Honey-hued busybodies...

Baaligida! A winter perspective...

And the spotlight is on...

Silhouettes...

“The dark-veiled silhouette, that solitary form patrolling without visible strain or vainglory, a demented dreamland of fearful potential.”
Kathryn Hulme

Modkanyaga nadadaiti ond kathi

Kalropa kelro! Belak haryutle tann kathi helaak shuru maadtan iva.
Madhyan annud illa, sanji annud illa, raatri annudoo illa... Ivanga ootadaagli neerindaagli khabarillda vandusurnyag tann raaga yelkontahogtaan nodrinripa...
Aadra yen madodu, aa punyatman puraana kelavra yaaru illalla...!!

Life finds a way...

Amber allure on winter walls...

The quintessential fresh green wispy maiden hair fern of the monsoon, now a rich shade of ochre/brown still manages to inspire awe...!
BTW, Saraswatpur is home to some of my favourite compound walls and gutters. There's a fascinating world out there to be discovered... :)

This patch of vintage fern was sunning itself at the base of my favourite compound wall, at the corner where the gutter meets the wall. Well, I couldn't miss it for anything!
Even if it meant putting in some deft foot work and doing a mean balancing act on the edge of the gutter, as I hung on to the top of the compound wall with one hand and the camera in the other, trying to focus on this glorious patch of amber fern!

And, loads of acrobatics, a bunch of curious stares and one bellowing shout from the lady of the house was all it took for something so stunningly rewarding... :)

Grass! So! What about it?

"The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."
Henry Miller

The grass I've featured in my photographs is a lovely variety called “Kadda” in the local Kannada dialect. This grows wild in and around Dharwad. The fresh version is used as cheap fodder for cattle and the dry one to thatch roofs. I have beautiful memories of this pretty grass from the times we lived on a farm. It was a lovely experience walking among this waist-high grass and every once in a while pulling out a long tender stalk and chewing on it to suck the sweet juice. Ah, that was sheer bliss! 

As pretty as it looks, this grass is filled with fine black needle called “Oobu” with a base that mimics the tip of a crochet hook. These meanies get hooked onto your clothing and keep pricking you all over. On returning home, searching for, spotting and pulling out those needles carefully one by one was not something we looked forward to, but had to. For, if even one of those meanies were to be left behind, be sure, the rest of your day would be spent in feverish agony trying to locate that lone needle. However, for me those black needles provided the right depth to the lovely green/brown shades of this immensely aesthetic grass.

I remember collecting this grass, both fresh and dry by the armful and arranging it all over our farm house, in vases, in metal buckets, in milk cans, tied to the rafters, fixed onto pillars, hanging from pegs... I could never have enough of this attractive grass. Since I was a kid, I've been ever fascinated with the form, colour, texture, the way the blades grow out in pretty bursts, the slender curve as they reach for the sky and well, simply everything about this grass. I've been inspired to sketch, colour and paint this grass a number of times, as a kid to pass my time, as an art student to show off my nature-drawing skills, as a teacher to teach students the beauty of a monochromatic colour scheme, as a home maker to make frames to adorn my house... I recall having packed a whole baleful of this grass to take along when I got married and left for Bangalore. What I can't forget is the look of utter shock on my mother-in-law's face as she saw me unpack the grass!! 

Even today, this stunningly graceful grass never fails to catch my eye on my numerous walks and I try to showcase it's sheer beauty through my new found expression...

Grit, on a wall...

"I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so damn heroic."
This lush green fern, an utterly uncommon sight in winter knocked into me the meaning of grit.
The winter sun was beating down on a landscape of winter ochers, browns and rusts all over. Not a single blade of fresh grass or leaf in sight for as far as my eye could spy, and there I spot this tiny bunch of freshness sticking out of a crack on a huge concrete wall growing with the determined hope of turning into a handsome clump of fern...
This clump of fern was surely my hero for the day!