Haiku Yellow

Behind the fence, blooms
a beauty in yellow, quite
under the lime tree. 

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Haiku Fence

 

Yellow flowers grin, 
the barrier in chain fence 
couldn’t stop its outgrowth.

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Fence across the street

Here are some random shots on the fence, flowers and pots on the house with a garden across the street. I face the garden/house daily that partially blocked by the roadside trees of Indian tulip and rain tree. Our street always looks greenish by the thriving trees planted by NGOs and residents of the street on different times. The houses opposite to us have plenty of spaces around their house and have many trees already and those were the only sight holds me outside the home in these days of lockdown.

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A2B Park at Mamallapuram

Early this month I took a ride on ECR (east coast road) just to pass some time and travel but later nearing Mamallapuram, my parents instantly planned to visit one of my uncles who wasn’t well there. To those unknown, Mamallapuram is my grandfather’s hometown and many our relatives lives there and it is a 7^th century sculptural town renowned for its stone carvings from many single rocks or monolithic. But I’m not here now to describe the town or its popularity or UNESCO status instead want to share some pictures of a small park at the entrance of the town belong to A2B, a popular restaurant chain.

We stopped at A2B to buy some sweets and snacks as we visit our uncle there, I liked their simple park with walk paths, green lawns and many palms to make it look so green and beautiful with bordering flowering shrubs. Dropping parents at uncle’s house we moved into the town for some glimpses and caught at traffic, since it was Sunday the places were all thronged by tourist. We quickly exit at the other end and turned back to uncle’s house.

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Cutting off some Green

On Tuesday morning, as I saw the mango tree in the house opposite to ours was pruning, I instantly took a snap on the tree before it lose some green limbs. Seems the tree has overgrown or got dense to block their ventilation or lighting, and I see it as a regular activity on the tree to sustain its shape and size with northeast monsoon expected to begin next week, the rain would  help the tree thrive much better to reproduce mangoes in summer. Our street has many trees either grown on roadside or inside the residential houses, alike the one in image gives wonderful look and shadows on the street. My cousin has planted couple of trees along the compound of houses opposite of our house and it has thrived greatly which I could share at another post. Picture here was shot through my balcony fence or rail.

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Renovation of House

We are left with just two weeks to move back to our native house, that we left 12 years ago, and as I told in a previous post, the renovation work of the house (mostly for the comfort of mine) is happening at full throttle and the next two week would be more tighten with re-flooring, repainting and furnishing of doors and windows and installing of hydraulic lift and railing of balcony. The rework on walls which means of breaking and building new walls at some places took last few weeks, though work wasn’t that large the civil workers dragged the job and we were disappointed at their service. Even the plumbing and electrical works, taking place right now taking heavy sum with little work and they were irritating all the days, annoys dad and brother who taking care of all. 

In last 15 years we haven’t did any construction or civil work for the home, as we moved only buying an apartment flat and later shifted to rented houses, we are out of touch with the activities and familiar people who worked for us. Now we have to deal with all new people for each and every work and the local workers were a kind of lazy and frustrating fellows, so we’re sought-after other state people who come and stay over here for the civil work. Couple of north Indians stayed at the work site for a week and looked after the job but they too dragged the work at last when there wasn’t much to do. Actually we aren’t intended to change the entire house inside but things went out of control and as we hit a part of the house many things come to fall into restoration and it looks as if we are quite  reworking on interior.

You could see the first floor portion we’re working on in the picture above and we’re changing the entire face of the house and the balcony jali or latticework was broken down to give way for the wheelchair and lift, and a new stainless steel rail is come up protecting the balcony and the window and door is also widen to let more light and wind enter the home. I would say don’t live in a house that has no windows and I’m someone who believes life begins only outside the window, so it was my wish to come up with big windows and a door to get in and out easily. And that’s all for now and I will post photos of the renovated house once work is finished. 

Mangoes ?

During a drive on ECR (east coast road) we come across some farm houses and found this tree thrive with fruits inside a fenced house. I actually thought the fruits were mangoes and this was shot last summer, so due to the season I was thinking it was mangoes until showing it to my grandma today to make sure but she told it wasn’t mangoes. The fruits were hanging a lot from the tree and what u sees is just a branch of fruits hang close to the hand and can be plucked even sitting from the SUV, but we didn’t do that to get unnecessary scolding from the security.

Do anyone know the name of this fruit species?

We also come across this (pic below) simple wooden gate, leading to an abandoned or uncared farmhouse or land, worn out its white paint.

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Gates and Fences

During an off-roading to Adukkam on the eastern slope of Kodaikanal hills, we find some beautiful private guest houses around the coffee and orange plantations which are nicely fenced and gated to look out for. This is one simple gate and chain linked fence along the house that overlooks a valley.

Many traditional houses in Kodaikanl have a upper floor to dry coffee seeds and store things

Below is another beautiful house I simply like to own and it has elegantly designed gate and my favourite kind of driveway along with garden. Last month during my visit to Kodaikanal, I find some roadwork is going on the stretch and soon the road will be suitable to drive by cars. So far only SUV/MPS were able to venture this road that doesn’t play buses. The road through Adukkam village is the first motorized road to Kodiakanal, which has been abandoned so far after couple of better roads laid to the mountains.

