally crafted for deities and royalty would have been in gold, but the later versions for dancers were made in silver, set with stones and given a gold plating. the traditionally used stones were a deep red and green, along with pearls. the special ruby-red stones are called 'kemp' and have a beautiful deep maroon shade, which is often difficult to find in modern day stones.

From mundane monday


coming to the piece that is in my possession, it is a silver one, passed down from my maternal grandmother. my mother's earliest recollection of it is around 1960, maybe it was bought even earlier. the piece is missing one or two stones here and there, but those that remain still retain their quiet, classy beauty, stirring your imaginations of life in the days gone by. it sits in a small wooden box, which has its own distressed vintage charm.

for those who are not familiar with them, another interesting piece of info about these traditional temple jewellery hair ornaments is that they never have any kind of clip or clasp to attach them ! they are tied to the hair with pieces of black string (black because indian women have always had black hair, unless coloured in modern days), and can only be done by those who have practice and experience in doing so.

btw, i hadnt posted about the edits to the photos in the past few weeks... as always i use nothing more than picasa to touch my pics, and this week i chose the 'focal b&w' effect in picasa which has made only the centre portion of the pic in colour. also added a little black vignetting around the corners, and used a little 'soften'ing.

Monday 14 January 2013

mundane monday - # 12


From mundane monday


everyone has something to keep safe and secure. but in a very ideal world, if no one desired the possessions of another and if everyone had very little to hold back from others, there would be no need for locks and keys, right ? its ironic though, that the more 'civilised' mankind has become, the more and more complicated and complex the locks.

it might come as a surprise to many that even today, there exists a place with no doors and no locks. in a small village called shingnapur in maharashtra, india, none of the houses have doors, leave alone locks. and yet there are apparently no reported cases of theft. the main temple of the village is that of Shani baghawan, who is the deity representing the planet saturn. the strong belief in the village is that any theft would be punished by the deity, and hence the buildings remain without doors & locks !

are you the kind who is particular about keeping your stuff off-limits to others ? can you imagine ever living without locks or without a door ?

Wednesday 9 January 2013

a colourful start to the year !

so its nine days into the new year already. and i havent posted a single word so far, though there was a lot running in my mind. that is in fact one of the main reasons why i didnt write anything. there was a lot going on in my mind alright, but most of it wasnt good. for a lot of reasons, i was filled with a lot of anger, frustration and resentment. my moods were crabby at best and bordering depression at worst.

as far as i can remember, i have generally been a happy and cheerful person not affected by circumstances, but of late the conscious choice to stay happy is becoming more and more difficult. i think my tolerance towards people and their idiosyncrasies is becoming lesser with age. thankfully though, i've been feeling much better the past two days, and in a much better frame of mind to write something.

thats enough rambling i think. now on to other things. i wasn't able to post this week's mundane monday because of internet connectivity issues (which, incidentally, has been driving me crazy, on and off, for the past couple of months). it got fixed (for now, at least !) and i spent quite some time yesterday and today catching up on some of the usual blogs and websites i frequent.

which led me to one of the coolest things i've seen in recent times, and i wanted to share it here.

have you ever thought of, or tried searching images by colour ? what if you could extract all images of a particular colour you want, from among millions of images ? somebody just found a great way to do just that.

just drop whatever you are doing, and try out the awesome multicolour search engine created by tineye labs. you can thank me later :)

you can choose any colour, or a combination of upto 5 colours, and see the images uploaded in flickr in that colour. you can even adjust the amout of each colour that you want. these are from among the creative commons images on flickr, and just page after page of colour unfolds before you !

heres a sample of what i tried - see what catches your fancy !

are you the kind who always thinks green ?



or like me, do you like teal and blue ?



or maybe you have a thing, for purple and pink ?


or do you need more than just fifty shades of grey ? :)



 and if nothing else works, how about a burst of sunny orange ?



try it out, and if you have an interesting colour combo, let me know !
have a colourful year ahead !

p.s : i first stumbled upon the multicolour search from here