Smiley Saturdays - 3 (Faking it)

With another No-ride week in this sexy Mumbaiya Monsoon, I am actually started feeling some rust over my shoulders. No ride means no trip stories, and also no new photograph. Last month I was able to publish more than my regular quota of posts because of this new series. It not only provided me a reason to post regularly, but also to get on the streets for photographs too; feeding both of my novice hobbies.

Faking a smile is the worst thing I feel to do, but isn’t it one of the most sought after emotional mask we the poor people need. This time I’m posting an artificial smile, a smile that has been fried to get into the perfect taste (shape).

Tasty Potato-Smileys at Nichole's Cafe, RCP

I clicked this picture through the 5MP lens of Motorola Defy, and edited for brightness, contrast etc on Photoshop. Order and shot were both on my colleague Abhishek Mukherjee's suggestion.

Trekking Ghansoli Gawli Dev (Parsik) Hill

It’s been there for geological ages, we have been looking at it for last about 4years and I have been planning to trek it since a long time. Finally, few weeks back, we trekked the Ghansoli Hill.

Ghansoli Hill is located at the eastern boundary of Ghansoli town, behind our office complex at RCP. The hill or better hillock is a part of small range that separates Kalyan and Navi Mumbai towns. A search on Google Map returns with a name Parsik Hill for it, though there is one more rather famous Parsik Hill in Navi Mumbai. We also found a NewsArticle, that talks about NMMC plans to develop Nature Awareness Centre at this hills and calls it Gawli Dev Hill. Here, we would be calling it Ghansoli Hill. I asked my colleague about it and he readily agreed. The very next Sunday we did it with another friend. We weren't aware of the route. All we knew is that a Central Road runs along the western edge of the hill and can be reached through the Vashi-Mhape road. We later found that there’s a Bus…

AshtaVinayaka Yatra with Bisons

(This post has already appeared on Bisons Ride Hard website, to check out click here) Ever since I read Vinni’s post on last year’s Ride of Faith, I have been waiting for this year’s ride. The day I came to know about the Bison’s schedule, I started preparing, until I realized I don’t have leaves. Few days left to the ride, multi-reminders received and I was like, will I be able to make it? Something happened, meetings deferred, jobs got completed and I was able to ask my boss for leaves; and, who can deny you leaves that too for a Ride of Faith, Ride to AshtaVinayaka! I felt blessed that day, and now after the hard ride we had, I know I’m blessed! We are a nation of faith, which plays an immensely large role in our lives, being homely, officially or on the tar. Though Bisons have started riding hard the day they first met at BKC on a fine Sunday evening of July 23, 2011 at BKC; official announcement was made on the auspicious day of Ganesh Chautrthi, Shukla Paksha, Bhadra maas, i.e. Se…

A Day at Global Vipassana Pagoda (A Photo Story)

What I like most about the cities we live in is the places we generally not aware about. Like the case of one of its own kind Butterfly Park of Thane, which is at stone throw distance from my place and I came to knew about it a few months back only. Then there is this Pagoda – another one of its own kind – world renowned and still not known to many city dwellers. We visited this place to take pictures and let me confirm it, we were stoned by the colors and the mystical sky (check out the Photo Story at the bottom of the post)
Located at Northern most corner of the Megacity of Mumbai, across the Gorai creek, Global Vipassana Pagoda is a meditation hall built out of gratitude to the Buddha, his teaching and the community of monks practicing his teaching (Wikipedia). The Pagoda is also known for being built on the world's largest stone dome without any supporting pillars, at height of ~29 metres and external diameter 94.82-97.46 m. It is, thus, twice the size of the Gol Gumbaz Dome in…