TAKE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO h

 Here we are at Thursday again.

Dharamshala and the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A satsang gathering had just broken for lunch...

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Wings on Wednesday;
YAM's take on the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright hilarious in photographing birds....eeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Having posted quite extensively from my ornithological collection out of the Indian files, for a couple of these I am stretching the wings (*cough*) just a tad and taking to the air myself. The view from above Maharashtra somewhere...it was the end of Monsoon, hence the obscuring cloud!

TAKE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY h

For this month - the 'Shipping by...' posts are transforming into the "Scene that..." items!

The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association ground, Dharamshala. It's magnificent. Then again, with the foothills of the Himalaya for neighbours, how could it be otherwise?

TAKE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE h

 Monday's Critters

May as well start this month of Mondays with reference to the representation of divinity in nature through the well-known image of Sri Ganesha.

All deity figures are there to remind us of qualities required to navigate life. For example, here we remember that we are stronger than we think we are, that obstacles can be removed with determination, that our ears should be bigger than our mouths...

TAKE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT h

 SUNdays

...I did have a propensity for pointing the lens directly... which did for both the Uniden and the Nik...

Taken from the bus as we travelled the Sahyadri hills.

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 Saturday Symmetry

This is the follow-up photo from the single hasta-mudra shot provided in TAKE NINETY THREE. As seen in the airport in Delhi.

The handshapes exist in modalities such as Bharatnatyam (classical dance), yoga for pranayama and in ceremonial practices. Once learned by almost everyone, this ancient communication and health technique is now only used by those who choose to follow any of these things in-depth (in the same way as Sanskrit... although there is a resurgence).

TAKE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX h

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in order."

(John Burroughs) 

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For the month of July, I have taken the decision to raid the archives very specifically based upon my time in India. The majority of the images will be from the ashram, but a few from the Himalayan trip also. Some of these may be repeats to the blog but am using others that have not been public before. I hope you will enjoy this retrospective. In the first year, I had a camera that was only 7mp quality. The next camera (The Nik) was 16mp. I almost never use flash. This is all to say, that picture quality is not 'magazine' - but the memories and sense of place are what count here.

Anyway, it's a Thursday. What a day to start the month!

The view from the terrace of my accommodation across Powai Vihar (lake). That is the recently established Hiranandani settlement over there, a lovely place to visit for shopping and the occasional 'escape lunch'!