Way(t)-A-Nad Unexplored!!

An extended weekend, made use of the Election Day leave as well and this sudden plan of going home on a tuesday evening, In the train and i have my 10 friends going to this place called Wayanad!! My mind had a 1000 questions of why not i join these guys who are looking forward to this 'exciting' trip they had been planning for a week or so!! I was of the opinion that i need to go home and all & that i'll not be joining for the trip considering that i had not been home for almost 3 months!! Had my mind pondering over these questions and then i thot, i had waited for 3 months to get home and why not another 3 days?? So i decided to join the 'TEAM' on the "Wayanad UnExplored" Trip and since i already had my stuffs ready for a trip i joined them. Got down into this Railway Station called Vadakara where 2 cars were waiting for us to hand over the keys as we had to drive to Wayanad which was almost 80kms from the nearest railway station. Went to the longest Drive Beach in South India called Muzhappilanghadu Beach and had this drive mind you at 12PM that is for your information when the Sun is right above your head.

Started the much awaited journey to the mountains of Wayanad and trust me they have some very exotic places on the way up there at the Top. Its one of the best places to be in South India.

Now Trips without Photography is not complete and for my liking we had 2 DSLR's in the form of a Nikon D3100 and a D200 and it was indeed a Photography competition, not for the best pic taken but for who would pose the best or in another words who the better models are among the group. I cannot miss talking here about the stop overs we had when we thought we wanted a break and take pictures for almost half an hour. Went to this Wild Life Sanctuary with the hope to see atleast one of the Tigers out of the 67 which the officials told us were there, we were upset for not having seen a single one but caught the claws of the Tigers who had walked down through the pathway.

Entering the kitchen was a omplete NO-NO for me and even my Mom wudnt allow me to enter and this was a very good opportunity which i got to experiment my cooking skills. As soon as we got into the Farm House (Forest House :P Seen Below) the 1st thing i did was enquire about the entire house and about the Kitchen and the localities around in getting groceries for getting something cooked.

Cooked everything what we could with the help of Egg and experimented on the various options with the help of others and had a nice time getting the kitchen dirty. We had a small Barbeque done as well much to the delight of the Non-Veggies in our group. Tried getting Paneer from the market thinking of doing a Paneer Tikka but it wasnt available in the entire district when we enquired .

Now the best part of the trip was waking up at 3.30 in the morning and going to the forests in the of getting to see Elephants in the forests, now some people might think this is a crazy idea but believe it or not we tried that. Went early in the morning to the place as suggested by the Caretaker and we couldnt see any Elephants at all and all we could see is Deers and only Deers!!

Nevertheless we enjoyed all the 3 days and will indeed remain as the best (Crazy trip in recent times)

Photography –My 1st love

Since I have posted some about Formula1 earlier I thought its high time I do something about my 1^st love Photography. I know a lot of people who loves photography, most of them tell they just love it but when asked about the photographs they have taken the only thing they have to talk about is the Birthday parties or the Trips they have gone to. In the olden days (Not very long ago) we used to have something called as “Films” or “Rolls” which on an average would have only 36 pics which can be taken in one roll, Time has indeed played its part with the improvement in the technology over the last few years and Digital cameras have taken over along with the Introduction of Camera’s with mobile phones. When you take a snap now all the receipients of the camera flash would come running to the camera asking for the picture to be shown and have a retake if one of them dint look good. I recently went through a marriage album where not a single pic where people were actually posing for the snap were seen, all thought since it being Digital you can have it deleted and then retaken. I really miss the old camera’s because of this sole reason.

My interest for Photography started at a very young age, at around the age of 6 when my dad who used to be a not so professional but knew the basics of Photography taught me how the frame has to be when a Photo is taken. Initially I never knew what the four corners of the frame which can be seen inside the see through of the normal camera was for, He taught me that the subject has to always be at the centre of the four corners and that if there were any scenery behind that has to be captured as well. I grew in an era where Digital Camera’s or Mobile camera’s were not even in the market and because of that clicking snaps became a

very rare affair. It was indeed at 12^th when I got a hand at a Digital camera that I started clicking pictures which were mostly natural Photography and was a complete No-No to any subject. Mobile photography became very common during this time and I captured all the images I could with my 1.3mp camera. Did not have a high end camera during that time that is when I started borrowing Digital cameras from friends and go about clicking anything that comes to my sight. The sole objective then for any tour/trip would only be photography and my friends were always happy with the fact that they can get some snaps of them clicked by a Professional (:P) So much of talking high about myself but seriously who wouldn’t like their snaps to be clicked, and it is the creation of God which many have failed to remember and this can be done only when you capture it in a different and attractive way. India has one of the most beautiful places on earth and one of them I was fortunate to visit was Manali in Himachal Pradesh which has got so many valleys, mountains, snow and what not. This was a one hell of an experience I had with Photography as each frame was better than the other and was confused on what to click. This was the time my lil machine the Nokia N95-8Gb arrived and then it was full on Photography as you need not have to carry your camera with you as this little machine would give a decent clarity to the images you click. So far 8000 clicks with this little one and he is still going strong. In all so far I have around 24000 files with a *.jpg file name which have been clicked by me. I need to get that to a bigger number which I am working on right now. I have however restrained myself in taking pictures of people as they tend to take advantage of me and I feel there is no point in taking their pictures, one reason being they remain as a thrash in my Laptop or a Hard disk and the posers of that pic does not bother collecting it me considering their excitement while clicking. There are lots of pics where I am not there as most of them don’t offer to click back one of mine when I have clicked theirs, this is something to be learnt from the foriegners. I happened to meet this English couple when I was in Bahrain, when they asked me to take a snap of them, after I did I was asked to stand and get a snap of myself clicked. I was surprised as this would never happen here.

I havent thought of taking Photography to the next level as I know there are lots of stuffs which needs to be learnt if you want to get there and I am happy carrying this as my Passion and Hobby!!