Monkey Business

I could not believe my eyes when I saw  a monkey hanging on for a dear life on the back of the vehicle ahead of me ..  (see right corner of the green ‘tri-shaw)

I stepped on the accelerator for a closer look and had to smile at the monkey business. 🙂

Monkey business 🙂

Kudos to the driver whose action must bring smiles to many. Simple acts of joyous living to dispel gloom, stress and road rage.

(Returning after a long absence to share this with the MMC community hosted by Trablogger.) 

 

FRAMED !!

Back in the MMC Challenge after quite a break and notice that Jithin has officially added a new twist.  Oh  larks … it is now confirmed that it is no longer only about :

mundane pictures of beautiful objects  but also 

beautiful pictures of mundane objects. 

The first was easy for me as my subject was  interesting enough  (for me at least 🙂 so photo ‘credits’  did not matter.   The second – framing things and getting it right  – now that is something else   😦  But I guess I can do with some photography lessons so here goes :

FRAMED BY MMC CHALLENGE !!

A tongue in cheek FRAMED self portrait!!   I was actually trying to frame this soothing little corner in a hotel corridor but could not do it without getting in the picture myself.  And could not seem to get the full mirror in either 😦    using only a phone camera!

Any ideas on how to take such a picture without getting in the mirror  ??  short of being a ghost LOL 🙂

Low flying clouds ….

Driving to the office today I noticed something unusual and slowed down to take a picture.

I wonder whether you can spot the peculiarity ?

This is a close up of the next click – minus the bonnet of the car 🙂

What struck me as unusual was the big cloud that seemed to be rising from the ground!  The road ahead was flat so you could not attribute it to a horizon that drops.  It was just a mundane cloud deciding to come down to earth.

and hoping I will share him with Jithin’s blogger community that finds beauty in the little things. 

Nature’s parachutes

hbhatnagar‘s picture of a seed pod last week, reminding me of a similar capture of mine -the same week ! – of a pod of a Stephanotis plant on my balcony.

Enter a caption

The parachute-like seeds are natures strategy for dispersal.  They float in the wind, land on soft ground and take root.   Man-made parachutes and most of man’s inventions – even the air-plane, have  all their design inspiration from nature.

Hope you enjoy these pictures.  I could not get the angles I wanted because the seeds kept spilling out each time I moved the plant for a better view.

Close up – Stephanotis pod and Nature’s parachute.

Posting in response to Jithin’s Mundane Monday challenge to find beauty in the mundane .. and  ..to make the mundane beautiful.

Posted for Mudane Monday Challenge hosted by Jithin.

Earth’s crammed with heaven

Woke up on a mundane Monday morning to the most awesome sight.  The tree outside my balcony had burst into bloom.

The sight that met my eyes !

I could just gaze and gaze and gaze at it for hours.

I looked up again and noticed the moon was still out .. perhaps hating to leave the scene of such beauty 🙂

Even the moon refused to move away 🙂

Delicate, paper thin, shadowy pink flowers so ephemeral they  would bruise to the touch. Some were floating down and I stretched out my hand for them to land on. The ground beneath was a carpet of pink.

The sight leaves you dazzled … wanting to burst into laughter,  scoop up the flowers, embrace the tree for giving you such a vision.

The tree which is just outside my front door poses a serious threat to my boundary wall and roof. You can see how close it is in this picture.

That’s the  roof jutting out on top left. Too close for safety ?

Many have advised me to cut it and yet I can’t bring myself to do this and and lose the glory of this sight when it blooms – once, sometimes twice, a year.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning must have been referring to such a vision when she wrote :

Earth’s crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God, 
….. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. 

Eventually, I tore my gaze away and looked across on the other side of the balcony.  There stood another tree that I really admire, a lone sentinel rising above its neighbours, in majestic competition with my flowering cherry blossom tree.                  

A solid and stable sentinel every day, unlike the ephemeral blossoming tree, I have to recognise this tree too or it will feel left out 🙂

Sharing with Mundane Monday challenge of Jithin though this is ‘cheating’ for it is anything by mundane. At least it was taken on a mundane Monday 🙂   and also sharing with Jacqueline’s Echoes of my Neighbourhood challenge which brings so many many places to your doorstep.

Olde Ceylon

This Demolition squad caught my eye … though quite a few of them had moved away by the time I plucked up courage to click in front of them!

