Travelogue: World Mark in New Delhi

Photography: Some Nature Pictures (Part 6)

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi 

Happy Makar Sankranti!

Photography: 'A Bird's View'

‘A Bird’s View’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | 14 January 2010

I captured this image today in Delhi with my Nokia phone camera. Apart from the light and dark shade, I liked the way this bird was sitting on the top of a tree and was able to see long distances. A stationary bird’s eye view?

Photography: ‘Sky Curtain’

‘Sky Curtain’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | December 2019

I liked the way branches of some trees were covering the sky. If sky were a room, these trees were forming a ‘curtain’ on its door. I also liked the light and shade which this was forming. Hence clicked on my cellphone camera. 

Photography: 'Crayon Clouds'

‘Crayon Clouds’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | January 2020

Last evening, clouds in the sky were appearing in an extraordinary shape. Sky looked like some white crayons have been rubbed against it. I took this picture using my Nokia phone. I do not remember seeing clouds like these anytime in the past. 

Photography: 'Leafy Sky'

‘Leafy Sky’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | January 2020

I took this picture in Delhi recently. I liked the way greenery was covering the sky. Of late I have been watchful of the sky a bit more than before. Sky looks open, accommodating, and welcoming. It is free of clutter, free of worldly problems. Sky looks like proverbial paradise. 

Story: An Unromantic End to a Sindoor Dani

After his recent house-shifting, he was opening the cartoon-boxes one-by-one. When he opened that cartoon box, he was shocked to see inside it. There was a saffron color powder wrapping every object inside the box. He sat down on the bed and remained still for a while. Old memories came alive to him.

During their wedding, his wife had got a big colorful wooden ‘Sindoor Dani’ – a box to keep Sindoor. Sindoor is supposed to be a symbol of marriage for every Indian woman. Women display it on the parting of their hair as a sign of marriage as well as a gesture respecting their husbands. After their wedding, his wife had frequent quarrels with him. And when she went away for higher studies, she left her Sindoor-dani at home. It kept lying at the bottom most row of her almirah. And when she was back, she kept it inside the under-bed storage. There, it kept lying along with other miscellaneous useless items. For many years, the Sindoor-dani kept lying there – one among the other ‘useless items’. He had noticed it from the beginning; and had felt a bit of disappointment at its lack of care. But that was it. In front of bigger problems, smaller problems are never addressed.

Every time he got transferred and moved houses, the Sindoor-dani was shifted from one storage to another, but always with other useless items. This time however, it seemed that the Sindoor-dani had given up all hopes. It decided to implode.

On the way to the new house, the Sindoor-dani had got opened and whole of its Sindoor came out, rubbing each of the miscellaneous items it was clubbed with in the box.

He took some of the other items to the bathroom and washed those under the tap. The cover of Sindoor melted and started moving to the sink. He watched its traces disappear into the sink. Later when the objects dried up, they still had traces of orange Sindoor over those. The Sindoor did not get totally washed off. It clung to whatever object embraced it, even if unknowingly.

In the end, the Sindoor-dani was totally empty. And traces of Sindoor still clung to each of the other useless object which travelled with it in the cartoon-box.

He wondered how wise his ancestors were to have created such a miracle of ‘symbolism’. As Sindoor was a symbol of matrimony, the neglected and useless ever-wandering status of his wife’s Sindoor-dani was just an apt symbol of what was going on in his matrimonial life. He saluted the tradition and started unpacking other boxes.

- Rahul Tiwary

Pictures: Old Button Art :)

Took out buttons before retiring old shirt and created random art: 

- Rahul Tiwary 

Society: A Walk to Remember

Recently there was lot of ‘unrest’ created by opposition parties and Leftist students in Delhi. They were protesting against a series of scattered issues: some college hostel fee hike, against a recent act related to giving citizenship to migrants, against police action against protesters and also against police inaction in some cases. If you switched on your TV and checked any news channel, it would be presenting a scene of havoc. Same stuff, day in and day out. On one such days, on an evening walk, I came across a family of laborers.

