Four square years in four square kilometers

A picture is worth a thousand words. Will leave you with two, pictures that is...

A map (thanks to google) which defines 16 years of life spent just going between the marked spots,

and a very important "X" on that map that got special mention!

More than two thousand words rush into my head at the realization that a life that was centered around crossroads denoted by a small "+" on the map, branched out to locations, far and away.

Life does take you places.

You know I am good for all two thousand words given the time, but will stop with the first 60.

Know at least one person who would exclaim "thank god!" after reading that sentence!

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Focus

Thousands of faces, all focus on god.

There is one kid who is oblivious to all this noise, all this hoopla, having a bubble of a time!

As the camera zoomed back and forth, caught this kid so focused on that next flurry of bubbles he was about to create, that my focus also went from god to kid. He was probably going to get a slap from an accompanying adult for turning his back on god, but you see god in that very innocence.

For a few seconds, relived my childhood watching him blow a few bubbles.

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Once upon a place

Time has nothing to do with it.. the sun comes up, sun goes down and years roll by.

Location, location, location it is as far as getting certain things like "oru mozham poo" (a hand length of strung jasmine flowers)!

We have four Jasmine plants in our house. They bloom over a very narrow time period and give us lots of flowers during the last two weeks in April. The four females in the house will treat these flowers like a precious commodity, pluck every little jasmine they can, take hours to string it, even save the flowers in the fridge in ziploc bags so it will last them a couple of more days after the plants stop flowering.

Note, there is more flowers here than hair on the little one's head, and she fought to keep it all for herself!

Jasmine's in the air!

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Watch your feet

You are busy clicking away on your camera, worried that the approaching chariot might run over and your zoom may not be enough to save you and your mom lets out a yelp "watch out!"

You take your eye away from the viewfinder and look down to see a dude rolling on the floor, sorry, rolling on the road.

You missed stepping on him narrowly. The camera doesn't do as good a job of absorbing him as his body is absorbing the dirt on the road.

"Is he a beggar?" was the obvious question.

"Edhavadhu Vendudhalaa irukkum da!" comes the reply.

By that she meant "he must have prayed to some god that he will roll on the road during a temple festival, collect money and then go donate it to the god!"

The sucker for technicality in me immediately responds "His chances of getting money are better if he is at eye level with the people, no?" and mom just moves on. Her face seems to say "to each, his own" and I meekly follow her.

From that point on, started watching my feet after every shot.

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Match them while you can

Round three of the matching salwars was unleashed today. The girls did not even bother to ask. They dressed up, went to the backyard and said "Daddy, where is your camera?"

We seem to have successfully created genetcially modified photogenic offspring!

Our first thought was that the pink was a little too bright. This one turned out to be the best!

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