Rain ware

Indian fashion designers put out spring-summer collections and fall-winter collections. Although we barely have a 'spring' and certainly don't have a fall.

Meanwhile, the one important season that we actually do have - monsoon - gets little or no consideration.
The first day it rains you feel wonderful. The days and weeks that follow - 'icky' is more like it. Blame it on the travel conditions (a couple of heavy showers can disrupt the whole city for 2 days). The half-dug roads which turn into a sea of keechad. And the lethargy of having to get out of your house at all ...

But things would be slightly more tolerable if one had more suitable clothes - and shoes - to wear. There are tons of waterproof make up available but unless you're willing to don nylon or polyster (which neither looks nor feels good) - no such luck in clothing.

Surely some copmanies can do some R & D and produce 'monsoon-ready' fabrics that dry quickly and if someone can do that for denim, I for one would happily become a lifelong patron. But ok - maybe that kind of thing is ambitious and will take some years. What about someting as basic as shoes? Your options are orange plastic (yuck!), squelchy rubber (also yuck!!). Something that does the job (of keeping ur feet dry) AND looks good I am yet to find.

Problem is, few countries experience the kind of rains we do. In England, it rains - but more pitter-patter raindrops than kutte-billi. So we'll probably have to design products ourselves rather than copy/ adapt from elsewhere or wait for the Chinese to do it for us. Thanks to them, we have - at least ! - graduated to more colourful and interesting umbrellas and windcheaters.

The solution - for now - is keep some extra clothes and shoes in your workplace, so in case you get wet you don't spend the whole day feeling like a soggy sandwich.

From dawn to dusk II

                                                         As time passed by, light started disappearing and changed into darkness with the last hope of ray also going into oblivion, giving hope to every soul of a new dawn to come.

From dawn to dusk

We completed our hectic schedule in Madras and this was on our way back to Pondy. The skies and the sun seemed to say that they also had completed their job for the day.

The sun setting in this part of the world and going in a hurry to rise in some other part of the world. Nature's efforts to keep going and inspiring others also to keep on moving.

Day in and Day out...

Eagle soaring

The eagle with a golden head. The clouds giving a pretence of a bird soaring up in the sky. To me it looked as it was a massive eagle with the sun in the place of the head.

Beneath lay the Bay of Bengal. Though we were getting late, but stopped in between to capture this huge bird. Don't get to see this kind of a bird always.

Sea-storm in the making..

It felt as if the clouds were falling down as though there were a lack of space in the sky. Would have been awesome to be there beneath the clouds, as the place where the clouds seemed to fall was the Bay of Bengal.

Passing through the scenic ECR on way to Madras. Just opposite faces of the sky. On the left to us was a bluish sky with clouds running towards the right side. Missed the scene of the epicenter of a sea storm in the making. The last image shows a lighthouse in the backdrop. 

Nature has its own pastimes.

Sunny Boy

As the clouds got cleared, the sun came up and started taking the juice out of us. So brightly did it shine and that too with full vengeance as if it were getting goosepimps. All happened within a fraction of few minutes.

Shot on the same day.

Shine Rainbow Shine

Shot during our trip to Madras in the last week of September 2010. Our trip started at 4.30 am in the morning. This was the village after Mamallapuram that we were passing through. We hadn't yet cleared Pondy when the rains started. Was pure thrill. Getting wet and riding through the highway.

The shot taken through my sidekick. Was around 7.00 in the morning when the rains cleared and we had a chance encounter with this scene. Don't remember, when i had seen the last rainbow but for certain it was during my school days and after such a long gap i happened to see it again.

I wanted to to capture it end to end. Bad luck couldn't do it.

Neways, life is again a rainbow. You get to see the various colours as you tread ahead.