The family seemed to be returning to their home after a day’s work. The man was walking on the footpath. His son, younger and having more energy was walking in front of him. His wife was walking on the main road on their left, maintaining slight distance from these two. Was she not related to them? I thought she was from the same family, because it is common for laborer families to go at work together. Kids play along side the construction site or road repairing work site and during lunch break, they all eat together. In winter, if someone lights a fire on the roadside, they would all warm themselves together. If son would fell playing on the bricks and hurt himself, mother would come and make him okay. This way, entire family sticks together and takes care of each other. Leaving behind kids is never a safe option in big cities. In villages, it is a different story.

The family was walking in a straight line. I knew that the footpath where the father and son were walking, was never used by the locals. The only times it is used when someone brings one’s pet dog for a walk and the pet dog wants to do something there. Otherwise local people walk on the service lane (seen on the right hand side lane in above picture). But this family did not bother. They just walked. No stopping by for the kid, to check on some trees or animals. No talk among themselves. They walked as if they were machines or some moving sculptures. It should be normal for people like them who lived a hard life.

Looking at their ‘detached’ behavior, I clicked their picture using my cellphone camera. And I wondered what these people would think about fee hike in some college, about some changed law, about some migrants being able to come to this country. Would they care? Most probably not. May be if talked with in private they would speak. But their ‘walk’ was simply trying to erase any other thought in my mind. Their walk was a force of nature. It was as if branches on the trees moved with a wind. As waves come and go in the sea. As birds leave their nests in the morning and come back in the evening. Nothing can explain it other than a “force of nature”.

Then why are we so attached with all the political debates and protests? Why have our TV News channels gone mad? Why can’t we find peace with this world, as it is, like this family had found peace with whatever came in their way? Society can learn tolerance and the spirit of ‘walking’ from people forming it. All good things need not come from a silver screen.

With these thoughts forming in my mind, the family which was walking much faster, looked distant and smaller as they kept going…

- Rahul Tiwary 

Travelogue: Public Park in Dwarka (New Delhi) (Part-2)

You can check previous related post here.

- Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi 

Philosophy: Finding Faults in Ourselves

First of all, I wish you a very happy and peaceful new year 2020!  

May the new year be a sunrise and bring happiness and positivity to you. 

In T. S. Eliot’s play, ‘The Cocktail Party’, there is an interesting episode. One of the characters in this play was not having a good time. She speaks to a psychiatrist about her unhappiness. And she mentions that she hopes that somehow all her suffering is her own fault! The psychiatrist asks her why she thinks so.  She explains that if her suffering is her own fault, she might be able to do something about it. But if it is God’s fault then she is doomed!

This interesting incident looks profound and can make us look at our own ways of dealing with unfavorable conditions. Sometimes if things go against our wish, we have the tendency to blame others and consider ourselves as a “pure victim”. While in many cases we may actually be a victim, but we could still find ways to find “faults” in ourselves using which we could correct our own behavior next time.

The easiest example that comes to my mind is the instances or news of crime. A few days back while a husband and wife were crossing the road around midnight, they were hit by an unidentified car and the husband died. Was traveling so late in the night really necessary? Could they have returned earlier; since darkness increases the chance of accidents? Earlier there was a case of crime against a woman where the lady’s scooter got flat tires and she trusted two unknown men and went with them for a long distance in an unknown locality. Could she not have chosen to make a safer decision and not to trust random men? In another incident, a young couple met with a brutal crime because at 11 in the night they took “lift” from a private bus. Why could not have they made a wiser decision? In matters of crime, of course the crime happens due to criminals, but still many times the people at the receiving end make unsafe decisions which lead them into becoming easy prey of the criminals.

In other matters too, if a situation is bad, we could still try to find faults i.e. improvement areas within us and do self-correction; rather than putting entire blame on the other person or party. If we think on these lines, there are endless opportunities in which we can improve ourselves.

Therefore, we can say that our tendency to put the entire blame on others bars us from using the unwanted incidents as growth and learning opportunities. Because of our tendency to consider ourselves 100% blameless and innocent, we lose a lot of opportunities where we could have done some positive improvements in ourselves.

- Rahul Tiwary 

Business: Successful Patanjali FMCG Products (Part-3)

Patanjali Mixed Fruit Jam

Patanjali Tomato Ketchup 

Patanjali Sona Masoori Rice

Patanjali Kali Mirch Papad 

Patanjali Poha, Dalia, Pulses, and Cow Milk 

Earlier Related Posts:

Part-1

Part-2