Black and White

My experiments with black and white setting on my camera. I like the last one.

Peace,
Shaki

Ma ma foo foo (Same old, same old)

It's a new old city. I have stayed here for a major chunk of my life. I returned after more than 10 years to settle down. I continue to be mesmerized by the old building, the trees around. The weather takes me down in time to the safe spaces I grew up in. It reminds me of restless evenings, comfortable afternoons and exciting mornings. It's the only thing I relate to in this city now. The weather. Everything else is just there. It doesn't evoke the same feeling. But I want to explore. I want to make this city mine again.
I haven't been good at keeping in touch with people I care for and when I look at the horizon I wish I had. There are people I have cared for who are in this same old city and yet.

The city is the same but the circumstances have changed.

Peace
Shaki

Rimjhim

Rains in Calcutta continue to enchant me.

Peace,
Shaki

Rose Rose Khao :)

So, as unhealthy as it sounds we do eat out once a week even if it means getting chowmein from the roadside stall! It's our way of celebrating either the end of a week or the end of a very tiring day.
Recently, we were on our way around town trying to figure out whether we really wanted a new TV, and a LED at that. After tiring walks in the mall and listening to endless features of different LEDs, we decided to eat at a small but quite famous place in our neighbourhood.
Rose is a relatively big small place. The entrance is big and the place where we sat, the seating was along a long corridor. The host was quite courteous. He knew the menu but just could help us too much in ordering. But that doesn't usually bother us.
We decided to have chinese food. Yes, that's one of our favourites :) . They had a special Three Mix Noodles which seemed very interesting and so we decided to go with it. We ordered for the Chilly Chicken and a Schezuan Chicken to go with the noodles. The service was okay. We got hot food on our table in a reasonable time, you know, when you have enough time to discuss the day and be ready to eat your way through dinner. Unless you had Hugh Jackman with you in the morning, in which case you wouldn't want to eat anyways. The food was good. The Mix Noodles was a combination of Hakka Noodles, Garlic Noodles and Schezuan Noodles. Yumm! I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Schezuan Chiken was more hot than the Chilly Chicken, something which I hadn't expected. The chilly chicken was good too. I think you should have Schezuan Chicken only if you want to eat really really hot chicken. We don't usually have starters or dessert unless we go to a place which is really known for it. We did have sandesh from the sweet shop under our building to douse the fire in our mouths and bellies. The evening was nice. I enjoyed my meal. Took snaps before my family could dig in, after which there wouldn't be much to photograph anyways :)
Here's our dinner.

Peace,
Shaki

Khao khao

This is what we ate last Sunday. Mutton Kosha in the right and Mutton Keema in the left with some roties. This is a small little hole-in-the-wall called Rupa in Calcutta. It serves Mughlai dishes. Their menu consists of about just 7 or 8 dishes. There are hardly 10 chairs inside this restaurant. It's mostly a take-away place. Since it's Ramaddan now, a lot of the mughlai restaurants serve amazing food and it gets sold out pretty quickly. We faced the same issue. There were only 2 dishes available from their menu.  The Mutton Kosha was good and the Keema was super spicy. However they serve it with a salty lemony chutney which you can have at the end of the meal and all the spiciness just goes away! The chapatties/roties are just that. No oil or anything which is good because the mutton dishes had enough to make up for it. An okay experience in all. It would have been better if the Keema was not so chilly.

There you go, my first food/restaurant review!!

Hope I get around to writing some more :)

Peace,

Shaki

Bazaar

The first picture is of the entrance to the bazaar and the second one of the exit. Have to get my camera out and rolling in this beautiful city, Calcutta.

Peace,
Shaki

I feel

Today, I take time out to grieve for the girl they call "Nirbhaya". We have been shifting and shuttling around houses so I haven't had the time to really pay my condolences to Her Soul, for losing Her body much before Her time. In my busy life I haven't been able to be a part of it all. But there are times at the traffic signal when the light is red and I stop, something triggers and tears roll down. I remember the things that I read in the papers and it shakes me. I have no words to express what I feel about the incident. If I think about Her, the pain and suffering. Hours of hell. How could they? Why did they? I can't  understand the reason behind it all, if there was any reason. It sends a shiver down my spine every time I think about it. The Accused behind bars but for how long. Do they feel triumphant about what they did? That they are alive? Because they are in the headlines? Grinning because there might be some people who even think that women are the ones to blame??
I wonder what would happen if a man was castrated just because he was on the street at night. You would say why compare a rape to cutting off a man's genitals. But you can compare. A rape survivor would be physically and mentally scarred like a man without his genitals. If you just forcefully have sex with a man, its not as severe as a woman who has been forced upon. He wouldn't lose anything.
I don't know, there are lots of things is my head. What is the solution? Can there be a solution? A woman is raped/physically assaulted every day. An innocent girl/woman loses her self esteem, her dignity, her soul. every day. How do you stop this? I have no answer.
I just feel pain.

Peace,
Shaki