Ladies

Ladies
representing different times and moods

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Kangas, Koalas and some hidden Dingoes.

"I think you will make a powerful being one day."
someone told me that here - someone I didn't even know. someone pretty random - the kind you pass on the street or meet in the bus.
and touched my heart.
I still don't know who that was, but it was a male, around 19 ish? it is absolutely weird, in a way, to get something like that in such a random fashion from someone younger than me. if it had been someone older, I wouldn't have been so astonished.
anyhow, I am the perpetrator of magic.
of practical magic.
I love it.
I love it that I live in the era where I can say it and feel safe.
atleast in my immediate world.
and as with magic (and good science), rules don't always apply, because different rules do.

that series of photos was taken last year on Holi. the victim here is my brother's (currently in misery of separation by situation) best friend. (Gosh- anyway). I am posting it now because I missed celebrating Holi for the first time since I started walking.
it is sad.

this morning, I awoke, I had a wedding to shoot, I have to say that I encounter quite a few exciting things here ,and a bit frighting ones too. but as they say, courage is not an absence of fear, it is the phase where you understand that you are afraid, and make a resolve to meet the fear head on, with some logic and sense.

I do so many things here, and I get to meet so many different people. this also means,I have to trust in the basic good nature of human beings, too. I have to put absolute faith in my intuition and capacity. I have to do new things and feel at home even when I am constantly out of my comfort zone.I have learnt new heights of control and a part of my personality has flourished which hadn't been that developed before. anyhow, I was going today to a place which I didn't know, in the company of people I didn't know, and in such times, there is always that little niggling worry in your head.

I am so glad that the universe has made sure that there are more good people in this world than bad.always. thank you.

The night had been rainy, the new day dawned fresh and hazy green. the sun sparkled. the fog shifted on the  tops of the hills and made mysterious patterns and shadows. I felt at home. I was with my kin, heading towards the wilderness. nothing calms me more.  the little distant cousins of the Himalayas , as related as an Ant is to an Elephant, so related obviously - and very complexly - the Hills called to me warmly.

so I took this photo.
Just to assure you, that I only say what I really see, and that there is really magic around us, if only we will look for it.
this is not photoshoped and the world really sparkles :)




my soul hummed - I was charging up. like a solar battery, but please, a bit more poetically. So long had I longed to get out, so long.. I have so dedicated myself to this new life, to making it work, to being an enterprising entrepreneur, but I have not forgotten the truest of calls. dreams, they are compelling things, and so they should be - though sometimes we yearn for the simplest of things that are denied us.

Himalayas - when did you become simple?

but anyway. I am glad I was shooting this wedding near Serpentine falls - I should LOVE to visit those, but I need a car, and company that wouldn't spoil the earthiness of the trip.

the Bodhinayana Buddhist monastery was beautiful.

so, what happened? I was trying to get a girl friend from my university to accompany me there, but she couldn't because of it being a Sunday today and there being no buses towards me. I wanted her to come so that I may walk around when everyone was otherwise engaged (eating/ not needing me), so we may explore the forest, so that I may visit a lake there,and so that she may take my photos and I may take hers, but she couldn't come. but, never fear, said providence, and I am grateful. I like people and people like me, and an Irish guest from the Bridal party took it up to himself to be my escort and friend (yes,yes I know - careful with men , I know, but my gut tells me, you know- and we were in a monastery not an actual forest, there were people -somewhere) - and thus I got some photos of me too! :)


because, you know what happened?
someone kissed me.
and I got it on a photo.
A kanga kissed me. :)
animals love to kiss me - apparently.
And I like it too.
I only don't like it when they kiss me on my lips. mostly when its a python, cause it just feels weird.
( university eco fest - loved it - pythons, a Dingo, a sleepy Koala that I poked to awaken, (at least tried) , and a Wedge Tailed Eagle)




will you wake up and look at me please? you are so cute.





so,there was a Kanga, and there was me.


it literally kissed my fingers.

new things learnt, when Kangas make a sort of growling noise inside, like dogs but a bit lower key, get away. their eyes glitter differently then.
they can scratch your eyes out.
they bite.(and punch but knew that already)
and they love the right people.



so today, was, delight. FULL.
absolutely delightful.