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Yellow Gate

Captured the gate during a detour around Vellore and the yellow gate, radiate through sunlight, caught my attention at glance, as I shot (using iphone) from moving car. The  gate lookalike belong to a residential or farm house since the road we took take us through hills and villages, flourished by farm lands.

The bush of orange flowers bloomed beside the gate is an additional attraction to the scene, enriched by coconut palms and banana trees proves the wealth of fertile soil, and being a hilly terrain is pulse to the environment.

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Pongal Pot Light

During the Pongal festival I was thinking to do something different and got the idea of putting led lights on an old Pongal pot. It was the same serial light I used on the Christmas tree, and I put the rice led around the pot and cut pasted cello tapes here and there to keep the wire on place. For the overflowing part of the pot, I blocked the mouth of the pot with a bunch of white paper and stick lights around it.

First I placed it on the windowsill outside the home and then shifted it to the brick stove, that we used to make Pongal in morning with firewood at the courtyard. And it looked really good lighting from the shutdown brick stove and we left it that way for the four days of Pongal festival and people passing by the road too would have got a glimpse.

Linking this post for  Good Fences by Gosia... and you could see our sitout fence/rai in picture above

Cute Chamraj Tea factory outlet

click pic for enlarge

On the outskirt of Ooty and on way to Manjoor, nestled this cute little tea outlet overlooking the Chamraj Tea factory and beautiful tea garden of same at a pretty much curve. I really loved this outlet for its cute setting around the corner of a winding ghat, with pretty neat lawn and beautiful benches to sit back and relax for a while sipping their variety of teas and enjoying the cool green ambiance. As we were heading to Upper Bhavani, I couldn’t get down or spent some time at the outlet, just had some tea and moved on as it was already noon. My camera wasn’t working then, since it fell down the night before that day, I took these photos from my brother’s Xiaomi mobile.

Chamraj Tea is promoted as one of the finest tea growing from the high range of mountains in India. The outlet sells variety of tea products from regular to organic to flavoured from their own production house. Korakundah, I guess is also the group of Chamraj which supports organic tea from the highest tea gardens. They also have a Tea Centre in Ooty town, where we bought some tea packets before we leave down.  The outlet was fenced neatly and on the road side poles linked by chain was pretty rounded about.

  I also find the big cup and saucer inside the shop was attentive. 

Some bikers taking selfie at the tea center while on their joy rides :) Pic clicked before we move

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Fence and Flowers – Pinto Premium White to Rose

During my visit to Kodaikanal, staying from uncle’s woodhouse in Thandikudi, in July, I come across some fence and pretty flowers around the star shaped Kodaikanal Lake. Spending time on the Kodai lake/road in evenings have been my favourite pastime whenever I was in Kodai, and sipping hot tea/coffee from the roadside shop while embracing the cold mountain weather produce a soothe feeling. There’s something always to watch out being around the lake, either people pedalling boats or riding horses or cycling around the lake and reflection of trees, colourful shops and fences and gates of houses around the lake road. And here’s a fence around a corner of the lake road, with pretty flowers bloomed from inside. My Google search revealed the bunch of pink flowers bloomed inside the fence was Pinto Premium White to Rose Geranium.

Pinto Premium White to Rose offers a unique coloration of giant 5-inch flower heads, with petals start out white turn deepen to rose-pink as flowers mature gives an pretty bicolour effect. The plants sport deep green leaves with darker zones that contrast beautifully with the light colored flowers.

Pinto Premium is a great choice for carefree, colourful summer garden beds or patio containers, bloom from the end of April until October. It prefers full to partial sun and regular deadheading for best appearance and flower production. 

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Red Letter Box

The red letter box is one of my favourite things from childhood. Many a time I wish to have one to hang on our house gate, but it never happened. Our current house had a letter box and it broke down last year, though it isn’t a red letter box.

I find the above red letter box from the side gates of the KFC restaurant in Kottivakkam, when we parked aside, I shot the image meanwhile dad went to buy chicken popcorn for me. You could also see a dog behind, and I found it friendly as it moves around undisturbed the employees coming out and in, which perhaps could be a kitchen.  

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Neighbourhood Fences

During an evening walk at neighbourhood last week I shot on few fences and gates using my iPhone Se. Usually I don’t take my phone while going for walk and this time purposely took the iPhone to test the camera and I could manage taking photos from single hand and the picture outcome is better than my previous mobile at this position.

The fence belong to a newly build house and I really liked their simple and neat design protecting their garden plants. Following the fence I stopped to take shot of a simple wooden  gate and gateway décor of a house next to it. 

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Delete a Photo

One of the difficult things for me was to delete a photo. Taking photos isn’t pretty easy for me but the passion keeps me engaged and clicking while traveling in car is really difficult though I try my best taking clear photos, many go out of focus or shaken when in move. I know this is a normal thing to happen with normal people, but what matter was deleting those taken with great effort. I used to take many photos during my travel and back at home I had to filter/delete many photos that weren’t good to maintain space in laptop.

