The Yellow Calcutta Taxi

Farewell to The Rickshaw

The Last Rickshaws are to be phased out in Kolkata by the end of 2005. There is only one problem: What will all the rickshaw-wallas do?

On Walking

It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven.- Matthew Henry

The longest journey begins with a single step.- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive at where we started
And know the place for the first time.- T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

I went for a walk the other day and noticed the different surfaces beneath my feet and here they are.. (all this was within 15 minutes from home.)

Swades We the People...thoughts on Independence Day

India celebrates its 58th anniversary of independence today. How much have we changed since that night in 1947 when the Indian Tricolour first ? To answer that i would like to tell you a little about today. I watched a Hindi movie called Swades. The story goes like this..

A NASA project manager, Mohan (Shah Rukh Khan of course) misses his home India. He comes home to find his foster mother and take her back to the US. In his quest, he goes to her village and stays there for a while, he also meets a childhood friend, and cannot help but fall in love with her. ( pretty standard hindi movie fare right?)
The movie contrasts the high-tech world of America and the colorful world of developing India, while at the same time exploring the nature of 'home'. Mohan sees the best of India, as well as the worst: the poverty, the prevailing caste system and lack of education. The course of his life changes when he decides to be a part of the solution and help his nation. Mohan's simple quest is similar to what we all go through. I have been through it at times and still ask myself what is 'home' and how can i help make our country better.

What was different today was something called the Swades Project that we were reminded about at every commercial break. This project is a move to provide electricity to villages across India that still need electricity. All you need to do to be a part of this is to simply SMS "SWADES" to 7827 and for each SMS Rs 10 will be donated to the fund.

"Aiming to provide electricity to 60,000 villages across India, project ‘Swades’ managed and supervised by STAR TV Viewers can support this by sending an SMS donation to the national project fund. “The subscriber need to SMS the keyword ‘SWADES’ to 7827. Each SMS one sends will be ones donation of Rs 10 to the project ‘Swades’ fund,” stated Mukul Khanna, GM-Marketing, Spice Telecom, Punjab. Project Swades takes cue from the reel film - Swades in which the lead actor Mohan Bhargava (Sharukh Khan) leads the villagers to come together and generate electricity through water turbine technology."

http://www.thefinancialworld.com/corporate/economy.html
To read more about Project Swades go to
http://stargold.indya.com/specials/swades/projects.htm

Today's collage is from the movie and not my own pictures... sorry, but I have been inspired.

Orange

What comes to mind when you think of orange:

Afterglow....bathing in sunsets.... swamped with warmth...
holland ... and the best one of the lot......juice

Deathly Silent Cemetary

* "A samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered 'How am I supposed to know?'

'How do you know? You're a Zen master!' exclaimed the samurai.
'Yes, but not a dead one,' Hakuin answered." ~Zen mondo

Red is not Dead

Yellow and proud of it.

Yellow is an amazing color it signifies warmth and happiness but at the same time cowardice and deceit.
Reminds me of "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree"
and of course there was the old one: "Yellow yellow dirty fellow", that we used to shout when we were kids.

GREEN GREEN and Green

Calcutta look really good and green in the rainy/monsoon season

Green is the colour of Life. It signifies growth and renewal. It is also known as a restful colour. Among other things it is believed that a green room is a calming one.
Among other things green also is used to signify jealosy and inexperience. My personal favourite is the expression 'green-thumb' which signifies that you and plants seem to have a special relationship.

BLUE TODAY

Blue is a color that is all around us, from the sky to the sea. It is a color of calm and coolness.
In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away.
I love the Blues but i'm glad im not feeling blue.

Wonders all around me

Some reminders of things that are around us and that we see everyday. Do you stop to take another look at the flowers? do you still stop to collect shells at the beach or is that only for kids?

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
( I Hope You Dance- Lee Ann Womack)

Salt Lake in the afternoon.

Salt Lake a suburb of Kolkata, is very different from the rest of the city. It has its share of interesting sights too.
Clockwise: See this: A street vendor shows off his prized cross-stitch design. Leaning against a pillar: as he writes in his little book. An old Horse-powered tram: so this is how people traveled before electric trams took over. ( this is a shop at City Center )
Tiger in the bushes: in Central Park .