The theme behind this poster graphics is a reflection to have our own vibes to find our tribes. Be it photography, art, writing, engineering, philosophy, sociology, you name it, the tribes of your liking would find you if you really do with lots of love what chimes well with your passion. These need not be always troves of social media following rallying behind you. It can be a small group of good friends in your realm or space who loves what you do and shares the same sense of aesthetics that you effuse or in the mental space, you are in. I’ve always felt that the size of the audience does not matter in any art. Quantification or monetary value has never been and never would be a measure of self-worth and fulfillment. Although not always possible for all of us, to the best, let’s try doing what we love. Rest apprised, we live in a world where even the next minute or next hour or the next day is not guaranteed for us. We only have this moment.
Netta glancing at a beautiful sunrise from Havelock Islands in South India,
Sunrise, beach, clear skies. They’re a perfect alchemy of yearning.
“With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red cam above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the flower-buds to the life of another day.”
“With a little heartache; Gone with the time, Are certain memories, Intricately designed. To call & narrate A story of blissful sunshine.” ― Somya Kedia
A photograph of the author respiring fresh air in the jungles of Attapadi. Photographed by Amjad
“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.” ― Roman Payne, The Wanderess
One of my long time read is the beautiful blog Notes from the Road. It’s written by Erik Gauger and it is an excellent road travel writing blog. I love the aesthetics and the overall way in which content is articulated on this page. Not sure if this would change in the future, but it looks stunning! What I like the most is his philosophy of travel writing at the core. If we read online, pure travel writing is a treasure to find out. My dad was a forest officer and may be due to the opportunities that I had with him to visit some of the most remote hill stations in South India, I am very much enticed by travel narratives when done well. Erik has done a wonderful job in narrating his travels and as he himself writes on his website,
“At Notes from the Road, I try to stay grounded in my original vision for what travel blogging can be: independent, visual, personal. Travel writing has never been about hotels and reviews. It is, and always has been, about ideas, people, and faraway places.” – Erik Gauger , author of Notes from the Road
Another example of how beautiful things can get when somebody puts his heart and soul into what he does.
freshly squeezed mango juice with a liberal (you know what) sprinkle of white chocolate
Yes, that’s right. A weird combo of fresh mango juice sprinkled with white chocolate. Let’s file this into ‘Culinary Experiences’ , a series of visual stories that we started on our website for journaling some of our best ambrosial culinary experiences, be it the finest cordon bleu delights of a master chef or a cheesy experimental simmer at our little kitchen. We are trying to scribe it humbly here. This is not intended to be a recipe archive or a cookery show in case if you wondered. We’re only sharing the experience of trying.
This is a photograph from a couple of years ago that’s really close to my heart. When I had traveled to Netta’s place during the initial years, I was not familiar with that place. Neither am I now. After an afternoon tea with family, me and Netta went to the town aimlessly and I was looking for a beach nearby and on a random search, I got to know about Payyoli beach which was so close to their home but the fun part was that she hadn’t been there before. What welcomed us when we aimlessly drove in there was a very wide, serene beach with not a single soul in the premise feeding in the vibe of a private beach. (No, those were not Corona days. I’m speaking of sometime in 2017, on a guess). There were fishing boats parked there and we had witnessed a blissful sunset together sitting on a boat. That moment in time is captured by this shot. So you see, every frame has a story weaved within it. Even if I’m put in a dungeon with a handful of photographs, I can sit with them with a cup of tea and write story after story behind each of them for weeks 😀
The legendary photographer Ansel Adams kills it with his timeless quotes. He once famously said, “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
After over 6 months, I decided to do a deep clean of our little tank and re-scape the entire foundation of the tank. Took more than 3 hours from the deep cleaning to the removal of stains and dirt from the tree barks. I was literally surprised at the amount of dirt accumulated with wooden blocks submerged in water. After a thorough cleaning process, I removed one of the barks and decided to go with only one bark to give a more roomy and wide space for the Neon tetras to swim around. Upon reading somewhere, I learned that Neon tetras are more comfortable with open wide spaces. The half-moon betta is not in the photograph, and it seems to be unwell for the past week or so. I doubt it’s related to the chemistry of the tank, as I’ve been using some new conditioners for curating the water quality in the tank.
3 hours of re-scaping work
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of aqua-scaping tutorials on different layouts possible in a smaller tank and I was inclined to a more simple one as opposed to the seemingly dense option we had previously. After removing the dirt from the soil bed, I filtered them out by removing floating watery dirt with a manual water pump by water cycles of over 8 to 9. Later, I deep cleaned every single element in the aquarium and separated flora which was affected by line algae which were dominant in the aquarium. Netta helped through all the stages. I removed one of the wooden blocks, set up a new tree bark in an inclined position with ferns slowly arranged on the top. Meanwhile, I planted the grass and Japanese Hydrocotyle on the front side of the tank. I hope it will take up a more dense profile as time passes. But now we have a minimal, simple, and much cleaner and roomier tank space, and here’s the final result.
A much more roomier tank. Excuse those flying ferns on the top. More on that below.
One thing what I learned from this whole process is that when we do a deep cleaning for the tank and if there are ferns to be included, they need to be attached to the wooden barks by some means. Either it can be a glue or they can be manually inserted into any holes or spaces available in the bark or by another means. Even though I watered them slowly, I found out that the ferns were floating around after the pump and filter started working. So, I should be taking care of it in the next episode of this whole thing.If you love aquascaping, skim through Story de’aquatics.
“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” ― Susan Sontag
I took this photograph from a place called Kuttikanam, a hill station in Idukki district of Kerala, Southern India. That’s my brother having a phone call gazing at that splendid view in front. Right in front of the place we stayed, there was a bridge damaged by heavy torrential rains and landslide, and the only road in the front was damaged. We stayed on the top of a cottage run by a family and there was a homely feel to this place. This place is special because the experience of meeting the family owning this place kindled in me the love for indoor plants and curating them. What I saw in their home was that they put plants in literally anything you could imagine. Damaged cans, throwaway bottles, coconut shells, wall mounts, iron cases, you name it and they’d have a plant inside. After returning from this place and reaching back home, I thought of setting up indoor plants and that’s how we started our moneyplant adventures. I’d be trying to write in detail on this Kuttikanam story. Stay tuned friends : ) Thanks for all the love on the previous writings and feedback. Looking forward to your thoughts. Write to me.
