Before the INTACH session started we had ample time to wander around the charming little temple of Panchalingeshwara at Begur, the oldest one in Bangalore. It was built by the Gangas around the time of 890 AD and prides a spacious layout although the main structures are rather small. As one enters the pillared interiors a feeling of antiquity seeps in, so typical of temples of this age. We were lucky to witness a dozen of Kancheevaram (or Mysore?) silk saree clad women who had gathered in the temple to sing Saint Thyaraja’s compostions (keertane). You can listen to one here!

The early birders had a good time shooting daily life and wildlife pictures by the lake behind the temple, as I was informed later.

The INTACH session started at 10.30 am with Prof. Jagannathan talking about the Cholas, anecdotes with noted dancer Dr. Padma Subramaniam and Vaasthu Shastra employed in ancient Indian temples. His talk was quite engaging and he took us around on a tour of the temple explaining the significance of bio magnetic fields by giving us a small demonstration with an instrument. Another of INTACH’s member gave us a quick but interesting run down on the history of the Begur temple.

Photographers:
Raadesh
Vicky Paul
Akash
Arun Nura
Aranya Sen
LooseCanon
Nasirkaka
Rammorrison
Lavannya
Vivek M

Audio recordings here

Relates links:
INTACH

After my first outing with the group at Jayanagar market, this was the second time I was thinking of joining for the shoot as I had a lot of personal and official commitments. I was really excited and enthu levels were up from Saturday night onwards. I put the battery for charging and checked whether the card is in place on Saturday itself. (It so happened that twice I ran into problem, once I had forgot the battery and the very next time had forgot to take the CF card. So learning from my mistakes, I do double check for battery and CF card when ever I take my camera out these days :- )

Sunday morning I woke up early and was slightly confused whether the timing was at 7.00 or 8.00 am. Any way, I decided to leave home early and parked my scooter reached of St Mary’s Basilica at around 7.15am. Since I didn’t see anyone around in front of the market, thought of calling up Peevee and check what is the official time for the shot which he confirmed as 8.00am. So I decided to wait till everyone turns up and based on the tip from Peeveee decided to check out St Mary’s Basilica. I had the intention of taking few snaps inside the church but as the Sunday mass was in progress, some how I really didn’t feel like clicking. So I just sat down in one of the benches there and did some introspection and soul searching…

By 7.45 am I decided to check whether anyone has turned up at the official meeting point and bumped into Peevee who had just reached there. Slowly people started turning up including some new faces. Had a chance to meet lot of people – Lighttripper, Danny, Redbull etc, names which I have seen only in the discussion threads. Then we started exploring the vegetable market, exploring the side lanes too. Meanwhile we were bumping into more and more people especially Vivek and Lavanya who turned up for the shoot after a long time. Also got a chance to meet the privileged few Panasonic guys of the group, Janvi and Siddharta and there were lot of discussions centered on their Panasonic cameras.

We also had the chance to meet the “Padayappa” of Russel Market. This guy was really curious as to what we were doing, from which newspaper we are coming from etc. He even went to the extent of showing us a bright yellow capsicum and asked us to take pictures of it. He explained to us that his friends affectionately call him Padayappa though his real name was Selvam. I think the best part of our shoots is such wonderful moments where we get to meet people like this; though life treats them really hard their innocence and open mindness is really amazing.

Padayappa of Russel Market with fellow shutterbugs in the background

We later on explored the fish and meat market on the back side of the market. You could have also seen the earnestness with which redbull was trying pose infront of the line of meat (as if it was a flower bed ) that was hanging in the meat market. By the time we had covered that area, it was time breakfast time as everyone were already too hungry. So everyone proceeded to Janatha Hotel. Since there were about 20 people, we occupied about half of the first floor. A lot of discussions were happening over breakfast in all the 3 tables. In my table, Lavanya was sharing her experience on the 3-4 foreigners who stayed at their house as part of the couchsurfing network (please correct me if I got the name wrong). Janvi on the other hand was sharing her experiences of working with a NGO group, her stay in Delhi for the past 2 weeks for shooting a documentary film for a friend of hers. For me, it was a wonderful experience… getting to know different perspective of life; a very welcome break from the usual techie environment.

