Multi *

Found an article about Kerala (The Indian Venice, I think that is what it says on the cover) in a French Magazine, while on my way from London to Cork in the City Jet flight . Wonder why a French magazine instead of an Irish or an English one!?

A fight is not always a Fight

“The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club” – Fight Club

“If you aren’t willing to fight for what you believe in, then don’t even enter the ring.” – Madonna

“Fight club wasn’t about winning or losing. It wasn’t about words. The hysterical shouting was in tongues”- Fight Club

“I have not yet begun to fight!” -John Paul Jones

“All things are ready, if our mind be so.” –  William Shakespeare

‘It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit – J.R.R. Tolkien

“Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas” – Fight Club

“Your body can stand up to almost anything. It’s your mind that you have to convince.”- Anonymous

“The harder the struggle, the more glorious the triumph.” – Swami Sivananda

“If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight” – Fight Club

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher

“Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.” – Martha Graham

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me” -Joshua Graham

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” – Ferdinand Foch

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We have a three day weekend because of the Ugadi festival, so I am visiting my folks. I am not sure if I will be able to blog over the weekend (I will try to, though) so I thought I will leave you guys with some photographs of the Kalaripayattu (Kerala’s age old martial arts…there is a discussion online as to which came first, Kung Fu or Kalaripayattu…but let us not get into that) performance we had the pleasure to attend during our stay in Munnar. This is my first visit to a Kalaripayattu and it was mind boggling. I was so much in awe of those people. It was an hour and a half performance. We were also able to go to the ring and take photographs with those warriors, posing like one (that is all I can afford to).  I had a tough time filtering out the photographs to showcase their talents, because there were too many of them. I made sure to take some video’s too, but that will take a lot of time to process. So you might have to enjoy the photographs for now. Until next time, Happy Blogging and Be Safe 🙂

Life

Took this in a temple in Kerala during my visit last Saturday using my Moto G phone. Loved the way the sunlight was falling on the very old wall of the temple and this small piece of life looked so … nice (for the lack of a better word at this moment).

Glow in the dark

On Saturday, after watching the movie ‘Happy New Year‘ (a few words about this movie will come at the end) we went to this art cafe called DYU as suggested by one of our friend. She is a regular there. It looks like an old Kerala styled house and I just loved it. It was raining very heavily hence couldn’t take much pictures of the place (next time hopefully). They had paintings all around which is said to glow in the dark. And some of the painting were kept in a closed space we were trying to take pictures of it and seeing that the owners switched off the lights for a better view 🙂 Here are those (taken with my phone camera). And the food there also was very very good. Very fresh and tasty. 

Now the above painting in the dark.

I particularly loved this piece.

 

And now a quick word on that movie. Granted we went only to have some fun, but seriously that was very badly done. We did laugh at some stupid stuff but it was because we did intend to do it.  The whole heist is taken in Dubai and Hotel Atlantis is so beautiful especially during the dance competition. Very average story. I was surprised by Abhishek Bachchan though, to be honest and I have always liked Deepika Padukone. She has danced very well in this too. What I really loved in the movies ? The final credits part, not because the movie ended, but I like how Farah Khan gives credit to each and every single person who contributed to the movie, right till the drivers by making them appear even if for a few seconds.

Those elephants I met last year

As I told in my other post “WPC: Dialogue“, I found a series of Elephant based photographs from my drive while doing some cleanup and that brought back some memories. Since I am slightly bored I thought I will post this today as my throwback Thursday post, even though this is the first time I doing it with that intention.

In South India, especially in Kerala, Elephants are abound, even though there is a steady decrease in their number, you still find a lot of them. Almost all of the temples, have at least one Elephant. I can write a lot about it, but do not want to digress much. May be some other time. So yeah, I have been seeing them all my life, so there is nothing to fear about them. I like them. I like their eyes very specifically. Don’t ask me why. I just like it. No specific reason. We are allowed to touch them or rather they are allowed to touch us and bless us in the temples (of course in exchange for some money which goes to the mahout, but you can also give them bananas in addition to it). During our last year’s trip to Wayanad, we saw quite a few elephants. While on the way to Wayanad at night through the Muthanga Forest, we saw one standing on the highway road side. It was the first time we saw a wild one on its own but somehow it didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother it (low beam, no honks, drive slow, no jerky movements etc) and both of us were cool.

While driving from some other place in Wayanad, we saw this one on the road walking coolly with the mahout. It looked like they both were going for a walk in the park. Except that it was supposed to be a busy road. So I asked my friends to park the car so that I can take a shot. Till I got down and felt the height of the elephant and the closeness, I was all OK. But the moment I got down and saw how huge he was outside of the car and add my friends shout from the car that if the elephant came any close by, they were leaving me there and going ahead, I slightly panicked. He was atleast 10 feet away, but still. And the result: You see that the photo is slightly shaken? Yeah. I knew he wouldn’t harm me, but wasn’t sure if the elephant knew that I wont harm him/her. So took the safe approach and climbed the car after this shot and drove away (all the while scolding my friends for scaring me like that)

While on our way back from Wayanad, we met another group in the forest, but was being led by a group of mahouts. They were coming the other way. So we parked the car on the side of the road to give them the way. Among the group there was this small one. It was such a baby. And a too curious as is its nature. I was in the back seat and hence could take a shot with my digital camera when it came and started knocking at our car window trying to find a way into us. He/she wanted to know what the object was. It was trying the front window, the handle bar (thank god it was locked) and the window everything. It was so cute to watch it. But our only fear was the momma elephant who was right behind the kid. She stood there close to her kid, staring at us and ready to crush us even if there was a slight movement from our car. God, the way she looked ready to kill, inspite of the mahouts ready to come to our rescue if anything happens. But I don’t think it would have mattered with her size. My friends in the front seat were stock still until the kid moved away and the momma elephant gave a nod and went to stare at the next car the kid went to check out.

If you want to check out Asian Elephants up close and personal, then Kerala is the place to be. There are lots of elephant sanctuaries (I have been to one near Guruvayur) too.