I guess I’m gonna be so very busy during this period. Ya… the plan goes like this…
1. Lot of work
2. Work related travel
3. Travel related photography
4. Photography related work
Its a cycle, which is keeping me busy for sometime now.

As of today.. here is my schedule.
WW 47 – Traveling to Kolkata. Ranchi. Dhanbad.
WW 48 – Traveling to Delhi.
WW 48 – Traveling to Kodai and Munnar.
WW 51 – May be traveling to Nilgiris.
WW 52 – May be Roaming in Nilgiris.
WW 53 – Have to go to Chennai.
Atleast for me, Travel is always like a better half. Just TRAVEL.
Will update. Watch this space for more.

Guys…
This season.. to keep me happy… follow these 4 simple steps..
1. View “My Rider and I” Video
2. Visit “My Rider and I” Photo story
3. Like the Images and Comment on them….
4.Forward this mail to as many people as possible… WHO CAN MAKE ME A WINNER of TFN.

Read more on TFN and why i did the Story… at http://www.tourofnilgiris.com/blog09/?p=414

When i learnt something about TFN last year, i thought, I was not confident enough to cycle 100s of kilometers. This year, even sad, when it too late to apply when they have already finalised the set of cyclists. But, Lucky me… there is a contest for Official Photographer of TFN, which is not merely a trip to Nilgiris, not only a galore of goodies, but also an opportunity to meet great cyclists around.

The contestants are asked to submit 3 images of our choice, and I was chosen as one of the 3 finalists for the top slot. Two topics were provided to us, one the cycles perspective and other being the perspective on cycle, and we are supposed to shoot and submit images for the top position. Inspitre of some job shift and deliverables, i was able to work on Saturday last week, shooting close to 400 images. Thanks to Shwetha, for being my model and here you go with the making of “My Rider and I”.

Spend some time here, and if you like, your next stop should be LifeBlob

Like my Images… Commment and make me the WINNER. Will U? Will I? Thanks.

My Dream Bike.. on its way..
Expecting an Royal Enfield Electra this November…

Just for a record… few images from a chennai trip last year…

I’m one of Happiest persons, to be associated with you guys, as a photographer. You guys ROCK.
After EK, and few Jingles, here is the next step from TAAN SAINTS, this time for the Kannada Rajyotsava.

Read more in citizen matters

ALL THE BEST GUYS.

I’m going to the consumer court…
I will write this in the press…
9, vasanthappa garden is not in the flood affected belagavi district..
I need power in the next 2 hours…

I said, all these.. but, still WE didn’t get power at home. #9, Vasanthappa Garden is my address, which is in Indira Nagara. One fine Thursday night(22nd October 2009) when i reached home at around 11.00pm, there was not power only at our house in the complex. Guess we didn’t pay our electricity bill for last month (September) and the last date for this month (October) is 28th October.

I was the one who was paying our electricity bill every month and my fellow buddies at home got no idea on this. Unfortunately, I had to go to Davangere on Friday morning, we could not pay the bill on Friday as well. So managed to pay the invoice on Saturday by cash in a vending machine. But power didn’t find way to our home that Saturday, Sunday and Monday too… We are all pissed off finally made a complaint to the central customer care at 10.30pm, when i came from office. I was totally occupied with so many things at work and could do only that at 10.30pm.

Tuesday, we got some hope, as there were some 18 calls from the Customer care starting as early as 7am till 4.00pm. They wanted us to go to this domlur EB office and show the paid in slip. We did at 9.30am sharp. And, as nobody was at home after lunch time, to check the electricity, we had to confirm the customer care only by 8pm.

The first four sentences of this write up was spelt out on Tuesday morning, when i was getting calls after calls from the customer care.

I learnt couple of things from this exercise.
1. As a consumer we should be aware, what to do when. Eg. The moment you pay your late bill, go show it to the local office. The Govt Office employees will come, if NO BILL WAS paid.. but, wont track, if its paid.
2. Was bathing in the chill water every day of these 5 days, that too 2 days, early in the morning.
3. Was able to live without power for 5 days, in spite of living in the gadget era, in spite of living in the heart of the city.:)

Anyways… 5 black days gone.. NOW, found some time to write this. Few images from one of the black days here..

Special Thanks to Shwe / Prags for allowing me to charge my camera / blackberry, before my trip to Davengare for a photo shoot.

Two things happened last weekend for me.. At least i understood that only last weekend. The whole lot of migrated people like me in Bangalore city moving to their own native places to celebrate Diwali, every single mode of transportation is flooded with waters of tunga, bhadra and krishna.

First thing first…
A friend of mine is doing a photo story on migrated population in Bangalore with a detailed study on people from norht Karnataka. I was telling him sometime back that its sad to see them, working hard in bangalore for a single better meal a day. It didn’t strike me that I’m also on a migration here. But understood the truth only last weekend when i saw the millions of crowd in the bus/railway stations. If somebody is interested to do a story on the white collar migrations, please reach out to me. I will surely be of some use. .

Second thing second…
I generally don’t plan my trips to pondicherry. All these years, its more of a hop-on trips. I do standing journeys, break journeys, half journeys etc… as i just can’t book my tickets well in advance, like a friend of mine does train booking 60days in advance.

Ok.. now to the reality… I was waiting in the silk board bus stop for some bus. My mind said “dont wait for any specific bus.. just hop on”. My eyes were looking for the bus boards with place names like pondicherry, thiruvannamalai, cuddalore.. salem. I was even ready to take a bus to chennai and travel down 150kms to home. But, lucky me without waiting for a long, i got into a thiruvannamalai bus and even got to sit in Conductors seat. It took more than 180 minutes to reach hosur town, which is just 30kms from silk board. So much of Traffic, diversions and tsunami of cars moving to cross the state border to buy crackers cheap. I saw live, how difficult it is to drive a bus in such conditions, where you have men, women, bikes, cars, buses and trucks crossing in all possible angles. A fellow traveller in the bus was cribbing that he is getting late and asked driver to go FAST. The GOOD Driver’s Reaction: “I Can’t take any RISK here for you to Celebrate Diwali in time. We have NO DIWALI, Cos, I’m taking you to your home“. What a TRUTH. I was taken aback and was thinking about this for a while. I could just think. Nothing more i could do then..

In spite of me being a hard core Ilayarajaa fan, i must confess ARR is also close to my heart. The first reason being amazing music, I cant ignore the other reason that he is an Young Tamil Personality. He is inspiring and influenzing music lovers all over the world for the last 15 plus years.

Time magazine has referred to him as the “Mozart of Madras” and several Tamil commentators have coined him the nickname Isai Puyal (Tamil: இசைப் புயல்; English: Music Storm). This year, after Rahman winning the Oscars, TIME magazine placed him in the Time 100 list of ‘World’s Most Influential People’.

Rahman was taking India to the world of music with his amazing numbers, now he is taking Indian Languages abroad. Here are the brand new sound tracks by ARR for Hollywood.. Listen to the songs which are in Indian Languages, song 1 in Hindi, song 2 in Tamil etc. Thanks ARR.

Sorry for posting this in the morning on the way to a happy weekend.

I felt seriously sad the moment i saw this video. I’m living in the same world as these kids. There are so many Why’s coming to my mind. In any case, You and I, should do something for the society, which helped us grow in life.

I like this Ad… Its a simple.. but thought provoking ad.

To share an example, Shankar in Tamil Cinema, generally spends 2-3 years to bring out a movie and i’ve heard about him, for his attention towards the finer details. Someone was telling, he finalises the color of the heroine’s nail polish, style of the bindhi, etc., before going for the shoot.

Good work guys… peeveelovesit.