Subject City Beckons!

I want to buy this place

I'm back in my subject city, a.k.a. Patiala. I'm back three whole weeks before semester starts. Why? Well, lets see. I was pretty much jobless at home. I decided to breathe some life back into my dear old blog. I don't think I had lost my interest in photography, it was more like I got involved in the race to decorate my C.V. Aah, the joy of just walking around the city with my phone and waiting to find that next picture... Its hard to put in words. Today, I did just that. Yes sirs and madames, I went photo hunting today!! After being unable to find a decent subject, I decided to walk back to my hostel and on the way was this building. The first time I saw this building was in August, 2008 and the first thought in my head was that I wanted to own it. I don't really know what is it about this building, I just want to own it. One day, I'll return to Patiala and buy this place. I surely will.
Why did I come back three weeks before semester begins? This was just the place where I had to be. There was just someone I had to be with. I was jobless at home, I have work here. Pursuits, both academic and personal, fill my days. Among other things, I tried to click a bird taking a bath but the critter just flew away. And yes, I still lust after that Nikon D90.

Technorati Tags: patiala,photography,building,evening

Something about the clouds

Clouds & trees - the most unimaginative title ever.

My second attempt at photographing clouds. I hope it turned out well. Yes, there is post-processing done on this photo and no, the sky wasn’t that colour when I took the photograph. The clouds changed shape and pattern yesterday, so I definitely had to take a photograph. Winter’s bidding us a sweet goodbye, making way for the pomp and show of spring. This winter has been the second coldest winter of my life so far. I’ve become tired of the bloody fog that’s everywhere smelling of ozone. My olfactory senses have been abused to the limit of tolerance! It’s all going away now, my first winter away from home is finally coming to a close. The clouds are changing…

Technorati Tags: india,clouds,winter,change,life,photography

Freedom ?! One illusion or many ?

Freedom?! Is it what I have on my side of the bars ?

Yesterday was a rather eventful day. I got myself vaccinated against a rather mumps outbreak on campus, saw a rather good movie (Luck By Chance) with friends and took this awesome picture. This photo was Ms B’s idea. Now before babbling about freedom, how about some guesses as to what is beyond those bars ? I will reveal it later, either in updates or comments, but if you are really into spoilers then do click on the link.

Now it’s time to elaborate on freedom. Year 2009, we live in a so-called free world. But then again, I ask the oft repeated question: “Are we truly free ?” In just one day I realized that I am not. A tiny little virus can compromise my freedom, I had to have a needle puncture my skin and deliver some alien fluid in my body so that I could be safe. I could not watch the movie in peace because a couple of lovebirds were *doing* things to each other right in front of me (“Helping each other” – as one of my friends said). There are so many things I want to do, but I can’t because I don’t have the freedom or social sanction to do it. But I realised one thing at the theater. The couple in front were being “free”, but it made the people around them uncomfortable. I guess freedom is totally relative, eh?

We are all bound and gagged by the people around us, the places we live in and the families we are born into. Just as the person next to you inhibits your freedom, you do the same for that person as well. Just because of your presence he has to behave in a certain manner, talk in a certain manner etc. Ironical, isn’t it ? A world of people who are desirous of freedom are in truth the ones who are each other’s captors. Sometimes, humanity is just twisted!!

Technorati Tags: humans,photography,india,life,door,windows,freedom

Thorny petals and weird people

The Thorn in the Petal

Today, I feel enlightened. Do not ask me how or why. I just feel enlightened. I've always had this idea in my head that no matter how carefree people might be, they always shoulder their responsibilities for the people who depend on them. But today, I realized that it is not always so. You can't expect people to behave as you yourself would. In spite of all my poking and pondering over human nature, this thing never struck me. It was probably because of the fact that never before in my life had I met such an utterly disappointing excuse of a rational and realistic human being. I mean having faith on yourself is one thing and being adamant and not doing anything even after being warned is another thing and then screwing it all up when people are depending on you is yet another thing.

Life isn't all fun, partying and outings. But some people have a problem getting it as they've made it so far without having to sacrifice on fun. But they must also understand that their school days are very different from what they face now! I can pray that they learn from their mistakes and become a little more flexible by starting to understand the work-load and actually doin g something about it. Luck won't be pulling you through everything Mr and yes, you know I'm talking about you.

