Visited Tirthan Valley, Himachal Pradesh on a camping trip during the long weekend of 15-18 August 2019. Sagar a tracker and young friend has joined me on this trip. We have also covered Serlosar Lake and Rewalsar in this trip.
This place gives a heavenly feeling during monsoon but equally dangerous too. Posting a few photos of that trip, these are a mix of DSLR and mobile. Hoping you will enjoy it…
I am in my hometown Prayag (earlier Allahabad) for 3 days visit. Went on a short drive with Dr. Sharad. Tried to capture few unique things about this city, posting here –
First 2 photos are of a snake charmer and after that, there is a series of photo of a very popular still side food (snack) of this city which is healthy and always prepared fresh known as Chabaina.
A snake charmer with a Cobra
A snake charmer with Cobra
Recipe of this snack is very simple, brown rice, dried grams, dried peas, and dried peanuts are showered with little water in advance and then roasted in raw salt. Then mixed with mustard oil, onion, salt, lemon, and green chili paste. It is consumed hot when it’s crispy.
Brown rice, grams, peanuts and dried peas are roasted in raw salt
Filteration of the mix after roasting
Collection of each ingredient of the mix at one place
Putting everything in a pot to mix spices and oil
finally adding mustard oil, onion, salt, lemon juice, and green chili paste into the mixture
Friends dragged me to take their photos for the HR 26 Triathlon, Gurugram… posting a few of my choice
HR 26 Triathlon – Swimming
HR 26 Triathlon – Cycling
HR 26 Triathlon – Cycling
HR 26 Triathlon – Running
HR 26 Triathlon – Time Keeper
HR 26 Triathlon – An eye-catching bike
HR 26 Triathlon – An inspiring finisher
Yup! I am still around, getting busier day by day though.
Covered Trek Founder’s Ride in Delhi recently (28 July 2019), got an opportunity to shoot the way I always wanted, posting few photos of that ride.
Trek Founder’s Ride Participant
Trek Founder’s Ride Participant
Trek Founder’s Ride Participant
Trek Founder’s Ride Participants
Trek Founder’s Ride Participants
Trek Founder’s Ride Participant
Trek Founder’s Ride Participant
Team from Trek Bike
All Participants at Rajpath
Golgappa (Plural Golgappe, AKA Water Balls in poor English) has many names in India and rest of world like Pani Puri, Puchka, Paani ke Patashe, Patashi, Gup Chup, Phulki etc. It has the more or less same taste of filling (Flavored water or Paani and boiled potato or boiled yellow peas), which may vary from sweet to sour to hot.
Fundamental idea:
Kids, in general, are very choosy on their likes and dislikes of food, parents always have a tough time making them eat what is cooked in the kitchen or what they should eat for good.
The fundamental idea behind this challenge was to make kids try different tastes and get used to it. Other than 5 fillings (Paani) brought by the vendor, 15+ more flavors were created form juices, curd, lassi, chaach, chatni etc.
Challengers were divided into 2 teams on the basis of their school class, Aashi’s team has all her classmates and children above her class, while Ishu’s team has all her classmates and children below her class.
To make it more challenging there were different levels and each level has difficult to eat taste of filling water (Paani).
Rules of challenge:
Winners:
Aashi team 1. Dristi 2. Anshika 3. Sanskriti
Ishu team 1. Cheenu 2. Fareeha 3. Sanvi
Some photos:
Challengers and the Judge Shubhee
Too big Golgappa for small mouth
It tastes funny
The Judge Shubhee has a doubt on one of the challengers
A jam-packed stadium, spectators cheering all around
Winners 🏆
Bigger consumers of Golgappa in the world – Moms
How can dads be left behind
This should be celebrated as no-discrimination day internationally as this is the only day of the year when we know person in-front as a fellow human being and do not ask of his/her race, religion, cast or any other crap. Sometimes I wonder how much ahead of time our forefathers have thought before starting this festival and the way it is celebrated AMAZING!!!
Well on shooting Holi, this was my first time in the middle of the crowd and chaos all around me. Loud music, rain dance, colored powder, colored water, wet and colored people grabbing each other to color, hugs, smile, shout, laugh, spring breeze, you just name adversity and imagine me in the middle of that carrying a costly DSLR which is highly sensitive to powder and water. Luckily people were considerate and noticed the camera in my hand… phew!
Post processing was the most adventurous bit as my personal computer with Adobe Lightroom went kaput before downloading raw (CR2 in Canon) files, being a Linux expert I took up the challenge of post-processing photos on Linux (I use another Laptop for work with Ubuntu). Got a great tool for Linux – Darktable which has all most all features of Lightroom but being naive to this tool, I am not yet very satisfied with the outcome.
I think I should log more on my thoughts on discrimination bit – Proving ourselves superior to others is human nature, so until two people are different there will be discrimination. At the same time there is no possibility that any two people will be the same, not even monozygotic (identical) twins as they get different experience and influences in their own lives, this is how nature works and wants us to be different. Educating people on how they treat others is the only way to suppress (if not eradicate) the feeling of being superior.
Well enough! … take a look of few photos I have shortlisted and post-processed in Darktable on Ubuntu –
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
Holi 2019
I have lost my old phone few months back and bought a new one recently. Its Redmi 6 Pro. It has 2 lenses at the back and creates good quality Bokeh, though I have my doubt that it uses software as well. Posting few photos of our recent trip to Corbett National Park.
Aashi
Ishu the little photographer
Anshu
Kids having fun in water
