meeting, streetlight, newspaper

table tennis, haze, sun scatter

Delhi: Various (Sep '12)

The Taj Mahal Experience: August 11th 2012

 

All one can say is, despite the conniving travel agents at Agra Cantt. railway station, the crunching discomfort of serpentine queues, the shabby arrangements, the urine-smelling interiors at one of the elegant entry gates, a sweat-stained two hour journey of 500 meters through the west gate and the apparent insensitivity to a national monument, the Taj Mahal at Agra is best experienced. Nothing man-made (I have seen yet) comes close to replicating the mystery and wisp-like beauty that nature pervades.    
(Click images for large size view)

whistle, steam

shade, shadow

forms, spouts, tea, streets

form fillers

summer leakage

tea break

a street snap

Village Clicks Flashback: Various

Its been a while now since I last visited the village. Grandmother is not as agile now and she lives in the city but longs to be back there. We should be catching a train to there soon. We have heard, the new highway is coming up and eating up trees and earth. Things are not so quiet now. Here are some pictures from the last visit to the village. Hope to find it as anonymous as we left it. Hoping against hope, perhaps.

(Click image for large size view )

(click on any image for large size view)

rain running (June 2011)

The April Gulmohars: In Transit

Umbrella Man

come, sun, come

now that

I am protected forever

beat down on me 

all day 

  all noon 

all afternoon

try you can

but

you can't

you can't touch me 

I am the umbrella man 

can't touch me 

no you can't 

I am safe forever 

I am the umbrella man   

Hamara Haiku Festival: Bhamburda Forest Clicks (Haiga)



bare

bark stretches  

claws at green 

  

winter

the tree

disrobes



dry stream

the path

curves, falls   

downhill dog

can't apply
the brakes

HAIGA according to WIKIPEDIA

Haiga  is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, from which haiku poetry derives, which often accompanied such poems in a single piece. Like the poetic forms it accompanied, haiga was based on simple, yet often profound, observations of the everyday world. Stephen Addiss points out that "since they are both created with the same brush and ink, adding an image to a haiku poem was... a natural activity."

Just as haiku often internally juxtapose two images, haiga may also contain a juxtaposition between the haiku itself and the art work. The art work does not necessarily directly represent the images presented in the haiku.

Though traditional-style haiga are still produced today, contemporary artists experiment with the form, coupling haiku with digital imagery, photography, and other media.