Whew! Now that's a load off my chest. Time to talk about the photo, eh?! Well she was sweeping the flowers on the lawn at the univ. and well I thought it was rather contrasting. The bright liveliness of the flowers against her dull and dead demeanor. How’d you like the photo ?

Technorati Tags: india,flowers,people,life,camera,college,rant

Random Smoking Bunny

Smoking Bunny - Smoking is injurious to health!

STATUTORY WARNING - SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH , ESPECIALLY FOR CUTE BUNNIES.

This, my friends, is a smoking bunny. Well, its not actually a cigarette in it's mouth but a piece of rolled up paper. Why?! Well I don't smoke so I wouldn't be likely to have a cigarette on me, especially during class. Yeah, I took this in class today. The bunny here features on Ms SM's pencil bag. I just had this crazy brainwave and I rolled up a piece of paper and stuck it between the bunny and the desk and I even got the ears into position. And wallah! Lo and behold. I had my smoking bunny.

It was an excellent model. Of course there was a lot of luminance noise in the image because it was taken from a cell-phone, so I had to use a lot of Photoshop on it. I'm pretty pleased with the end result though.

Now the main question – Why did I take this picture ? Just felt like it. As my room-mate keeps on saying, “In the heat of the moment.”

Technorati Tags: india,animals,photography,bunnies,funny,message,nokia,camera

Of Sleeping Machines and Slapstick Movies

The Sleeping Machine - they are human machines after all!

This here is the picture of a rickshaw-wala or rickshaw puller (as called in correct English), who’s sleeping on his rickshaw. Snuggling comfortably (NOT!) in the arms of Morpheus under the clear blue sky. The man here is one of the hundred odd rickshaw-walas found in Patiala. Oh wait, I’m forgetting something. Some people reading this might not even know what a rickshaw is. It’s basically a gigantic tricycle with a huge carriage kind of thingy in the back. People sit in it and this fellow pedals them to wherever they want to go. Did I hear someone say cruel ?! If you did, then all I can say back to you is: “Welcome to India”.

Rickshaws are the quintessential transport system in every city/town/wannabe town in India. These rickshaw-walas have to literally slog to earn whatever it is that they earn. They carry people around from place to place and when I say people, I mean PEOPLE. I’ve seen 5 people stuffed in that little carriage thingy and the poor fellow having to carry them around. I didn’t have my phone with me then so I couldn’t take a snap. Oh and just because they do all this manual labour doesn’t mean that they don’t cheat. They are some of the worst cheats you will ever meet.

I took this picture when I was myself on a rickshaw to watch a movie today. I saw “Chandni Chowk To China” and all I can say is that if you want to watch this movie, then please remember to leave your brain behind at home. It’s the most senseless movie you will ever see in your life. But hey, you will definitely laugh on the movie and as Mr N so rightly pronounced, “Laugh at the idea that somebody was stupid enough to think that people would laugh when seeing this movie!”  Among other things, my friends want me to write a post about them. I guess I will and I’ll give each of them a picture that describes them best. I’m also working on a Photoshop tutorial for giving borders and stuff to your photos. Will finish it and have it online soon enough.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,street,life,society,photos,movies,review

A Pot Full of Relief

Vase ?! – Taken at the Saras Fair in December.
The 14th of January was an incredible day. It was exhilarating day. The results of my 1st semester’s end-term exams were finally disclosed and I had done rather well. My first semester is officially over people and I got 75% aggregate. What’s my GPA ? No idea, my university follows a percentage system instead of GPA. God knows why!

Among other things, Mr. A and I left our bags in the library and well the library closed at 5 pm and our stuff got locked inside. What followed was a series of queries and questioning as to why there was no extra key to the library with anyone on campus. Besides, why should a National Law School's library close at 5pm. The kids here have to study, you know. So anyways, the matter ultimately reached the VC, he called up the librarian and made him come back to the univ and open the library so that we could take our bags.

I guess I've started on a plan to make some money to buy a decent camera. Maybe a Nikon D60 if not a D90. And for that very purpose, I'm planning to put ads on my blog. I guess monetizing this blog will work rather, should work. And on the same day as the results were declared; I was busy helping out a senior, Mr M, with some urgent stuff that he needed for his internship at a reputed Law Firm. It involved a ton of whois searches on the internet and lots of secret calls made in class, even though cell-phones are banned in class.

