Photo of the Week 3 : City of Lakes and Udaipur
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| Udaipur City Palace and city |
Photo of the week 2 : Wrath of Zeus's thunderbolt
I sit, with the blinds and windows wide open to the elements.
Everything inside is turned off, no distractions.
I feel mist from the rain rushing in to caress me.
The world looks fuzzy though all the droplets parading to earth.
Like a celestial firework, the sky lights up, exposing it's details for a stray minute.
The deep rumble penetrates through my entire being.
I've tuned out everything else, enjoying nature's fierceness.
I remain aware that I'm not truly safe from it, as it can turn on you in a moment.
But only slightly, as I see the thunderbolt through the air.
The crash a moment later rattles everything, but I hardly notice.
For a short period, I am totally relaxed by the fury.
I shall soon continue my life, my routine. But for a moment.
A moment of awe and beauty, from the chaos of the elements.
Everything inside is turned off, no distractions.
I feel mist from the rain rushing in to caress me.
The world looks fuzzy though all the droplets parading to earth.
Like a celestial firework, the sky lights up, exposing it's details for a stray minute.
The deep rumble penetrates through my entire being.
I've tuned out everything else, enjoying nature's fierceness.
I remain aware that I'm not truly safe from it, as it can turn on you in a moment.
But only slightly, as I see the thunderbolt through the air.
The crash a moment later rattles everything, but I hardly notice.
For a short period, I am totally relaxed by the fury.
I shall soon continue my life, my routine. But for a moment.
A moment of awe and beauty, from the chaos of the elements.
Source : By Saige
A Dulcet Evening in Udaipur
We went for a stroll around the city of lakes and were struck by some melodious tunes of Rajasthani music. We thought just to enjoy it while waking by. Suddenly we saw some lights at the end of the lake and we were mesmerized by what we saw.
It was a Rajasthani cultural dance event happening at the famous Gangaur Ghat of Udaipur. Music and surreal view along lake side of udaipur made a velvety evening for us.
A thumri was performed by some of the artist as a part of a cultural event. Being curious we enjoyed the evening like royals enjoying an ancient dialect performed in the form of dance.
Thumri :
Thumri is a common genre of semi-classical Indian music.The text is romantic or devotional in nature, and usually revolves around a girl's love for Krishna. The lyrics are usually in Uttar Pradesh dialects of Hindi called Awadhi and Brij Bhasha. Thumri is characterized by its sensuality, and by a greater flexibility with the raga.
Thumri is one of the most important forms of North Indian music after
khayal. Its exact origins are not very clear, given that there are no
historical references to such a form until the 15th century.
Thumri expresses the countless hues of shringar by combining melody and words.A thumri singer goes straight to the emotional core of a composition and
evokes each yarn of amorous feeling, each strand of sensuous sentiment,
with great discretion.
I took the liberty to take some shots to see how the artists uses facial and body movements to express the tone of the dialect.
Photo of the week 1: Udaipur
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| HDR of Udaipur City as seen from City Palace |
5 day Black and White Photography Challenge
I was challenged by a friend to post five photographs, one each,
per day. Now these photographs were not any ordinary color photographs.
It had to be related to any theme you choose but it should be Black and
White. So I opened my treasure of photographs which I clicked during my
travels and posted one each day. "It was not mentioned you have to click
one too ;)"
-2.jpg)
A woman smiles as she ties the turban
An old guy praying for peace in the middle of the streets of Leh
A Ladakhi woman with the textures of old age
Two young monks
Last but not the least its an ultimate portrait which shows the love of a
mother and child. A child will never fear if it is embracing its mother.
Memories from Ubeshwar and Keleshwar
It
was the start of the weekend and I woke up early smelling the cold
breeze. I watched out of the window and there was greenery all around
and the beautiful smell of the early morning gave jitters to me to go
out and enjoy this gift of nature.
So I called up my buddies and woke all of them up, after hearing lots of shouting from them for waking them up early (They thanked me later though). We took our motor bikes and so began the journey to Ubeshwar and Keleshwar Waterfalls.
Ubeshwar is a Shiv Temple situated 25 km from Udaipur. As it is said that the path traveled to reach a destination is more beautiful than the destination itself, same thing happened with us. We never saw Udaipur being so beautiful as we saw that day, it was mixture of everything wonderful combined together. From early morning breeze, to green mountains sound of the wind gushing by and a sweet cold atmosphere.
