The Kite Flying...

January 14th is a special day that sun will be entering the northern side. This day is an astrological end to the winter for us and is also very auspicious as now onward, the sunshine will help in bringing new crop and prosperity. Historically, this day has been a day to remain under the sunlight as much as possible to recollect Vitamin D lost during winter season... and thus, people in Gujarat and especially in cities like Ahmedabad and Surat go on terrace and do kite flying whole day.

For me, my first part of the day was very occupied in testing the new HD player. After lunch, I did some system designing for a new project. By late afternoon, I was a bit bored doing this technical work and I decided to take a break. Since sun was not too bright, I decided to do some photography of today's festivity and went up on the terrace  Below are some pictures I took today. All from my terrace. Its going to be a long and picture heavy post!

This was how the sky and the atmosphere was when I reached my terrace... It was not enough windy for a kite flying and thus not all terraces were crowded with people. But most terraces were playing loud bollywood music through their boom boxes... All tiny dark spots in above pictures are actually kites in the sky.

This is what a typical kite here looks like. Strings are attached to two places (where there are holes)... Its an art to tie these strings to the kite and a proper length of both strings only will produce a balanced kite which will follow your commands from the other end of the string.

This is a reel of the string called "Firki"... A normal string is treated with special coating which also includes glass dust to make it powerful to cut the string of other kites in the sky.

Kite flying here is usually done in a pair. One holds the firki and the other one actually flies the kite... Here, a hubby flies the kite and wife is holding the firki...

Son holds firki for dad...

Or dad holds for son...

And in case dad is busy with something else, mom is always there :)  

In case you are too small to have either a wife or a son, your friend can hold it for you...

And in case your friend is busy in any optical exercise, you are Godzilla!

And in case you are too lazy like me, there is a way too...

After a while, the cloud formation made the sky very colorful and with some tweaking in the camera, I was able to capture it too...

The kite flying is fun and its like a war... Each flier would cut the string of nearby kite with his kite's string to survive in the sky. The cut kite descends on the ground. For people in the area where it would land is a free gift from the sky!

And in case you miss catching the kite, its so disappointing... I was able to grab three moments of such disappointment...

The kid notices a cut kite passing by and he rushes to grab it...

He tries to grab the string of the kite (but fails...)

While he seems getting ready for the next catch, his sister had a great disappointment...  

When you have such a big catch, you are surely happy but even kids suffer with the greediness :)

No matter how your terrace is or even if you are on terrace or not, kite flying is very fun!

Notice the bandage on his left first finger? When you engage too much in kite war, the glass dust of your own string can cut your finger.The sleeve protects that finger.

For a moment, I was worried for him when he started leaning on the railing. But he was least worried.

There were some photography sessions going in parallel too!

And a daughter trying to console an angry dad...

  If hubby ignores the wife for his kite, well, she starts doing an optical exercise!

I also got some interesting pictures of what was going on down the street...

A poor woman was catching some kites she would later sell to some lazy kite fliers who want ready made kites. Did you notice though bare footed, how colorful her cloths are?

This was her daughter helping her to catch some more...

Two old women were returning home after visiting the temple nearby...

A grandma was bringing her granddaughter back to home...

This milkwoman had no off today. Look how nicely she has balanced the can on her head and the glass on top of it is actually a measure for the milk.

He was a lone kite catcher who at that time had no catch yet...

The gossiping ladies across the street :) Notice the twist of legs of the right one!

A typical "family vehicle" here in India! Though officially only two people can ride a motorcycle (popularly called "bike" here) and helmet is compulsory, no one is following that rule... Look how worry free all three of them are...

Another such family with the kid sandwiched between parents...

And how many riding this scooter??? Four? You sure? If you are, you are wrong. There is one more kid in front of the mother which is reflected in the mirror...

A typical seating style for a pillion rider...

A mid 50 couple on a 250CC motorcycle! 

A scooter of my grandpa's time :)

And a hotty on a scootty!

And an underage driving...

The banana in the bag and the milk can at the back. This cyclist seems not having a chance to enjoy the festival...

Cant guess where this chap was heading to...

Jyuthika Bhabhi brough some fruits and chikkis on the terrace...

And Jayshree bhabhi joined us soon!

The sun started getting down after a while... It was time for me to go down and resume my work...

The Breathing Time...

It has been quite a long time since I was able to post here. The obvious reason for my absent is my hectic travel and occupied schedules. But equally obvious reason is the lack of portable camera by which I used to capture the moments to blog. When I was carrying iPhone, it was easy to take pictures as it has an excellent camera. But the quality of the camera in my new phone is not encouraging enough to take ANY picture. My other camera - Canon 450D is too bulky to carry everywhere just for blog pictures.

This morning, I got some time where I could dust off my 450D and take some pictures. The subjects were just in front of me!

Top view of my table (after cleaning up all the mess on it...)! These days, I am also busy with organizing my backups. The original hard drive shipped with this laptop is on the right in this picture. It started making clanking noise and thus, I asked Dell to replace it. After installing the replacement drive, I installed the operating system and all software. It took almost whole day to install and update all of them with the latest patches and service packs. So, I decided to take an image of the hard drive that next time, if this hard drive crashes, I can just rebuild new hard drive from this image. I took image on the middle left hard drive which is Seagate 160GB one. The other hard drive on top in left is my routine incremental one and the one in bottom is 250GB Seagate one which I use to store my music and pictures. All these three hard drives are SATA ones and I use the SATA to USB interface to connect them to USB. The big one on right is a 500GB one which I use to store permanent backups.