I can already feel the work-load growing, I guess its time to seriously start working. Lots of stuff to do this semester. Oh! How could I forget to mention that Ms SS is currently in Delhi for a moot court competition. Best of luck to her and I really hope that her team does well.  Currently I’m not that inspired to click pictures, I guess its due to a low period of my creativity or lack of decent subjects. Damn! How could I forget the objective behind creating this blog. It was to make even the listless, lifeless and even mundane subjects interesting. Like the picture that I’ve put here today.

It was taken at the Saras fair in December. It is a culture fair where there are kiosks from every state of India, displaying some of their traditional art and craft. Yes, there was the typical cuisine of every state as well. There was this pot there, exquisitely designed and I took a snap. I edited it in Photoshop so that I can give the background a b/w feel and make the in color with a little dream-ish feel to it. Its not one of my better Photoshop works. I know that. But still, I must write about this.

PS – I was thinking about writing about my internship the next time. Have some good pictures of buildings and a little escapade story as well.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,photos,fair,pot,art,culture,college

A Happy Man and a Lazy Bum

Happy Little Man - taken at the Saras fair, 2008.

The time right now is exactly 11 pm or 2300 hrs, whichever you prefer. I’m sitting alone in my room, trying to find a case which has been dodging me for the last four days.  I’ve spent the last 1 hour looking for that one citation that can help me get started on my work.

It's 11:15 pm now! I spent 15 minutes just typing two lines ?! I stare at the heater for a couple of minutes, pushing my feet towards it and feeling the comforting warmth on them. On a whim, I decide to check out the temperature right now. Its 12 degrees right now, the minimum, as low as 7. I spot my quilt at the end of my bed. I spread the quilt and get comfortable.

Its 11:25 pm and I can hear the constable whistling outside. Its a rather odd system here in India. Around midnight a constable starts patrolling the streets and keeps on whistling as he patrols. I recall something akin to being fascinated with the whole patrolling-at-midnight thing as a kid. Its 11:28 pm now and I seriously should do something about that case. Now, where is that book on contracts ?!

Its 11:30 pm and I find the book. I look through the index and find a new citation for that case. Now what does PC stand for ? Oh yeah, its the Privy Council! Manupatra gives me nothing. I sigh, click on that link to Westlaw and type out the citation. Still nothing ! It begins to get on my nerves. Deep searching into Westlaw gives me nothing either! I sit and ponder for a minute. Let’s see. I got a traceable AIR citation from a lost IA citation. I think the day wasn’t all that bad. I guess the library will help me, if they have AIRs going back to 1924! I take one more look at the time. Its 11:55 pm. I guess its time to edit my mistakes and post this.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,photos,life,real,rant,law school,law

Projects and petitions!

We were all sitting in class today, enjoying a free sociology period because our professor's on leave. It's just been 15 minutes and in walks this new professor. She introduced herself as Ms. D and said that she was the new IPR teacher and the teacher-in-charge of the Internship and Placement Committee. She appeared pretty smart and confident and appeared to be a no nonsense person. But after interacting with her for the rest of the period I came to realize that she wasn't all that she showed to be. Maybe she had her guard up just because it was the first time that she was in our class and all.

By the way, we don't have IPR in our first year. Its in out third year and onwards, but she was there to brief us about the about our internship reports and assignments. We had a compulsory "Law Library" internship after our 1st semester. Quite honestly a rational person would think that such an internship was pointless and had no real value on a C.V. Yeah, we had to do some really lame things like making a bibliography on a subject of our choice and write a book review of one of the books that we read in that library. Stuff our univ. makes us do...

Talking about the univ., these are couple of pictures that I clicked a day ago. It's the lawn in front of our library and there were flowers strewn all over it, flowers which had fallen from the trees. It was a beautiful sight with the sunlight and shadows. Just had to click.

Flower Drops - In color!


A little photoshop and some sepia magic!

Among other things, I read this post by Monika, today. It was about a petition which she had started. A petition to fight terorrism by both Pakistanis and Indians. I hope you guys go and sign it.

