Four great photo essays on India

I stumbled across these photo essays here, here, here and here. Beautiful shots of Kolkata, Kalimpong, Darjeleeng and places around there. Absolutely brilliant stuff.

The Other face of Saudi Arabia

Have been to Saudi Arabia, the armpit of the world and the magic kingdom personified. But it did show riches and largely the population of the various cities that I visited showed the rich, middle class Saudi’s and the expatriates (whites and non white population, and yes, there is a reason why I am using racist terminology, they are treated in a racist manner). But poor Saudi's were not in sight. Take a look at this photo blog.

Caged Birds

Just says it all, doesnt it?

Technorati Tags: Islam,Women,Photo Essay

Photo Essay: St Paul's Cathedral, London

It was evening when I got to walk past St. Paul's on the way to a meeting at the London Stock Exchange and as I  was a few minutes early, I took out the camera to take some photos of the St. Paul's Cathedral. It is an imposing building.

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was working at Goldman Sachs, which had a building right in front of St. Paul's and at that time, I used to walk over to the grounds of St. Paul's and have my lunch there. But of course, at that time, I did not have a handy camera. But now I do and here are some of the pictures taken in haste.

the pillars on the front of the cathedral with quite intricate carving

 

this was an iron fence which presumably protects the corner of the building from getting knocked and damaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is a view of the northern side of the cathedral looking due east. The cathedral has a strong Greco-roman feel with those columns and crenellations.

 

Looking back up west and if you keep on going up, you will hit Fleet Street.

 

There seems to be some restoration going on as well, its Albion Stone, a very nice buttery cream coloured limestone. Can you imagine trying to restore stone to what it was like before? And St. Paul's restoration is a long term project. Mind you, this particular building is the fourth to occupy this site and this latest one was created around 1700's. Designed by that great man, Christopher Wren. See some pictures of the restoration here.  

The fence is made up of some serious ironmongery, the casting of these fences should have taken up serious amounts of money, time and skill.

 

This is the statue of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.  He looked far too stern for my liking, reminded me of one of the teachers I had in my Jesuit school, but you can see the man who is perhaps responsible for one of the greatest flowerings of evangelical Christianity in modern ages.

   

The base of the pillar containing the statue of St. John the Baptist (I think, it wasn't clear which John...) But the raised bronze/copper? inscription was very interesting. Makes you wonder about your own mortality. One erects these monuments to the dead and 100 years later, a man will be standing in front of it and wondering who or what Anne Richards was. It says, "IN MEMORY OF ANNE RICHARD BVRIED IN THIS CHVRCHYARD OF HER SON FREDRICK RICHARDS FOR MANY YEARS RESIDENT IN WAITING STREET AND OF HER GRANDSON FREDRICK FIELD RICHARDS PRIEST RESIDENT FOR MANY YEARS IN ST. PAVLS CHVRCHYARD THIS CROSS WAS ERECTED BY HENRY CHARLES RICHARDS CITIZEN BAKER AND TVRNER ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S COVNSEL TREASURER OF THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF GRAY'S INN 1904 1905 AND MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR EAST FINSBURY 1895 1905 WHO SPENT THE HAPPIEST HOVRS OF A BVSY LIFE AS A FREQVENT WORSHIPPER WITHIN THE WALLS OF THIS CATHEDRAL "GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME AS A SINNER".... 1905

Notice that the U's are replaced with V's, impact of Latin perhaps? A bit verbose and perhaps I would not have written so much, but hey, who pays the piper gets to call the tune. But the craftsmanship was brilliant, very nice.

   

 

Then we have a bench which has a plaque which states, "IN PROUD MEMORY OF THE LATE LT. COL. H. N. CLARK, DSO, TD, COMMANDING OFFICER, 290 BDE RFA (T) PRESENTED BY 2/1ST CITY OF LONDON, RFA, OCA, 1914-1918. That's Royal Field Artillery for you. Here's an interesting site which tells you about the man who commanded this group of men, they were part of 1st corps, 58th London Division, and I quote: "58^th Division advancing on Lens on the right" on 11th November 1918, the day the first great war ended...

So while I was sitting there on that peaceful evening looking up at the great building, this bench was commemorating a man who led men on the battlefields of one of the most violent conflicts known to man. All quiet on the western front?

 

 

Then I trundled around back to the front of the cathedral which has an interesting series of polished stone bollards around the front. You can see up the road and walk down the stairs holding on to this massive bronze handrail, very nicely crafted as well. Although I think the stone bollards are new.

 
The porch (although it is way too big to be called as a porch) was massive with the pillars and the marble flooring. You can see the huge wooden doors on the left hand side photograph behind the photographer. Although the alcoves looked empty. It was as if they were designed to hold statues, but they did not. I was also not sure about the purpose of the pillars, so close to the main wall. Are they really load bearing or just for show?

 

   

The wooden doors were massive and the bronze rosettes were big as well, and looking at the ceiling,  it is very tightly sculpted in that Albion stone. Lovely warm stone, but apparently it gets dirty very quickly...

As before, for the full slide show (and some more photographs) in much bigger resolution, please click here or click on the thumbnail to go to a bigger resolution picture.

Technorati Tags: London,Photo Essay

Photo Essay: London Evening Gloomy Skyline

I was at a drinks session on the conservatory on the side of a building in London and the views were rather curious (and well, I was too early..... So took some pictures!) (click on the hyperlinks to get a bigger resolution of the picture)

The perspective lines of the street, the tops of the buildings which all meet at the end of the street which is capped by the church. On the other hand, if you look at the reflection of the lights on the glass itself, they point to the distant cluster of buildings which comprise of Canary Wharf. Between God and Mammon, eh?

then you have the gherkin but also an interesting similar shaped lamp on the terrace of the conservatory on the right hand side separated by a blocky black vaguely scary building.

