Haveli hopping and frequent flying

Just in case, a teeny weeny case anyone was wondering where I have been, this is what I did last weekend…

And when I was not sitting by the window, cup of tea in hand, watching the sun go down over the plains in the distance, I went haveli hopping and saw these…

This was in the “gold room” of the Jhunjhunwala haveli in Mandwa in Shekhawati… Three kilos of gold in all those trimmings and borders – how much of it still remians is anyone’s guess…

And oh, I made friends too…

I got chastised for not waiting for girl with brand new bag and had to take another picture, featuring said bag as hero… all in all, worth the heat…

And I played hide and seek with this boy for over five minutes… rather, he played and I waited patiently, camera in hand…

This was a weekend at Surajgarh in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. I will eventuall get around to writing about wonderful, heart-breaking Shekhawati and those brilliant frescos, some of them surviving, even thriving despite all that decay and negligence… Till then, for your reading pleasure…

***
I was actually in Delhi last week on work; I have never seen Delhi before, as in seen anything really. So I set off one morning, camera in hand to one of the most photogenic of them all – Qutub Minar… And it was such a dull rainy day, just perfect for washed-out colors on your photographs that I almost gave up hope. Till I decided to shoot in sepia…

The Qutub complex really does not need a sepia setting on the camera – it is sepia.. You walk around the place, marvelling at the how beautiful ruins can look (yes, I love ruins, so?), and evey corner you turn, you see the Minar suddenly, peeking out from behind an arch, emerging from the middle of squat building, rising from the top of trees… You walk through the pillars and see the sunlight streaming in through the sides, the way it has for centuries…

And the rain is the perfect time to sit there and just watch the world saunter – a pair of lovers cootchie-cooing, the parrots and mynahs seeming to echo their very coos, the fresh air on your cheeks, the camera happy tourists (look who’s talking and all that), the ruin-weary child – mom when can we go home? Everything is freshly washed and happy… No one is in a hurry.. no one is really doing anything…

***

And just a couple of weeks before that, I was here…

For a city (country?) that has no single natural thing to its credit, parts of Singapore are amazingly vibrant and beautiful.

Sigh, I already feel like I need another holiday…