Photos: My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

erakkil — Mon, 7 Nov 2011 18:04:00 GMT

A few weeks back ,I made that choice to take a small break from work and travel around. I intentionally kept back from clicking everything on the way and each day when I reached a place to unwind, I'd take out my camera to capture what I observe, what I perceive to be a window into what others possibly don’t see. My submissions are from that trip. I'd like to call it, 'Under the blue sky'. The captions will give a context to what I perceive. My passion for photography comes with a fascination for freezing time and motion to show what others might have missed seeing at the same place. Photography will continue to be a medium to capture my intuitive observations of the surroundings and by sharing my creations and what fascinates me I hope to contribute to the ever-growing online community and supporters an opportunity to see more, do more and be more with respect to their creative spirit. For someone who has learnt to take on life in the stride, I've had some exciting experiences -an engineering graduate quitting a day job to be a teacher in a primary school and now mentoring and coaching teachers to be excellent instructional leaders. These have been intrinsically rewarding, purposeful choices but in the pretext of balancing practicality and passions, I've had to give less time for some. My experiences so far, especially as a teacher has been a test of self-discipline and self-reliability and realization that grit more than talent will push me form 'good enough' to great, whatever I choose to do that am passionate about. My emotional and mental response to learning situations has come form my accountability over these choices I've made and has kept my learning curve steep. An opportunity like this will not only push my skills and resourcefulness as a photographer but will also be a continued test of grit as a person.

the pointless adventure(of sorts): day 01 - part 1

erakkil — Wed, 2 Nov 2011 21:07:00 GMT

What all did I envision the journey to be - what all did I describe the journey as: A 1000 miles in 500 bucks - 4 days-4 sunsets - Hitchhike my way Home- 1545 km on road! Well for all of you heard bits & pieces and did not get a answer to 'Why?' or 'Wow'to the idea - No, am not giving answers or making an attempt at travel writing. Just finding the time to keep my sanity in check through this trip and see if there is a point to it!

25 October 2011 - the first 12 hours: 00:04 hrs - One last email and then Vacation Message 'ON' on the official email id. One last ditch attempt to activate internet settings on the mobile! One last look into the mirror - Are you sure? 00:20 hrs - The ruck-sack is stuffed in - a road-map, journal, sketch-book, spare clothes, mini-laptop, camera, mouth-wash, de-hydrant and deodrant! My flat-mates have gone to sleep and I don't remeber where I put in the house keys, incase I walk down the empty lane 7 past mid-night and decide to come back - didn't want to disturb them! 00:44 hrs - I finally step out and very well knowing am missing the 01:10 train even if am to run to the station! And the 20 minute walk down lane 7 with the dogs and North Main Road seeemed longer. After some chit-chat with the rickshaw-walas, walked on trying to hitch a ride form motor-cyclists! One good soul, Suhail dropped me till the Pune Station at 01:15. Missed the train - the only 'planned' part of the journey gone wrong!

04:45 hrs - Me boards the train that would get me to where I planned to start hitching rides - Kolhapur! The general compartment of the previous trains as i watched form the platforms were a scary sight! The Diwlai rush and probably the entire migrant population working in Pune making a rush to the train even as it enters the platform. Surprisingly, got a seat on my train. Families, kids, the grumpy old man, the 'i will yell into my phone' uncle and the 'i will play noisy songs for all of you' youngster - the regular crowd! Window seat.Happy!

After dozing off for a while - wake-up to the cold morning breeze as the orangy sun comes up over lush green-scapes and a few streams/rivers en-route to Satara - Kolhapur! 12:45 hrs - a longer than expected train ride extending well past noon! The 'plan' was to be at NH-4 at Kolhapur before 7:00 am! Not that I had a schedule to catch-up, but the plan was to get a lead into covering the first 500 odd kilometers of the journey before night-fall on day 01! 12 hours into the journey - not able to find the Ctrl+Z option, I keep walking!

by the wayside

Photos: My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

the pointless adventure(of sorts): day 01 - part 1