Technorati Tags: india,university,college,photos,photography,fun

The journey back to the University

Made extensive use of Photoshop to get this "Old Photo" look. Click on the image for more info.

"... Its a thrilling tale and I wish to do it justice", said Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter in the sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince. And starting off with that line must have gotten you wondering about the interesting-ness of my journey back to the university, but rest assured it wasn't that thrilling. In fact it was quite ordinary as journeys go, downright lame I might add, but I met some rather friendly co-passengers and had fun throughout. The point to be noted is that it was the second time that I was travelling in a train all on my own and this time I chose to ignore my grand-mother's warning about not talking to strangers. Yes, I actually stuck to it the last time and kept myself rather away from the other passengers. But I guess I decided to disobey her this time.

It was loads of fun just talking to them and spending time playing games. I actually learnt my first card game. Its a very interesting game called Bluff. Of course, there was a dark side. Every wannabe thrilling tale has a dark side! The dark side here was tons and tons of white, dense fog. Lately, the fog's been a menace causing trains and flights to be delayed and downright cancelled. Its never happened this extensively before. Its a never before seen problem and its a downright pain in the ass.

Bloody Fog

It was this stupid fog that delayed my train by about four hours. And even then it was quite a fun ride till New Delhi. I met some rather interesting and fun people, met some silent beauties and had a little hero moment of my own. Yeah, I kinda saved a baby from falling from the top berth. Caught the little girl just as she fell, I guess my reflexes were super charged just after having the shitty train food. Maybe that horrible tasting dal actually had some secret reflex chargers. Oh what the hell! I saved the baby, got my applause, had some fun and finally tumbled into my station. But the real fun started after I got into the bus to my final destination.

Yeah, I got into the wrong bus and I had to change busses midway. On top of that I ran-off without even buying a ticket. On the second bus, that I took from Rajpura to Patiala, things got interesting. A couple of drunks got into a fight. There was a lot of abusive language and some broken teeth. Finally managed to get down and got back to my hostel at around 11:45 pm. DESTINATION REACHED!

Technorati Tags: india,travel,train,fog,photos,photography,girl

Look who's talking...

Should I be writing more? I always had this idea of starting a photolog but sadly could never get it to fruition. I guess there were many reasons behind it. First of all would be the lack of a decent digital camera(I bet you knew this was coming)! Well there is one camera that I'd really love to buy. It's the Nikon D90. But I will really have to wait till I can buy that camera... *nudge nudge**financial problems* But luckily I do have a Nokia 6233 which has a tolerable camera. I've taken tons of pics and collected the most interesting ones. And so I finally decided to start a photolog which features pictures taken from my cameraphone!! As usual I put my clicked pictures through the Lightroom and Photoshop combination and try to get it to look as good as it possibly can. I guess if I've said so much I might as well prattle a bit about my self.


Interests - Photoshop, Photography, Tech, Movies, Music, Video Games, Books(yeah I love reading books, not textbooks though!), Law(I'm in law school right now), Blogging(its an on again and off again thing)


Secret Childhood Dream - To become a superhero having the powers of Superman and Spiderman!   My Real Name - Sourabh Rath


Favourite Things in the world - Chocolate, Pizza, Friends, Warcraft 3, Photoshop, Colours, My Laptop and Bittorrent.

You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, Deviant Art, last.fm and Flickr.

I've experimented with competitive gaming, singing, painting and have come close to participating in moot courts on two occasions.[:P] I've also experimented with speed walking and have a bit of credible firing practice. I used to be viciously sarcastic in everything I said but nowadays I've managed to get a hold on it. I'm a fanatic for some things , a la chocolate, a complete nihilist for some other things and totally indifferent towards some more things...

This notice was observed in a mall, I just had to take this picture. It was like some invisible, irresistible force compelled me to do this. Please don't prosecute me!!!

Right now I'm studying Law. I'm in my first year and am having fun so far. Have some really amazing friends and life couldn't be any better... Damn, I lied again! All right, my life could be waaaay better. But lets not get into that right now. Have a brother who's three years younger to me and two caring and loving parents, who sometimes care so much that it irritates me to no end.

Technorati Tags: photos,mall,nokia,about+me