I just landed in my parent's home in Madras aka Chennai only to be greeted by relentless rains and gusty winds ..The North East monsoons have kicked in and heavy rains are predicted for another 48 hours . Since I could hardly step out ,I decided to potter around the house . Armed with my mobile camera , I braved the rains (just recovering from sinus ) to shoot some puddles and pictures of the garden purged by the rain drops ..Its a great feeling to capture the various greens and colours of the rains...Here is my little tribute to the monsoons

Dassera is synonymous with Durga Puja and Navratri. In TamilNadu, we celebrate it as Golu where colourful clay figurines of Gods and Goddesses are arranged in steps for the nine days . The Gods gave way to mortals and soon we had Ram and Krishna with snake charmers and cobblers .



I was always fascinated by this festival because it was like reliving Indian tradition and mythology and stories from religious texts ...the childhood fascination which started off with parks and zoos soon grew into an interest and I have slowly started having my own collection . Beyond religion, it was art for me and a celebration of legends .



Ive been keeping golu in my house for three years and this year, it was the first in Bangalore (the last two was in Chennai or Madras) From Dasavatharam to Meenakshi Kalyanam, from Krishna with his Gopikas to Rama with Seetha, Lakshman and the faithful Hanuman, my small collection has been growing and so is my connection to my roots and culture .

Flowers from my garden ... a new hiibiscus bloomed this morning

Sun filtering through the trees

Every old home in Madras will have a mango tree . And so does mine . Out of the couple ,this is my favourite mango tree in my home in Madras.There are no mangoes that were hanging,waiting to be plucked ,but often I have lost myself squinting at the sun filteriung through it . Watching squirrels chase each other , parrots screeching in ecstasy and a kite chasing a pigeon ...the mango tree has been my inspiration many times .

Another weekend..another temple .This was not planned. We drove down to Hosur (TN border) from Bangalore yesterday to catch up with some friends who had driven down from Chennai to meet more friends ..Amidst all this socialising, a divine intervention happenned..we saw a temple on a hillock...We are not the religious variety but there was something magical about this place -so we decided to go up there ...It was an ancient temple dedicated to Lord Shiva called Chandra Sudeshwara It was already twilight and cameras and mobiles were not allowed, but I couldn resist shooting some pics on my mobile .What makes the pictures interesting for me is how the look of each picture changes with the light

I'm on a nostalgic trip..to Bijapur,.12 years ago as eager students , we went on a field trip and one of the assignments was in photography ...we were asked to look for unusual,interesting angles and frames and shoot some b & w pics as well ...The pictures are amaterish and even evoke a laugh as I wonder what I was experimenting...Ive preserved the look as it is even while scanning as they were old prints .