After finishing the breakfast everyone said bye to each until the next shoot. As far as I was concerned, I had such a good time on Sunday. Even though we were debating as to whether 20 were too much a crowd or not due to various reasons like it takes a long time for introductions or some fellow shutterbug always ending up behind your shot, it was a really wonderful experience as far as I am concerned. Lots of learning and lots of fun… Thanks to Vinayak for calling for this shoot, it was a wonderful experience.

Shutterbugs present:
1. lighttripper
2. lavannya
3. Dr Vivek M
4. peevee@ds
5. redbull
6. Pratik Debbarma
7. sachink1080
8. dannycg
9. Zach Studio – Dennis Zach.
10. ArunnurA
11. JanvPi
12. raadesh
13. Siddhartha.
14. Arindam Thokder
15. arunchs
16. jyothi vaidyanathan

TAG: BWS2March08Russel

I’m really sorry, I’m sure that I have missed out people in this list ( as it was a big group i couldn’t even meet everyone). So please let me know.

As we were leaving Janvi was mentioning about a scrap market in front of Russel Market and out of curiosity few of us (peevee, redbull etc) ventured to explore the place. It turned out to be a nice experience. Highlight of that shoot was this kid who was jumping around with excitement on seeing us taking pictures. Janvi had taken taken a snap of his and he was pretty excited to see his photo in her camera. Here is that shot:

Finally, we said bye each other and I am already looking forward to the next shoot. Apologies if it it has become an unusually long report; its all because of my own excitement

photo by Avijit

I fancy myself as a photographer but sometimes am brought to earth when I have conversations like these -

[Mom calls up]
Me: Hello!
Mom: I saw the pictures of Huliappa (my nephew).
Me [expecting appreciations of my abilities] (eagerly): and…
Mom: Ella shake aagabittaithalla? One of them is nice but the rest have been ruined…
Me [bubble bursting and too stunned to say anything]: …
Mom: You are not taking pictures properly. You should learn from your Dad.
Me [finally something to say]: So, I was thinking of coming over next month. (I like to give them hope

I also fancy myself as a trekker. I like to walk and when everybody took the bicycle in the recent company offsite on an island resort, I preferred to walk all over the island carrying my camera and bag with all the accessories (I took 1500 pictures in four days and I am still in the process of processing them and uploading them to flickr). So, when Dr Vivek posted an invitation to trek to the Skandagiri peak, supposedly a two hour trek to the top on a full moon night, I thought to myself, ‘why not?’. Of course, I knew that I would be the slow one but I figured I will make it because after all, it is a two hour trek… Peanuts, I thought for a walker like me… Boy, how wrong was I.

The day of the trek, I picked up the sleeping bags from Venky (another BWS member), made arrangements with BOSS who graciously offered a ride in his car. The plan was to meet at BOSS’s place at 7 pm and leave for Skandagiri from his place. I got there in time and was introduced to Sreelesh and Deepa, and Megha, BOSS’s wife, who were also coming with us. We met the rest of the gang (and the gang was huge – 15 people) near GKVK college near Yelahanka and had dinner in a nearby place and started off from there.

Skandagiri in a small hill near Chikkaballapura which is on the Hyderabad road. Once you reach the town, you take a left turn and follow a narrow road toward Papagni mata which is at the bottom of the hill. Dr Vivek had made arrangements for a guide and he seeked him out. I guess a guide was needed since none of us had been there before and internet had not been helpful. Praveen, the guide, walked up to me and asked me whether I had trekked before but I had the distinct feeling that he was sizing me up and had made a judgement, perhaps the right one, about my abilities. My mental thought was, “this is not a good sign…”

The trek up the hill is quite steep and you have to literally climb rocks. The moon was full and there was no need for a torch was I was burdened by two sleeping bags in my hand, which was thankfully taken away from me. I was almost immediately left behind but I am used to trekking alone and I would have still climbed without company but Dr Vivek and later, Peevee, kept me company. It was a pretty long trek and since we could not see the top, we were always guessing where the top was and it seemed to be further and further away. I would stop to catch my breath, sit to rest my tiring limbs and then walk a bit more, which is usually how I trek. But this was a steep climb and it reminded me of the time we (me and my college friends) trekked up Chembri peak in wayanad, though that was in the daytime and when it was raining!

