The BIG Sunday Walk

Walking by itself is something I sincerely hate, but given good company or a camera or good music I can walk for hours together.

With nothing great to do on Sunday morning (I woke up at 0500hrs) I decided to take a walk, a walk which would cover Napier's Bridge, Chepauk Palace, Madras University, Parthasarathy Temple, Presidency College, Kannagi Statue, The War Memorial, Fort St. George and finally St. Mary's Church.

I know I overdid the walk. But what's life without some whims and fancies. I now have about 200 photos from the walk. Which I enjoyed a lot.

P.S.: Wondering if I should buy a bicycle and then call these sessions "Photocycling." Or if I should get my Zenit E SLR fixed.

Afterall I am a man of limited means.

"Customer (S)Care" The Funny "Nano Short" Play

For some reason I have been made to believe that I can write in English. Well that's blasphemy by itself. Now I also believe that I can Write and Act in a French Play.

About 3 Weeks back my A2 Level Teacher Mme Gisele at Alliance Francaise de Madras
told that we as a class have to do something for the Fete de l'ete (The Summer Festival) at the AFM. So the class decided to do a play and I for reasons beyond my control and understanding wrote a rough play in English. (It was so rough that I actually scraped my elbow while writing it. Read Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 and Page 4 of the play - English Version ) Anyways... We managed to translate that to French with the help of Mme Gisele of course and went on to decide who would play which part.

This was what we decided.

Customer 1 Siddarth
Customer 2 Catherine
The Security Guard The Pseudonym,(Yeah that's me people)
The Manager InbaShekhar
The Service Representative Gomati Shankar

We had tonnes of fun practising for the play. Though after 3 days of getting our lines, the intonation and placement right we figured out that the play just lasted for 2mins and 15 seconds. So while I asked people to slow their dialogue delivery Siddarth came up with "French is a Fast Language" though I was bursting to tell "Well but we ain't French, are we?" I did not because Siddarth is the kid of the class and damn near brilliant.(He did get on my nerves once though by going yippity yippity yap.) So we added some lines and worked some more till we were quite satisfied with the end result. We were going to take centre stage for exactly 3 minutes on The D - Day.

Now I have to introduce two very important characters who helped us during the play. Latha was going to be the Narrator and Divya was going to prepare the Boards and Signs that we needed.( Though there was no news from Divya and no Sign from Heaven that she was going to turn up 30 minutes after the actual play with the boards, So Siddarth and Inbashekhar were given the responsibility of making the Boards and the Signs.)

So we enacted the play at around 1815 hrs on Friday the 16th at the Alliance Francaise Open Air Theater, to the background score of Chennai Traffic on College Road and with failed microphones. It lasted somewhere in the vicinity of 3 minutes. And we got some of Catherine's friends to hold the Title board for us. Thanks Kiddos. As usual I forgot to get their names...

Well I should say we were indeed lucky. We breezed in and out of centre stage, our audience was primarily kids, and I don't think anyone understood us. We were all happy that we were not treated to rotten eggs and tomatoes. Though no one clapped for us either.

One more thing during our so called practice sessions we ate and drank a lot of stuff from Yusuf's "La Cantine" at the Alliance Francaise. His Cakes are simply amazing. Check them out if you are a foodie. Try Saturdays. Other days you can hardly reach beyond the canteen doors.

Click Here to watch a voiceless us chatting away to glory.

I Disappear...

I have not visited blogs,

I have not written here

Why you may ask?

None I will say

Flickr took some Time,

My Work, Neglected

Looked at me sore

Ready to yell it's lore.

But still, I could not stop thinking

Of my Blog waiting,

To get me On The Altar

And to Sacrifice me some more.

I have too many works in progress, Suffered some bad health, Wrote and enacted a super short play, Been busy... a Busy Bee at Work. **sigh!!!** My Life...

The Seventh Chennai Photowalk The Photos

Went for the Seventh Chennai Photowalk on Sunday. It was loads of fun because

1. We started early. 0600 hrs on Sunday was quite nice.

2. There were people around us and it feels nice when there is so much activity.The kind of people I saw was so varied.(Like the Maami wearing Saree and shoes and taking her routine morning walk)

3. This time my cousins Ajay and Aishwarya joined me.

4. Took some nice pictures.( Click Here for The Photos)

5. I really like the thatha(oldman with intense stare, lighting a cigarette),the one where Santhome Basilica has a Halo .(Oh!!!it is just the Sun), and the Photo of MTC's 12B Bus Service.(I almost got runover taking that photo) and of course the homeless old lady, really touched a nerve.

But the most interesting part was that we were joined by two really wonderful people. PriyaBabu and her friend. They are actually Aravanis (Transexuals). It is such a tough life for them. But they live it with a smile. And we had a wonderful conversation. Was so engrossed in the conversation I forgot to capture them with the oldest digital camera in the photowalk.

If anyone wants to help them in any form do leave a comment and I will pass on their contact information.

Dilip has some really good Pictures of them.

Am Still figuring out Flickr Options!!!

Another Sunday well spent.

Group Picture Courtesy Kunal Daswani
Thanks to Bitter Scotch for pointing out "The lack of courtesy"

The Seventh Chennai Photowalk

The next Chennai Photowalk is happening on May 11th 2008 and the news is it starts at 0600hrs. The Route is from Mylapore's Kapaleshwarar Temple to The Basilica of National Shrine of St. Thomas(Santhome Church!!!).

The Original Invitation from the guy with Selective Amnesia can be accessed here.

The walk is tonnes of fun. So wanna join, just be there. No joining fees, no club membership needed, no cameras needed(though if you bring a digital camera thats older than my Olympus I will buy you breakfast at Saravana Bhavan) just turn up at 0600Hrs on Sunday Morning.


For the Previous Photowalk Photos Click Here

Conditions Apply for the Oldest Digital Camera Contest. Just Leave a Comment if you'd like to participate.