Tag: Nature
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Giant boulders galore
Giant boulders galore “Better on top than underneath,” the little bird must have thought as it alighted on this enormous chunk of granite. This must be Hampi, yes indeed. It is not only the ancient monuments of the historic capital of the Vijayanagara Empire that enchant us; the boulder-strewn landscape in which they are scattered…
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Skeleton at sunrise
Skeleton at sunrise In last week’s post I showed you this dilapidated house from the other side. A very different picture giving a very different impression. This is the same house – and tree – lit up by the early rays of the sun. And this is the sun as it had just risen above…
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After the blaze
After the blaze A house almost burnt down, the fire still flaring up. That’s what it looked like but in fact it was a dilapidated house of which only frame and roof were still standing, while behind it the sun had just come up above the horizon. Fire was there, but far away, … some…
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Wintry welcome
Wintry welcome This lonely hiker is not as lonely as it looks because I was there to take his picture. He is my friend, reaching the frozen chalet just a little after me. When I saw him appearing in the distance it struck my eye how his tiny figure enhanced the icy desolation of the…
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Snowbound
Snowbound This is the fate of small villages lying isolated at higher altitudes in the mountains away from roads and passes that are kept open in winter. They’re deserted during this time of the year and inhabited only in summer. But as we can see here quite surprisingly, the hiker on skis or rackets who…
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Tomorrow is another day
Tomorrow is another day On this last day of the year I offer you a sunset over the Arabian Sea, seen from a beach in Goa. Stars are hanging low, ready to light up. Tomorrow is another day. Happy 2018! Photo of the week: Sunset at Dona Paula, Goa, India 2016
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The best of youth
The best of youth I came upon them down in the valley. They interrupted their play for a moment to gather round me for a photo. Their looks are open, positive, curious, without a trace of suspicion. A confluence of barely restrained joy of life. Life at its best. Life as it will not go…
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Multiple trunk tree
Multiple trunk tree The aerial roots of the banyan tree hang down and when they grow long enough will touch the ground. On that spot itself they may take root in the soil and so continue growing as a semi-independent tree. That’s what we see here, around this banyan in Lucknow. This process can go…
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Ficus benghalensis
Ficus benghalensis Why is the Indian fig tree, with its distinctive hanging aerial roots, called a banyan? It’s an interesting story, which has nothing to do with its sacred nature. ‘Banya’ appears to be the Gujarati word for ‘trader’. Via Portuguese and later English, the word ‘banyan’ first came to mean Hindu trader in India,…
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Blowholes in pancake rocks
Blowholes in pancake rocks The breakers dash against the rocky coast. The water breaks into a natural cave, forces its way into a narrowing tunnel, then finds, under enormous pressure, a way out to the surface through a vertical blowhole … That the sudden blasts of water up in the air appear amidst a landscape…