Midway through the trek, my legs started cramping and I slowed down even more. Thankfully, Peevee was with me and he had water that I desperately needed. But it also meant that I slowed down a lot more. I would take 5-10 steps and stop. And this went on for some time. My legs completely cramped when I came to last bit of the trek where Dr Vivek, Praveen and Sivu were waiting for us. I sat down for a while and then I pushed on because I just wanted to be at the top and the top seemed so much closer (though this had been a recurring apparition). Dr Vivek is a seasoned trekker and did not seem to have even broken a sweat while I was there trying to push my legs to do things that they did not want to do and if they had minds, there would have been a internal revolution of the proletariat! But I finally made it and that too just in time to enjoy the bonfire that the guys started over there. It was a relief for the cold winds that was now beginning to matter since I had stopped walking. The guys pitched the tents and I finally got to rest inside.

In the morning, people in the tent left to see the sunrise but I stayed inside, too tired to go out. When I finally came out of the tent, the sun was up and the the top was covered in fog. After packing the bags, we climbed down. The climb down was far easier and there were no mishaps… After reaching the bottom, it was a relief to sit in BOSS’s car and rest all the way back to Bangalore…

It was a photography trip but I hardly took any pictures. But I have no regrets. It was a fun trek, I got to meet Dr Vivek (been a fan of his work for quite some time) and got to know Peevee’s age (I was surprised that he was that old) and I renewed my commitment to lose some weight.

Photographers present:
1. Dr Vivek
2. Peevee
3. BOSS (+wife)
4. Sreelesh + Deepa
5. Redbull + a bunch of buddies
6. Avijit
7. Arun
8. Suruchi
9. Sivu
10. Myself

Tag: BWS22Feb2008Skandagiri

Now I am off to the toilet. Aaaaaah! No, it is not worth the pain…

photo by Akash

An outbreak of incessant phone calls since 5: 45 am asking for directions, parking space etc etc made me wonder if half the entire group would turn out. Well it was dangerously close, and I dare not try and recollect the names and flickr ids of today’s participants. Or maybe I could attempt (kindly excuse the goof ups between names and flickr identities and pleased fill in the blanks):

Santosh
Rashmi
Lijo
Blackfin/ Jogesh
Lazy strokes (he seemed far from lazy)
Vivek (darn, yet another one)
Dennis
Akash
PeeVee
Lavannya
Manish
Deepak
Sandeep
Kushal Das (who was hungry)
Myself

Oh well, there were more and I bet I did not even meet another half a dozen of them. It was a nice shoot though, considering I hardly shot any. But the one-by-two coffee that flower seller Shantakka’s friend treated us to was simply sooper. We ran into a couple of farmers too who invited us to take a look at their beautiful orchards at Magadi, ‘Nam oorige banni saar’ they said. We shall go there once, atleast for the ragi balls and soppu saar.

Sandeep: I am sorry I could not meet you even after the two dozen phone calls. We shall surely work on the slideshow idea.

Rashmi: All of us will have a critique session over lemon juice at the Indian Coffee House very soon where we can show each other our pictures. No fighting but…

Lazy strokes: Will let you know about the trek..

Thanks everyone for making it, great meeting all of you. And extremely sorry for not being a part of the breakfast session, I am sure it must have been great.

Tag: BWS16Feb2008CityMarket

More pictures here

Resource: Mr. Ramu, one of the florist/farmers we met, is from TG Pallya in Magadi Taluk and will be delighted to take us around his farm. Among many others he grows the button rose and another variety called Charisma. He can be contacted on 9343320741

Venue: Tyekal Village
Date: 10th Feb, 2008
Photographers Present:
Redbull
Shivu
Gautam
Peeveeads

Tag: BWS10Feb2008Tyekal

From my childhood days, train trips had always been interesting. I have traveled the whole TamilNadu State by trains, be it to Chennai, Madurai, Trichy, Thanjavur, Ooty or Kodai road, explored by Trains. This time it was a different experience going to a small village of less than 500 population.

