The Ski Season 2016...First run tomorrow.

My Ski Coach has sent some photos of my play field...The Ski Slopes of Gulmarg.

It seems the season for me will commence from tomorrow. Although the administration will not use a beater tomorrow but I think we can have a couple of runs in the powder.


Don't want to miss this as it is Gazetted holiday tomorrow...so instead of thinking about the slopes, sitting at home , why not GO and Check them..

Once their ...Why not do a couple of runs too.

Looking forward to tomorrow with a prayer...May God Dump 6 feet of snow in the night on my slopes.


Dated;- 04/01/2016.

Human Faces

Of The Story of Lines Etched on a Face.

Survival in the toughest challenges the nature throws on us, etches its history on our faces. Very vivid in these portraits. All of them are from Leh Ladhakh...a place where the winter tempratures drop down to minus 30 degrees celcius. Ladhakh is the world's only cold arid desert. A vast landscape of barren mountains which almost seem to touch the sky, Ladhakh in itself is a delight for a photographer in all the ways of photography. Every inch of the landscape is worth clicking and every face is a potential wonder portrait.

The first pic of a man with the black bacground was clicked far off in the mountains across the chagla pass just one stop prior to reaching the pangong lake. Perfectly fit, of an unknown age which i think must not be less than 70, the man cloked in a budhist cloak seemed to carry a face which could convey a large body of experience of a great fight with nature of the results of which he didnt seem to be very sure. It seemed as if he was asking himself,"Did I win it?"

The second pic that of a women with a peculiar headgear of a bunch of flowers was taken while i was having luch at khalsi, a stop over about 90 km before one reaches Leh the capital city of Ladhak area. The women seemed enamoured to glamour and the expression of her face was that of a constant wait for someone. Her eyes fixed on a far of spot on the road seemed to convey, " I will dress up daily and wait with very expectant eyes...expecting the guest any moment."

The rest of the two portraits that of a man with a wollen cap and a women with a red headscarve were clicked in Leh Bazaar. Both of them were street vegetable vendours and seemed to have mastered the habit of meditation while waiting for a customer. The wait for the customer seemed secondary and i could descern an errie sort of confidence in them, something akin to as if they are saying," I know I will manage even if no customer comes but the question of finding the eternal connection with the creator of these barren mountains is something which i need to strike in time."

Nature Photography.Canon SLR.

What catches an eye need not be the rare....

Yes, Beauty in fact is in the factuality of existence and not in the rarity of it.

I purchased a Canon 500 D SLR last year and its use has changed the way I used to look at things. Well today I feel that prior to the purchase I was not looking at all...would start on a 100km journey and on reaching the destination would be carrying the same bad mood, to get rid of which I actually had planned this journey for.

But now all this has changed. Having purchased an SLR i needed to use it to get the due for the money i had shelled out for it, so i started to take it along in my car. Suddenly I started looking for what to shoot. Gradually over a period of time I realised that their is so much worth shooting and hence worth looking at and enjoying or finding meaning from even when one is on a small 2km journey. So much to look at and enjoy in our common world around. A lot of beauty.

Actually to tell you the fact...I started to wonder about beauty itself...what is beautiful?

And then one fine sunny day i realised, in fact all existence is beautiful...the only thing required is to find that angle through which it appears beautiful. Now its become a habit.... Whatever I see I tend to reflect on the way it can be seen as beautiful...and to tell you the truth as of now i hardly find it difficult anymore.....everything appears beautiful...AND THAT TOO OF ITS OWN, EFFORTLESSLY.

The designing in the Tulip Garden.

The designing of the flower beds initiated this year in the Tulip Garden of Jammu and Kashmir has actually not added to the beauty of the Garden. In fact the tulip bloom this year was not really full blown for causes known to the gardeners only.  One prominent thing which I actually felt was that Tulips look good in straight lines only. The designing which the planners of the garden have done this year did not actually give the feel of a tulip garden at all. 

The valley view.

Recently travelled from jammu to the valley in a car. Virtigo made me stop at a place near the jawahar tunnel first view point of the valley. Well actually many a times had thought to stop over at this place but during most of my visits crossing the tunnell was a presssing issue because most of the times I would have to cross it at odd hours. Anyways today was a day and luckyly I made the spot. This is a wonderful view point and gives a view of a large area of the valley; actually the feel of the fact that Kashmir is a valley is acquired the best from this view point. I tell you one doesnt get this feel even from Affarwat because the view gets somewhat blocked their. I visited in winter but I think the best views must be those of the spring , summer and autumn; the spring would bring out a combination of gold and green as the mustard sown in the fields grows by then and gives a golden hue to the landscape, the summer would present an expanse of green with paddy field full of green sapling and the autumn would present a yellowish expanse with the paddy having grown ripe by then.

On the same day I clicked a couple of shots while the sun was setting. This was while I was travelling from khanabal to bhijbehara and the speed of the car was about 90 kms per hour. Well I liked the results hope you like them too. See below.

These are my latest shots by my camera. Well Shopian is a place where I have been posted some 9 months backs. It snowed recently, actually my first winter here. This was a busy day and I was just on usual check of the deployment ordered yesterday when I reached the main bridge of Shopian called the Rambiara Bridge and I got complelled by the muses to stop my vehicle and take this shot. The mountains are called the Pirpanchal range and the wide stream is locally called the Rambiara Nallah. Ironically 2009 could be called the year of the Rambiara nallah for all the wrong reasons but then to me this picture does compensate some of that.

Here are some more pics of the same stream;- ENJOY.  

      

Keran ;-Of Icicles and Icy Roads.

Many areas in this world still remain landlocked for the winter months. Landlocked by snow. To describe in detail,"Snow blocks up the passes to places high up in the mountains."Kashmir being embedded in the Himalayan and the Karakoram ranges; the two highest mountain ranges of the world has a number of areas which have access through high passes and these passes get blocked in the winter months by snow. Well this is not only Nature which makes these passes unpassable in the winters; a lack of development is also a factor. 

Keran is such an area which has no vehicular movement to it for 5 months of the winter; Nov. to April. The area is an agglomeration of around 25 villages having a population of about 5000 people, situated on the slopes of a valley which is connected to mainland Kashmir via the Furkian Pass. Road upto Furkian Pass remains open 12 months but on the other side of the pass the road to Keran remain under snow for almost 5 months.

Yet it is not that people don't come to mainland Kashmir in the winters. Some of them do and they come walking uphill to the Furkian Pass and hike a ride down to Kupwara. Coming to know of this when I was posted in the district Kupwara(of which Keran is a part) I almost kept the bees in my bonnette under control for a good 3 months of my first winter their but then finally the bees overcame my calming infulence and when their was a proper pretext I made this trek.

It was a grand show of Icicles and Icy Roads. Enjoy below what my camera with its failing batteries( due to the cold) could hold on in its memory;-

This is a freezing show.

Every stream show the same roof hangings.

The frozen roads.

Walking on this is not possible.

Even waterfalls freeze.

Water in gushing streams freezes.

The stream was a show all along.

The stream really held me to it.