The apparition...

This morning while I was walking from Yemmikeri towards Mahishi road on my photo jaunts, I decided to step into one of the more shaded lanes as the young summer sun was getting the better of me...

As I side stepped into this lane, I spied an old old house with an even older mango tree spreading it's grotesquely twisted branches all over the the crumbling house...

As always I was immediately drawn to it as I am to all things old, crumbling, rusty, mouldy, mossy, fungusy... I trained my lens on the ruined part of the house and looked intently through the view finder to get a good composition. That's when I see this old woman in a typical Dharwad seeri and kupsa with something in her arm. It seemed like she came from nowhere, for just a few seconds back, before I'd fixed my eye to the view finder I'd seen no one and there she was in the frame right now!

For a moment my hair stood on edge and a chill went down my spine. But then my aesthetic sense prevailed, for she lent her slender waif like self so appropriately to the picture that I had no time to waste... And I went CLICK...!

Even before the clicking sound had died, my eye had peeled itself from the view finder and was fervently looking out for the lady... or was that an apparition...! For, folks I spent a whole five minutes looking for her inside and around the crumbling walls, she was nowhere to be seen...!! I'm sure she must have walked away as quickly as she had walked into the frame... Hopefully...

Now, that was some spooky start to my Saturday photo jaunt... :D