It was 5.15am, when Raghu pinged me. Thanks buddy to wake me up. By then Shivu was already in the City Junction Station, shooting the dawn. Raghu and Gautham came to place as planned the previous night and headed towards KR Puram Station. Shivu took the Swarna Passenger from City Junction and we were waiting to catch the same at KR Puram. Manas, our biking freak, came to KRPuram station, just to say HI to us, as it was long time, we met.

Then after a cup of tea and couple of clicks of Hubli and lalbagh expresses, we got into the heavily loaded train. You can see the crowd here in the luggage compartment.

We managed to get seats after couple of stations.. clicks.. gossip.. chats… reached Tyekal in less than 45 minutes. Raghu did a group shot with the tyekal name board behind, thanks to his remote.

Got some flowers for the GODs on the hill, Gulped some hot idly’s, met a small dynamic cute boy rakshith, who wanted to guide us to the hill top. (fortunately we told him to go home). After a brief walk through eucalyptus forest and potato farms, we trekked up the hill.

A cute little cave temple with no man, welcomed us, where we sat and lied down for hours, chit chatting and clicking some photography as well.

It was already 12 noon and decided to got back to bangalore by bus. Unfortunately, we had to take 3 buses to reach bangalore (tyakal to malur.. malur to hoskote and hoskote to bangalore).

But it was a nice.. sweet trip, when we ended with a lovely FULL meal at Nandhini Restaurant, Indira Nagar. Yet another weekend to remember.

A little monk at the Namdroling

Venue: Bylakuppe, Mysore Dist
Dates: 8th to 10th Feb, 2008
Photographers Present:
Kushal Das
Sandeep (Deepsan)
Anita Bora
Vivek M

Tag: BWS9Feb2008Bylakuppe

A trip to Bylakuppe during Losar, the tibetan new year turned out to be a wonderful experience.

Day One: Kushal and I had reached Kushalnagar (I know.. Kushal and Kushalnagar…) by bus the previous night at around 10 pm and had checked into the confines of quite a large and comfortable room. We decided to head on a recce at 6 am looking at most of the monasteries of Bylakuppe since it was the first time for Kushal and I was rather unsure of what was going to happen where. The morning was dull, depressing and inactive around the Namdroling. We made acquaintances with a couple of monks there, one of whom informed us of a cultural feat which was scheduled the next day at the big square of the monastery.

The Sera Mey, at prayers

After the prayers at the Sera Mey

Sandeep (Deepsan) and Anita joined us at around 8 am, having driven down from Bangalore. We did the usual thing… Namdroling, the Nunnery (which was locked when we got there), Sera Je, Sera Mey, the Kugyudpa. But the reception at Camp 3 was a memorable one- we were invited by the leader to share some local beer (Chang), rice and some Tibetan savoury.

A Tibetan dancer performs at the Namdroling

Monks bow down to the high Lama as he makes his way

Day Two: At 9 am, the Namdroling was all set to host a prayer ceremony with the high Lama taking part. This was followed by a series of Tibetan dances accompanied by the loud clamour of the cymbals and the nasal tunes of the clarinets and the 10 ft pipes. Although the variety of the dances was limited, the experience was nevertheless elevating- we all could experience a slice of the cultural Tibet, a land of mystique where every true adventurer yearns to visit someday. The ceremonies finished at 12 noon, after which we all headed back home.

Actor Steven Seagal makes a special appearance for the cameras of BWS

Resources:

Vinayaka Lodge (Kushalnagar, where we stayed): Ph 08276- 274825, 94480 74225
Parjlor Dargeling GH, Namdroling: Ph: 08223 258686
Sera Je Guest House: 08223 258723
Namdroling/ Nyingmapa: www.namdroling.org/, palyul.org/