This is the top of a funny building, it somehow resembles the prow of a ship on the dockside with cranes on top but also reminded me of a glass and steel rectangular cake getting ready to be cut with giant knives in the shape of the cranes.

Can you see the tiny speck in the sky? It is a plane and the perspective made it look like it took off from Tower 42 building on the right and is flying to the Gherkin on the left.

And now the final picture is a dark picture of London. Given the current economic and jobs doom and gloom surrounding the city, perspective lines all over the place, dim lighting, seems like a good pictorial metaphor.

Technorati Tags: London,Photo Essay

The Streets of Kolkata

A beautiful photo essay of the streets of Kolkata.

London Picture

Found a strange structure just behind Covent Garden Theatre place. Strange, eh? Looks like some kind of a passageway

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Harrow on the Hill Tube Station

Do not enter!!!

but 1 meter away, look left:

Look right:

 

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A trolley full of nuts

I sneak out from Liverpool Street Station from the back entrance which is also the taxi entrance. This is to avoid the assorted fag smokers, the newspaper sales people, the pamphleteers, the lot. But saw this trolley.

Take a closer look, its full of nuts!

Mildly amusing! :)

Technorati Tags: London,Photo Essay,Humour

Photo Essay: The magical collection of Ganesh

Ganesh is one of my favourite Gods, for many reasons, such as his knowledge, his writing ability (he should be the God of bloggers). But this essay is not about him per se, but about the collection of statues which my mother has put together. There are more than 200 statues of various types, but in the interests of time and not to be boring the pants off of people, I have selected the top 100 which I liked. Those are in the full slide show (link at the bottom), and then I have further selected some which "spoke" to me.

Ma got them from all over the country and some she sculpted herself. What amazed me was the sheer diversity of how people see Ganesh and then represent his divinity using clay or any other materials.

   

On the left is Bal Ganesh, baby Ganesh, crawling on the floor. It is a tiny statue, hardly 2 inches tall and 3 inches wide. Very cute statue from the Bastar District in India.  On the right is a statue showing Ganesh playing the cymbals.

 

On the left is a statue of Ganesh from Calcutta wearing a dhoti, proper Bhadralok, a typical Bengali gentleman. In the middle, Ma made this out of twine and beads and on the right, Ma made this out of stones, pebbles and glue.
 
On the left, is a statue carved out of a Bamboo plant, very nice carving. The one in the middle is made out of gram flour. Can you imagine? It's Bengali again. And the one on the right is a modern art Ganesh, made out of polished marble.
 
A tribal Ganesh is on the left, made out of brass. Ma picked this up during one of her trips out into the jungles of Madhya Pradesh, while she was researching for one of her books. And then you have a rather startled looking colourful Ganesh in the middle. I am not surprised, I would be startled as well if I was painted in those colours! Then you have a rather corpulent fired clay Ganesh on the right. Again tribal (Originally from Orissa). 

The orangish translucent Ganesh on the left is made of some kind of plastic material, it was gifted to Ma. On the right, you can see a Ganesh perched on the dashboard of a car. He is obviously there as driving on Indian roads requires divine assistance and protection. But what is worrying is that he is facing the driver and not the road!
   

The statue on the left bears a striking resemblance to Dumbo (or perhaps a gremlin?) but frankly, it is one of the few statues with an anatomical verisimilitude about the size of the ears. Most don't even have ears or if they do, they are more like afterthoughts, like the lacquer statue in the middle. And the statue on the right is made out of some kind of amazing stone. It almost glows from the inside and has tiny pinpricks of light. I was reminded of the sentence from 2010, OMG, it is full of stars when I took the photo of the tiny statue on my jeans clad thigh. 
 
Three transparent and translucent statues, all made out of glass, two clear and one blue. The one on the right is a masterpiece, it is obviously not blown but they have made parts and then stuck them together to make up this statue. Can you imagine the workmanship and the amazing attention to detail?

On the left is a Sandalwood Ganesh from Mysore, in the middle is a Ganesh from Bihar made out of a strange kind of very light stone, while the Ganesh on the right is made up of tile pieces which Ma stuck on the wall of the roof. God (Ganesh!), she does indeed have an artistic eye!

Then we have a statue of a clay Ganesh dressed up as an English Gentleman, briefcase, three piece suit, umbrella and a hat. Very cute! Then another tribal Ganesh, which Ma found while she was filming somewhere in the depths near Gwalior. Apparently the tribe which makes this keeps women away from the entire process of statue making. And another statue which she made herself out of pebbles.      
This was made out of orange wax and the wick is on top, not sure if you can make it out.

 

 

 

 

 

The left hand side is a Ganesh which Ma made out of sea shells and some string/beads. Another pebbly Ganesh in the middle, while at the right end you can see a Pushnir Ceramic Ganesh.

When people talk about worshipping statues, I smile because when you look at all these representations of Ganesh, you do not see a statue, but rather different emotions and feelings of each individual different sculptor. Every different representation shows how the Divine is seen and discloses how there just are so many viewpoints, infinite number of dimensions. He means something different to different people. If one was indeed worshipping the statue itself, then over the past thousands of years, the representation would have been reduced down to only a few common images. I see those statues and I feel the love. Perhaps that is worship indeed.

Here is the full resolution slide show. Warning!!! There are 100 images in there so only see if you have few minutes to spare! :) May Ganesh bless you.

 

Technorati Tags: Photo Essay,Hinduism