I love this.
I love Africa.
I love India.
and there is so much to love , how can you not be skipping all the time.


I did get good pictures of the wedding , and...what ..does. . it .. compare..

ofcourse to them it does!
they must feel like that they have touched a snow leopard or a narwhal.
I'd love to do that.
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talking of Monks - the monks in the Himalayan Monasteries that I sent letters with their pictures to, have apparently replied  - must have taken them ages to get to us,from those absolutely cut off little villages- I can not wait to read it, I do love making friends everywhere. even though we might never meet again - they have the photos - and there, those things matter. they matter for years and for generations , and so they should, to us too, us fast paced people who sometimes miss out on how important friendship is. that is why after an extended trip somewhere, I take the time out to write to people I only met once, and send them their pictures. because it matters. it touches the core of their souls. what more can one ever do?

I agree with this article , that Friendship is a much nobler and just AS important a relationship as romantic love, if not more so.

a good read - http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/04/23/love-undetectable-andrew-sullivan-friendship/
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I also went to a multicultural dinner, a few weeks back - it had a lot of noise, and dancing, it felt like India, as if many people of different states we present - just only from more farther regions, Europe,Africa, Asia, south America. it was delightful again. I went with a friend.
He is delightful too.

and I wore my sari.

ok, so I have sufficiently monopolised my own blog post. now to feed the cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xARnNtPVINs&feature=youtu.be -dancing.


O, tonight I am content . I've been to the hills and some part of me has come alive again. I did go to King's park and the bush walk with my friend, but the hills are the hills and a short directed walk can not compare, but it was a chunk of time saved in a little glass jar of time, set apart from the mediocre things, something magical, something that laughs and keeps you warm.

Now ,I yearn for the big cats.

that reminds me, my brother sent me a photo of a hurt lioness they followed this month to help sedate her for healing.

it is a bit bleary but you can still clearly see the wound.


I want that hair raising feeling,  of being absolutely at the mercy of fate. of the awe at the real and raw power - those moonlit and moonless night walks tracking an animal on foot. something out of an adventure novel, have I really done that? sometime I ask myself, and realise, quite wonderingly, that yes, indeed I have.
how very blessed do I feel.

and then, no wonder everything here feels so tame.
so very tame.

and the city and the shops can not keep up.neither can jewellery.

my passion for travelling and experiencing is the driving force behind my working hard -really. as my fundamental dream is travelling , and seeing amazing places and going to inaccessible place - and seeing rare wildlife , it all requires money. SO I work.

So, Africa, I come to you soon.
Hopefully.
not too long now.

talking of inaccessible places , India has them all tucked away, here ,there and all around the edges.
I do so love those.
Chopta, the village high up in the soaring heights of the Hilamalayas, summer village of about 6 buildings. Dead in Winter. where your window glass may be covered in icicles even in Summer.there is no electricity here, apart from fire light, and maybe a single solar lantern , nothing else. A place I left a chunk of my heart in , frozen solid - to stay there in the permafrost. with those big brown Himalayan bears that we walked almost back to back with, and big ravens squawking in the hollows of frozen rock, high ,high up in to the fog, above the clouds.

an image of my Dad walking there ,in memory of last November (my first time of Missing a Himalayan trip )
(this was taken on our first trip there two years back)

oh Australia, can you make me awestruck, I am sure you can.
so that I may shut up about the other glorious places and say something more about you too.
but I love Kangas
and that's that! :D

interesting thing for this blog which is not by me - http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/24/happy-birthday-hubble/
the red ribbon is like something out of "Alice in wonderland" , new spots on Jupiter look like a painting by Van Gogh, the space is like a fairy tale with gigantic sparkling forests with hidden beasts and little (and BIG ) bits of stray magic floating around to hit whatever it may choose and change it's nature. it's a place of births and deaths - explorations and ideas - where petulant stars protest their newly formed state.
How - can - you - humans - feel - not - awed - every -living- breathing - moment - of - your - life.



ohh... and...

I am proud to have taken these.
He has the most intense blue eyes!



city bride :)
good night!

1 comment:

  1. The more you work 'out of your comfort zone', the stronger and more confident you will become.

    ReplyDelete