Since I am "showing off" anyway, let me continue showing off some other things too :)

This is my new phone - Nokia 5310. Its wonderful phone. Very slim and robust. It has an earphone jack which helps me listen to the music using my in-ear headphones.

Senquel--AD my desensitizing mouth wash! I am using it since some time as one of my teeth has become very sensitive. I need to undergo some surgery for my tooth problem but I dont know when I will be able to.

Along with other items, this lens has been on the table since yesterday. Last evening, I went on terrace to do my routine exercise as I stayed home. The purpose of this exercise is to reduce my tummy. I had carried my camera bag with me to take some sunset pictures but I noticed below chap on the street and could not resist to take his picture...
I am sure you know the reason why I took this picture :)

This lens is indeed very amazing. Its so sharp and especially even in low light (small F value), its very fast too. Few months back, Raju and his wife visited 11KKN. Their kid Priyash was very playful that evening.

Look at his eyes... So big!

This is another f2.8 IS lens I recently got from J-Lo. It was a surprise gift for me. It is also very sharp and fast lens. Check the picture below...

At 31mm hand held, it so sharp! And notice the bokeh... its so powerful.

Check how faithful color reproduction it can do... It was a spontaneous shot during Ambrish's wedding. I like this lens very much but I wish it was a bit smaller in size that I can carry it attached to the camera in my small laptop bag.

J-Lo also got this bag for me. Its a nice and enough padded bag which I can carry on my travels. Unfortunately, it can hold only a camera, one additional lens and a flash. But thats good enough for time being.

This is an original lens which came with 450D. This too is 17-55mm IS but upto f3.5 and thats why it could remain small in size.

I think I am now pretty equipped with good lenses that if I am invited for a wedding photography, I will meet the expectations :). If I can add some muslins, strobes and reflectors, I can be a fully equipped wedding photographer  and if some beautiful subjects then stand in front of my camera, I may not need to depend on my rickshaw driving skills... :)

Since last few months, I am contemplating on visiting the zoo and try these lenses with tripod and mono pod. But it hasn't yet happened. I also fantasize to go on C G Road and do some street photography but again that is also not happening :(

Sage de Ammerikka - The return

From California, I returned to New Jersey. I received my new laptop from Dell but on opening the package, I found that it had a dent on the back of the body. So, Dhwani returned it and reordered it. Dell gave $100 credit for shipping me dented laptop and upgraded my configuration to 4GB from 2GB! This is why I like Dell.

I stayed at Mitulbhai;s place. Keeping awake till 2am was usual even though he had to go work in few hours.

An evening before, I had a dinner at Kukididi's place. We talked a lot and recollected some of old memories. Kukididi had prepared delicious Chhole for dinner. I asked her to pack it for my next day flight to India. Devalbhabhi packed thepalas for me.

I had two additional bags to carry with me. Lufthansa is an expensive airline as it charges $250 for an additional bag weighing upto 23 Kgs. For bag weighing more than 23 Kgs up to 32 Kgs, it charges $500! Air India charges $120 and $180 respectively. Brijesh was flying back by Air India and thus I asked him to carry one of my 32 Kg bag with him. Air India waived the charge for this bag as we have very good relations with it!

When I reached at Lufthansa counter for my check in, the girl at the counter warned me of charges for the third bag I was checking in. I was prepared. I handed her my passport and ticket and started weighing all my bags. All my check in bags were within limit. She asked me to weigh my handbag and it happened to be 14 Kgs - 6 Kgs more than allowed limit. So, she asked me to reduce it to 8 Kgs. I started to unpack my bag there at the counter. She asked me to go to a corner as I was blocking other passengers. When I returned at the counter, there was different girl. My passport, boarding cards and luggage tags were ready at the counter. She pasted luggage flaps on bags, gave me my boarding cards, luggage tags and passport and threw a nice smile and set me free!!! She saved my $250 :)

When I reached to my seat in the plane, a mother (reasonably healthy) and a father were busy in managing their crying infant. They requested me if I can relocate somewhere else that they can use third seat for their child. This created an opportunity for me to interact with one of the crews on board. I told her about Chhole I was carrying with me and if she could heat it up for my dinner :). During the dinner serving, she happily poured Chhole from plastic container to two aluminum ones. She heat up one and kept other one in cold compartment that I can use it on my second flight. I enjoyed Kukididi's chhole one more time.

I reached Frankfurt at 7:30am next day. It took a while for me to find a shower there. After shower, I came to the departure gate from where my New Delhi flight was to go. A coffee counter there brought a big relief to me! After puja, I had German cappuccino and theplas!

The flight brought me to New Delhi on time. An assistant of the airport authority came to escort me from the gate. At the immigration, there was a queue long enough for a wait time of at least an hour. The assistant put me to the diplomat counter and cleared me in a minute! My luggage arrived a little late. Customs officers were aware of my coming and thus I had no problems there too. Yogesh and Ambrish were waiting for me outside...

I stayed in New Delhi for few days before heading home. Life became pretty normal from next day.