During the travel we capture many interesting places, moments and sight, but not everything comes under well focused and deleting it for some interruption is really difficult.  By this way I hold lot of photos and some were quite blur that no one could identify except myself who experienced the shoot and the picture continue to be a reminder of the moment or significant of the place or subject. We take random shots on things to be deleted, later keeping the good ones but the thing was coming to the term of deleting we continue to like the image for some reason.

Few such photos are here where I have no mind to delete. First one was cropped from a picture and i was impressed by the scene but it was gloomy and bit more grainy, so I applied oil paint. Second was doped in same, where the focus went wrong, instead on capturing the pretty colourful temple I only got blur as the focus went on steering. Not to forget it was drizzling outside. 

I ever over edit my photos or want to showcase what is not there and I believe editing of any photo works only if there’s something in the picture. I’m using Photoshop from very long time and my editing of photos always remain mild with brightness contrast, exposure, sharpening and reduce noise but these help hand only to a level. I just want to show how it really looked rather adding extra effects. Now I started to experiment with photos that went wrong and its really interesting to play with various filters which I don’t use mostly. 

Blue Gate

No, this wasn’t shot at Greece… but at our graceful ECR! The pretty blue gate belong to a beach house off east coast road (ECR) in Chennai, and if you take a closer look at the picture (click for enlargement) could see the blue sea between the gates which blocked by the pillar. The twisting of tree with green leaves, beside the gate, leans prettiness to blue and white combo.

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Gates alike and a pretty house

I’m always passionate about nature but lately I also grow interest on architecture, sculptures and anything that comes out in art form. Nowadays, wherever I go I look around for interesting buildings, structures and fences and gates includes the watch out. In recent time I happen to shoot many various aspects of buildings. Thanks to Instagram, a platform I am more active now and the instant and easy uploading and editing option inspire me to post many photos relevant to same.

Today I share a couple of gates with few similarities. First, both the gates here have a similar design and one (pic above) was painted white and the other in Ivory coat made difference by shades. Second, the gates were belonging to the restaurants and cafés, named Star and Embrace.

Star is a newly opened mini restaurant come ice cream centre on the road to Palavakkam beach off ECR. And Embrace comes on the ECR (east coast road) close to Delhi Dhaba and both were café alike restaurants and nothing to say more. Additional to the gates I like to include a house which I found very pretty on the road leading to the Palavakkam beach.

Actually it was the colors that attracted me but at close I also enjoy the modern architecture of the house and the colors differentiating the different aspects of the house. 

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Rubber Plantation @ Kanyakumari

During a visit to Kanyakumari and while coming back from Pechiparai Dam, we stopped by a rubber plantation with the road passes between the estate. It was the first time I got to see rubber trees and each tree was tied by a coconut shell along the trunk and the top layer has been removed for the rubber milk to flow into shell. The milk is collected later and processed to form rubber sheets which left to dry for few days before transported to various purposes and use.   

Kanyakumari is the only district in Tamil Nadu where rubber is produced and among the available of 19233 hectares of rubber plantation, 24020 tonnes of rubber is produced annually. Though Kerala is the leading rubber producer in India, Tamil Nadu contributes 3% of the total natural rubber production in India, which is no.4 among the top ten rubber producing counties.

Neatly fenced rubber estate and the road leads beautiful amid trees

The geographical location of Kanyakumari helps doing excel in rubber industry, with adequate and well distributed rainfall in the Western Ghats. In the southern region, Tamil Nadu is the second major producers of natural rubber and the rubber goods are manufactured both in the organised and small-scale sectors.  And the manufacturing is mostly like tyres, tubes, belts, balls, washers and rubber sheets. 

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Amusement park’s gate and gateway

The yellow gate and the wall is a cropped version of the photo I shot on the façade of the first amusement park of Chennai, VGP Golden Beach and Universal Kingdom. There you could see someone taking photo on the gate or selfie, but I don’t have logic for him to take selfie with road behind him from where I shot this, from the slowly moving car.

Past the main entrance I got to shoot a blue gateway, belong to the same amusement park with parking lot inside. I had no idea about the gateway until Google down to know it’s a gateway to the Snow Kingdom, a part of the Universal kingdom, a family amusement park. Actually I decided to shoot this gateway for its beautiful architecture and coated in blue and white. The fence along also has a nice wave design.

Apt to the name of the amusement park (Universal Kingdom) the entrance has a wonderful look of a realm which I will post on some other time. 

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A pretty house in neighbourhood

Like I said in my previous post, I went for a long walking at the neighbourhood on Sunday evening and clicked some photos on the way.  And the house in the images wasn’t far from our home and I have passed this house much time but it haven't captured my attention alike now.

The house looked pretty new, perhaps it was freshly coated, but actually it was the blooming tree in front of the house wants me to capture. I liked the architecture of the house with open balcony and rails around, and a hanging rail making way for vines to climb over. The most attentive was of course the red brick wall and a wooden gate painted in grey.

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