The Mahatma and the Golden Gate

Overlooking the Bay bridge is a statue in a walking posture wearing a dhoti. 

This is the statue of the father of our nation (India), Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Mahatma Gandhi as he is fondly known.

It gave a sense of pride to see him here... out here in the West... watching over the Bay bridge... and also, over us... 

During Memorial Day weekend, it was nice to cherish the memories of one of our own Indian heroes. :)

Golden Hours...

A sight so breathtaking...

A fragrance so intoxicating...

I could not help getting lost amongst you...

Was I the thorn or the rose I cannot reckon...

I do not care...

For, during those moments peace came to me.

As Wordsworth wrote about daffodils, this is my feeble attempt to write about roses... 

I was never a rose person and never believed in getting roses from my love... My recent visit to a rose garden proved me wrong. 

While I looked at row after row of roses... walked on the paths dotted with rose bushes... touched them... felt their fragrance surround me... I felt like a kid in candy-land! I could not help sucking in their scent and running from one end of garden to another, unable to make my mind where to go first... :)

There were roses of all colours and sizes... 

Big ones...

Small ones...

Tiny ones...

Amongst all these, there was a gem of wisdom too... on a broken sundial...

"I count none but Golden hours!" 

This sundial cannot show time... but its message is timeless.

And when it was time to leave, I could not tear myself away from the place. How can one walk away from a place like that! All I could do, was to tell myself that I will come back again and then somehow pushed myself out of the garden and into the car.

"Oh sweet rose! I will be back again soon to give you company" 

(as though the rose needs my company!! :D)

Picture of Earth from Earth...

From atop a hill in Coyote Hills Regional Park, the view of Bay looked like a view of Earth from a satellite. The green moss on the water looked like the various continents on Earth and the backwaters looked like the oceans of the world..

I could not take my eyes off it for a long long time. A remote-controlled jet flew by. (as in the below picture)

With a little thinking, we can give a lot of work to our idle minds to imagine and be awed! :-)

Ring of fire

"Why does the sunlight look different today?"


V and I were coming out of the grocery store when this thought struck us.
"It looks as though we are seeing the world through sunglasses," we both uttered almost at once.

The rays cast by the sun were very different. Even though the sky was clear and cloudless, the sun-rays seemed softer. We were walking towards our car, when my eyes fell on the shadow of a tree in the parking lot. The shadow looked weird too. The light passing in between the branches of the tree cast crescent shapes on the road. That's when it struck me that we were experiencing a solar eclipse. Oh my God! I had never been outside under the sun on the day of the solar eclipse. I felt very exposed. Did I look at the Sun directly? I wish I could remember!

All through our way back home, I tried to avoid the sun. I noticed the shadows cast by trees. My Paati (grandma) was the one to teach me how to look for these crescent shapes during solar eclipse. Until then, I had no idea that the light passing between the trees always  fell as round shapes in between shadows. Each round was/is an image of the sun!

Once home, I jumped around like a little kid. I was so excited! Observe the crescent shapes of the Sun. I used a cowboy costume hat to cast the shapes on our bedroom wall.

Here are pictures of shadows of trees on a wall. Observe the crescent shapes here too.

How I wish the photos had come out better! But something is better than nothing, so we need to adjust with these till the next eclipse! ;-)

Teddy Bear Applique

A Sale of used books at our library proved to be very useful. I could catch hold of several crafts related magazines, most of them had blown out paper templates for the crafts. This latest project of mine has been inspired by Handcrafts magazine, 1990 issue.

The project in the magazine was about fabric painting using stencils. I used the same approach but wanted to do an applique. 

I added ribbons and buttons to give a more 3-D look.

I have uploaded this project in Craftsy with instructions. Here is the link to the page. This is for "Mother's Day" contest in Craftsy. The more "hearts" I get, the more chances I have to win the contest.

Good luck to me! :)