I think

Driving at dusk

Dusk upsets me.  Give me a bright day, I am happy. Give me a dark night, well, I am not exactly happy, but at least I don't palpitate.  Dawn is fine, in fact I love it, although it seems ages since I saw one.  Dusk however, makes me very uncomfortable.  When the sky is not totally dark, but the buildings silhoute against it, and the manmade lights are already on, I feel the urgent need to go into the house, switch on all the tube lights in the house and sit bathed in brightness.

Today on our way back from Landmark where the kiddo attended a quiz on Harry Potter (I'll write about it perhaps if I have more energy), it was dusk when we passed the erstwhile "downtown" of Chennai - Mount Road.  The pictures don't make dusk any less depressing than reality.

 

An ORANGE House !  I mean...excuse me?

Photos from cell phone camera

A jet flying over the stadium sky

Kasturibai Nagar Metro Rail Station

Evening Blaze

Random pictures from the cell phone

A crane (or is it a stork?) deep in the woods adjoining the stadium in our campus:

Sunset over the stadium in campus

Sunset at stadium, a few minutes later

Skull and backbone of a dead deer, at the fringes of the woods, adjoining the stadium

A hawk on our fence

My padikolam on Pongal

Kiddo's wishes for Pongal

 

Pongal-eve.  All set for the morning.

 

Farmhouse

A few pictures from our farmhouse, in a small village called "Rathnamangalam" about an hour's drive from downtown Chennai. I wish this house was closer to the city, I'd love to visit more often.  If there are people seeking to invest in land in and around the Chennai area, I'd recommend this area.  This is on the Kelambakkam-Vandalur road,  and is surrounded by upcoing landmarks - IIIT, Vellore Institute of Technology, Tagore Engineering College, if you are the kind that is big-time into Kollywood, Rajini Kanth's ranch and so on. 

 

Front view of the house

 

Kitchen garden

 

Plucking bottleguard

Spinach patch

 

Another spinach patch

Grandmom inspecting kitchen garden.

 

Bird's eye view of paati. Photo shot from terrace.

Lots of spinach and beans for lunch tomorrow.

 Plucking flowers

Carving on the main door.

 

There is a small hillock called Gajagiri ("elephant hill") about 5 miles from this village, on which there is a tiny, but cute temple for Hanuman.  You can see the ocean from atop.  A beautiful spot.