French Kiss and the Nature

These topics seem connected but they are not. I wanted to buy French Kiss DVD for a long time. Music stores don’t have it. The Crossword at InOrbit Mall has gotten bigger. I thought may be they will have it now. I went there, looked for it in the romance section. Not there. Then looked for it in Humor. Not there either. Next to it was ‘action/adventure.’ I thought a little. May be it belongs there. But it’s not available there either. They have “What A Girl Wants” but not “French Kiss.” How come?

I invariably had to ask an attendant. If the attendant is a girl, it’s inconvenient to ask her. For two reasons. One, it’s not easy title to ask for. The attendant invariably smiles. I have to explain – “it’s a nice movie…”, “Pyar to hona hi tha is its remake” etc. But the damage is usually done. Or two… she might give it to me before fully understanding what I want! But today, it was a guy. I asked him. He said those were out of stock!

But I could get Sea Biscuit and The Terminal. The first one sounds funny. But the movie is not. The second one does not. But the movie is. Talking about serious and funny stuff, I restarted blogging (i.e. once a week) after figuring that serious and boring blogs have a readership of their own! But kabhi kabhi entertainment bhi hoyaye. To socha aaj Nature ke baareme kuch likhe. Among the rich treasure trove of pictures I have accumulated in the past two years, ‘nature’ has its share of pictures. I will call the rest of this post Nature Rocks.

I will start with the best. Sunrise at Kanyakumari. I saw sunrises at Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Mumbai and Kanyakumari. But the one at Kanyakumari beats them all. What makes it special? Is it that you visit the ‘Sunrise Spot’ through the Vivekanandapuram? Is it because of the extra vibrant reddish orange colors? Or is it because of the aura surrounding the place? I have no idea. You can see Vivekananda Rock and Thiruvallulvar statue in a distance and is a great place to be – every morning. Suchindram temple is just few kilometers away and adds to the experience.

Kanyakumari:

Madh Island

Next comes the sunrise at Madh island in Mumbai. Nothing much to talk about. Except that we saw smugglers there. At least that is what my friend thought they were. They turned out to be a bunch of college kids having fun! We couldn’t get into the in-ruins Madh Fort that we originally wanted to visit. It was an unplanned visit.

A trip to Vizag was an unplanned visit too; two friends of mine and I took off to Vizag on a weekend when I was at ISB. We booked an ‘in-forest’ cottage at Araku Valley. There was a power cut around mid-night. We could hear the deafening sound of silence.

This picture was shot in Araku valley. Rest of the trip was great.

Somehow such trips are great experience. Away from the usual hum bug of the daily life, we can get closer to nature and to ourselves. Samrakshan (a Chennai based organization) once organized such trip for the kids it hosts to Tonakel, a camping location in the outskirts of Chennai. The kids played, ate, danced, saw movies and made merry. Two pictures from the camp. One the camp fire and two a dead tree [I want to call it The Needy Hand].

Though the urge is to go away from a city, if you can explore, there is nature within the city as well. Take a look at three pictures from “Kamala Talab” that is less than two kilometers from where I stay. It is unbelievable how such a pond exists within a city. I had the exact same feeling when I went to Madh Island. It seemed like I was hundreds of kilometers away from the maddening crowd of Mumbai.

The last one is from my Kerala trip of April 05. I took this picture when I was in an auto on my way to Kumarakom, a beautiful town near Kottayam. Beautiful snake boats adorn wonderful back waters of Kerala.

Having thought so much about sea, boats and given my natural disposition, I recollected a quote [that Sumantra Ghosal quoted in the first ISB brochure.] I will end the post with the quote. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to go to the forest to gather wood, saw it, and nail the planks together. Instead, teach them the desire for the sea.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

Other posts on Nature:
The Bird
Heavenly Canvas
Nature time from ISB
Sunrise on Besant Nagar Beach