It was green all around and we enjoyed the drizzling at some places and also fought the scorching sun. It was mixture of weather which made the Aravali mountain ranges even more alluring. It was like sun was playing 'peek a boo' with us.
We reached the temple and after paying our homage to the Lord Shiva we continued our journey to Keleshwar Waterfalls which was around 10 kms from Ubeshwar. We were all set to jump in the waterfalls and enjoy the fresh water bath.
So I called up my buddies and woke all of them up, after hearing lots of shouting from them for waking them up early (They thanked me later though). We took our motor bikes and so began the journey to Ubeshwar and Keleshwar Waterfalls.
Ubeshwar is a Shiv Temple situated 25 km from Udaipur. As it is said that the path traveled to reach a destination is more beautiful than the destination itself, same thing happened with us. We never saw Udaipur being so beautiful as we saw that day, it was mixture of everything wonderful combined together. From early morning breeze, to green mountains sound of the wind gushing by and a sweet cold atmosphere.
It was green all around and we enjoyed the drizzling at some places and also fought the scorching sun. It was mixture of weather which made the Aravali mountain ranges even more alluring. It was like sun was playing 'peek a boo' with us.
We reached the temple and after paying our homage to the Lord Shiva we continued our journey to Keleshwar Waterfalls which was around 10 kms from Ubeshwar. We were all set to jump in the waterfalls and enjoy the fresh water bath.
We could see the waterfall from far away which made us even more excited
to reach there fast. Finally we started to climb up the mountain to our
ultimate destination the waterfall. We saw trails of water gushing by
our sides and its speed gave us the chills of how fast the waterfall is
flowing.
We reached the top and were so tired that we wanted to jump in the waterfall and begone with the pain of the trek.There were some amazing wild things we found during our trek to the top,
out of which this flower stand completely different from all the green.
After
the bath in the cold water we were so hungry that we did not wait until
we reached back to the city, but we asked a local villager to cook some
' Dal Bati' for us and by god the taste of the food was 'finger licking
good'. And then we headed back to our house and after that we slept
like never before completely carefree when we reached home.
Architectural beauty of India
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| Monastery in Leh, Jammu |
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| The Blue City Jodhpur |
India is a land of architectural geniuses. There are lot of examples of its creativity proven in earlier years. From Taj Mahal to Qutub Minar. One can fall in love with India, with its legendary palaces, temples and forts.
The amazing Buddhist monasteries built at highest of altitudes in the Himalayan Ranges offer peace to the chaotic souls of humans.Cities built with same colored stones offers the sense of unity amongst the people like in Jodhpur blue city or the sun city of India.
People of Ladakh
People of Ladakh
The paradise on earth and a jewel of India Leh had some amazing places as well as people.We traveled to Leh on a bike ride meeting some unique people on the way. Especially the people of Leh are quite, always smiling and calm.
I am always curious about the people living at the places I travel. I interact with them to learn about their lifestyles and their dreams. When I talked to the people of Leh-Ladakh I inquired them about what do they do in winter, when there are no tourists and temperature is way below freezing temperature, they said I quote, ' We stay together and embrace our families for warmth and pray to god to end this brutality and shower thy love on them.' I was stunned hearing this as they said it calmly as if they love winter.
The same question I asked to the young monks I met in a market. They replied that winter is the only time of the year when true human nature is revealed and they are tested. So they consider it is the time of year when god is closer to you. They said that they learn techniques to keep them warm. When I asked what are the techniques, they say that pray to god like you are about to meet him and you will feel the warmth of the Lord inside you.
I saw an old man sitting alone in the market and revolving the Tibetan chime, I tried to speak to him but he seem to have been in deep meditation that he didn't reply or even cared to look at me. So I asked a shop keeper about him. The shop keeper said that he comes at this very spot every morning and sits there for an hour doing meditation and leaves without speaking to anyone. When further persuading the shop keeper he told me that something happened at that spot long back which the old man considered a sign from Buddha and he started praying at that very spot every day. It seemed like a fairytale so I just listened to the shopkeeper carefully , I though do not believe in such stories but the way the shopkeeper told me was like he was not fooling anyone.
So this is the post about the cool and lovely people of Leh. I wish I could go every year and especially once in winter to feel the love of the people of Ladakh.
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About Me
I’m Nitin Bothra, a Digital Entrepreneur at Accetrix-Digital Marketing Company in Ahmedabad, India and travel blogger by passion and lover of world cultures, languages, souls, oceans, wild spaces and urban places by nature.
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Courtesy of: Tours In India