Some of the 19 larger than life statues at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C taken during Fall 2009.

The beautiful fall colours surrounding this very nicely designed memorial was a treat to the eyes. One of the nicer memorials I have seen. The American’s sure know how to build and maintain a great memorial.

Click through for one of my favourite pics.

Read about the memorial here.

A boy walks past a row of chairs and benches meant only for teachers and students, celebrating Indian Independence Day, at a Government school in Bangalore

A post processed version of a martial arts display of Kalari Payattu in Kerala.

The original photo is here

The Stigma and Stamen of a flower. Taken on macro mode with my new Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro Lens!

I choose this lens over the ones from Canon primarily for the cost. I got this at US $188 and for the price this is quite a lens! Also for my current requirements of general photography this lens should suffice.

The lens feels great, extends quite a bit and comes with its own lens hood, which is useful. The f/4-5.6 lens has a 1:2 macro feature between  200 – 300 mm, with a minimum focussing distance of 0.95 metres.

The flickr pool of Sigma 70 – 300 mm APO DG Macro lens users has some amazing shots and you can check it out here.

I finally got to take out the lens and test it last weekend! Keep watching my photoblog for updates.

Navratri – the nine sacred nights - is one of the most celebrated festivals of India. This nine days festival is essentially celebrated to worship Devi and to commemorate the victory of good over evil, i.e bringing to an end the atrocities of Asuras like Mahishasuran, Shumban, Nishumban, Madhukaidapan, Thumralochanan and Rakthabheejan.

During Navrathri Devi is worshipped in the form of Sri Durga for the first three days, as Sri Lakshmi for the next three days and as Sri Saraswati for the last three days.

We celebrate it at home by keeping “Kolu”, which is a display of various dolls and idols, for the 9 day period. Mom painstakingly takes care of these dolls, many of which were passed down from her mother and so on; and during these 9 days (dedicated to the Devi) she has them on display and does daily pujas and prayer sessions and invites all her friends, neighbouring ladies, relatives home and prepares yummy delicacies!

The display at home

You can see a wide variety of dolls here, there are the main ‘Marapachi’ wooden dolls (in the centre); Ashta-Lakshmi – 8 forms of Goddess Lakshmi (in the second row from below); then there is the Dasavatharam – 10 Avatars of Lord Vishnu (just behind the Ashtalakshmis) ; then Lord Vishnu Seated on Serpent Ananta (top-centre); Sita, Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman along with Krishna and also Lord Shiva and family with Parvati, Ganesha and Muruga (top row); finally we have a marriage ceremony along with the popular Chettiar and Chettichi selling their wares (bottom row)!

After a hectic day of travelling to Agra and seeing the Taj under a hot afternoon sun and later visiting Fatehpur Sikhri and lots of walking around, a tired bunch of us were forced to eat at a roadside dhabha on the way back to Delhi because our van had broken down and had gone for repairs. Ashwin (manglooru) here poses with an earthen cup filled with really tasty lassi that we all totally enjoyed so much that we ended up having it again and again!

A child looks on earnestly at the candy man who uses the doll to attract customers at the Lalbagh Flower Show

Nice tiny flowers taken at the Independance Day flower show at Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. I liked the DoF and also tried a little post processing in Photoshop to get this effect. Let me know what you think about it.

Taj Mahal

I had a great tour of quite a few places in North India a few months back and I would love to go back and travel some more. There are so many, many more places and so little time :(