The building is right next to President’s House where I was waiting to pick him up.  I don’t know why you don’t believe me? Maybe because  I wasn’t there to meet him  🙂 though I wonder if he would have let me drive him if I was.  I mean,  he has opened up the street to the common man and we can actually drive past his gate now. Not possible for many years with the security situation, but possible since he took office.

These  workmen are probably refurbishing in preparation for business moving back into the street – formerly called Prince Street but changed in a frenzy of patriotic post independence fervour to Sir Baron Jayatilleke Mawatha: quite a few mouthful when you have to give directions.

Many buildings are being restored to former glory under a programme which commenced at the end of the civil war. “Glory’ not in terms of modern day marvels of chrome and glass but rather  of historical and cultural glory for these buildings from our colonial past have a charm and character of their own.

Posted in response to Trabloggers MM challenge to find beauty around you.  His last post was on ‘interesting walls’ and this fits in quite well.

Camouflaged !

Oh …a nice shady tree to rest under … close to the water too  🙂

Ooops …on closer look … that is not an inviting root to rest on !! Dirty him .. trying to trick me.

Monitor Lizard (Kabaragoya)

Look  he is moving.

What camouflage!!  There he goes …

Just look at the tail of this huge monitor lizard lurking near the waters.  Thankfully they scuttle along when they see  or hear your approaching.  But if by chance you get too close …  be prepared for a swipe of his tail that can ….well I will leave it to your imagination 🙂

Posting in response to  Jithin’s MMC post on Hidden Danger.   Yeah,  I’m late but thought of sharing nonetheless.

And by the way,  there is now a chain link fence between them and us. I took these through the links.

Also sharing with Echoes of My Neighbourhood.

For love of elephants …

I am sure this little one seen in my neighbourhood will graduate with a magna cum laude in English 🙂

An elephant goes to school

Unlike Jithin’s MM Challenge #44 education poster, This school does not promise to make a genius in two days.  I guess that would be a gargantuan task.  Or would it ?  Elephants have astounding memory.

You can’t help but smile when you see these gentle giants.  But these majestic animals – the largest living creature on land should not be chained but left free to roam where he will on the plains or in the forests and jungles.

Sadly man is not only encroaching on their territory but also slaughtering them for their ivory.

I pray the elephants will not be driven to extinction by man’s insatiable greed. Thankfully, the world is waking up, albeit slowly.

Just last week, Sri Lanka became the 16th country to burn a huge cache of ivory, whilst apologising to the elephants.

“We have to apologize,” said the Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero, the Buddhist priest who will lead the service. “Those elephants were victimized by the cruelty of certain people. But all of human society is responsible. We destroyed those innocent lives to take those tusks. We have to ask for pardon from them.”

“One Country Will Destroy Its Ivory—and Pray for Elephants” 

Can you imagine how many animals were killed to generate this haul of tusk!!!

 PHOTOGRAPH BY STRDEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Let us do our part by not using ivory in any shape or form – whether as ornaments, or trinkets, or any other way-and spreading the word to save these awesome animals from extinction.

My SMOKEY on the roof !

Trying to figure out how Phototrablogger got his roof tiles for this weeks Mundane Monday Challenge by simply sitting on a chair!!   (See his answer to Aadhirai in his post).

I think I will need to switch to a professional camera to even begin to take his type of pictures. I still can’t figure out how he got THAT angle

But focusing on roofs – have a look at this cute subject matter who thinks the roof is his playground.  Or perhaps he is in tune with the Drifters:

… On the roof, it’s peaceful as can be
And there, the world below can’t bother me
Let me tell you now …

Turn around please.  Can I get a full face view and not just your derrière

Aaah  … nice thank you 🙂   Now can you come down please,  you are damaging the tiles

Oh … you like it up there ?   Say that again …

When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face 
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space (Up on the roof)

OK  OK  …  I agree.  As long as you are not referring to me ??

When I  come home feeling tired and beat
I too like to go up where the air is fresh and sweet (Up on the roof)
I get away from the hustling crowds
And all that rat race noise down in the street (Up on the roof)

So stay there as long as you like  … and as long as you don’t fall over!! I will join you soon. Broken tiles are small price indeed for the joy of being UP ON THE ROOF 🙂

The Drifters sure got it right    I’ll be up there soon as I post this to Jithin.