Photo – Page 3 – soniasmusings

The beauty of symmetry in rows

My husband and I have always grabbed the slightest of opportunities to travel to the unexplored destinations. During our first road trip from Mysore (Karnataka, India) to Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu, India), we were exhausted after traveling for nine hours. As we got down near the reception, this is the first sight that greeted us beyond which lay the cloud embraced hills.

The row of flower pots arranged symmetrically added to the beauty of the place. During our three days stay there, we realized that almost everything about the resort followed an alignment in the pattern of rows. The planning of cottages or placing of chairs and flower pots were evidence to our conclusion.

The beauty in symmetery — *The beauty in symmetry – Kodaikanal*

At times, I wish I knew how to arrange my life into a neat and symmetrical pattern of rows since chaos seems to be a permanent guest here.

This post is part of the Tuesday Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Row’ this week. Linking this up with Wordless Wednesday created by Esha and Natasha as well.

Wind in my hair gave wings to my dreams

Despite loving hills and mountains, I have always had a major fear of heights. In 2009, I had been freshly recruited as a Branch Manager for one of India’s topmost private banks. Along with another twenty-three campus recruits from different B-schools in the country, we were sent for a month-long training program at the Bank’s training center in Khandala (Maharashtra). Over the weekend, few of us started planning short trips to the nearby cities of Pune, Lavasa, Lonavala, Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar. After a daylong tour at Mahabaleshwar, the last destination was an age-old temple post which we had planned to return back to our center. Just adjacent to this temple, we located a cliff that provided an amazing view of the surrounding. Confident of my unwillingness to climb the cliff, the team had begun retracing their steps when the gutsy wind swept my hair over my face, giving me a hitherto unknown strength. Along with my friends, I climbed the cliff to a safe zone near its edge by letting go of all my inhibitions. As I stood there breathing in the beauty of nature, the feeling was that of an achiever. I still say that I have never felt so liberated even till today.

This post is part of the Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme ‘Wind’ this week.

Linking up with Esha and Natasha as my second Wordless Wednesday post.

Passing on the love of playing football

My 69-year-old father used to be an avid footballer in his youth. Despite circumstantial constraints, he managed to make it to the District team before recurring asthma attacks forced him to quit the game forever. Ever since my toddler started preschool three months back, he has developed an extreme fondness for the game of football. On observing this, my father has started taking a renewed interest in playing this game with my son. I realize that this playtime is one of the strongest bonds between a grandfather and his grandson where the older generation passes on his experience, love, and learnings of the game to the future generation.

This post is a part of Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme ‘Play’ this week.

Linking up with Esha and Natasha as my first Wordless Wednesday post.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – New

The theme for Tuesday Photo Challenge this week is New. The idea is to bring about a fresh (new) look at things.

This picture was clicked on 22nd September -2015, few hours after my son was born. After an extremely complicated pregnancy and equally difficult c-section, the feeling of seeing your own flesh and blood in the form of a new life is beyond expression. With him, began a new journey of motherhood for me. Gradually my husband and I realized how this new member of the family has brought in a new perspective to our lives, new priorities for us and many other new aspects that were non-existent until then.

Weekly Photo Challenge – All time favorite

This is the last week of the Weekly Photo Challenge and there couldn’t have been a better signing off than through the theme of an all time favorite photo. On the personal front, last two months had been extremely hectic with the A2Z challenge in April and the launch of my first e-book ‘Deal of Death’ in May. However the topic for WPC was enough to evoke the feeling of homecoming in me. Here’s a personal favorite capture of the city I call home now – Kolkata, India.

I wasn’t born here. In fact I barely stayed here for three years during the course of my graduation before hopping onto other places for higher studies and professional commitments. Except an apartment, nothing in the city felt close to my heart until my son was born here in 2015. Over the last few years, I have learnt to embrace the city as my own as my preschooler goes around creating memories in it. While Kolkata is usually represented in the pictures through its old world charm, here’s a snap taken from the terrace of our high-rise building capturing its new essence of life.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Alone

The topic for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Alone. What this basically means is capturing objects that appear to be alone or lonely. Through a set of three pictures, this is an attempt to capture the diversity in emotions associated with being alone.

The first picture is that of a lone monkey on the terrace of a neighbourhood house in Berhampore, India. With severe deforestation caused by high-rise buildings, the species have no option but to come to human habitation in search of food. The despair on its face owing to such a helpless and hopeless condition is heartbreaking.

Monkey and eroding humanity — *A lone monkey in a world of eroding humanity*

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Favorite Place

The topic for Weekly Photo Challenge this week is Favorite Place. The idea is to share an image of our happy place, a secret spot we love, or a faraway location we return to again and again.

The first picture is that of the area covering a bookshelf in my bedroom. Having lived out of my suitcase for almost sixteen years owing to education and then job assignments, the only constant companion that I had throughout were books. Whether I stayed in a hostel or as a paying guest or in rented apartments, there was always a bookshelf stacked with books that I loved reading. Whenever I moved cities, I always had the movers & packers pick them up and deliver them back home in Bengal, India.

WPC_Favorite Place

Two years back when I moved back to Kolkata for good, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my father safeguarded my entire collection in various cabinets and bookshelves in our apartment. With a barely few month old baby then, the distance from the bedroom to any of the rooms felt like kilometres together. Thus this bookshelf was built-in a corner of my bedroom. The books are handpicked by me and each of the shelves has an assigned genre like new collection, regional books (Bengali in my case), humor, classics, crime and thrillers and so on. This space is extremely personal and close to my heart. Irrespective of my emotional state, this corner has never failed to give me happiness and comfort.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Force of Almighty

The topic for Tuesday Photo Challenge this week is Forces. This can have multiple interpretation right from force of nature to force of love. I decided to choose a little unconventional theme that I consciously choose not to think or write about – Force of Almighty.

I grew up in a Bengali household in India where praying and worshipping of God was not restricted to just rituals and celebration. My parents believed in the power of Almighty and I had no reason to question their belief. Until that fateful night of Nov 2011 when I lost my mother to an undiagnosed and sudden sickness. My system of faith had been shattered. I stopped praying.

Durga Puja_2017.jpg — *Durga Puja – 2017*

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Trees or leaves

The topic for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is Trees or Leaves this week. The pictures could be that of any tree or leaf – alive or man made.

This photo is taken from the sideway pavement of Victoria Memorial, Kolkata on a late December evening last year. We had been walking down to the entry gate with our toddler when I caught a sight of this gorgeous tree. Adjacent to the lake, it made a perfect frame for my click of a setting sun against the monument. The tree has spread its branches on all sides but it looks bent on one side because of the weight and age. While there were umpteen number of trees surrounding the monument, none could create such a strong impact as this.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Hills

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. The theme for this week’s TPC is Hills.

This first picture was taken in Munnar, India in 2011. I have grown up loving mountains while my husband has always been fascinated by beaches. It took us months before reaching a destination for our first trip together post wedding. Finally we fell in love with the beautiful Munnar. The picturesque hills surrounding the gorgeous tea gardens literally took our breath away.

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