I haven’t had much of a chance to get around the blog world lately with my things getting rather hectic during the day and then evenings at the hospital. Today morning, I thought I’d quickly do a round of some of the familiar bloggers and what do I find!

– Madman who’s gone off to Singapore on a holiday (because the air fares were too damn cheap!) is now blogging his travel adventures here.

– Kiruba’s gone off and shut his blog. And so yet another popular blog comes to an end. Of course, one can always hope for reincarnations - they’re quite the done thing nowadays. (and managed to make a fool out of all of us :).

– Nilesh has gone off and won the Best South East Asian / Indian Photoblog - a big congratulations to him - he’s a talented young lad behind the lens! Congratulations, Nilesh :)

I’d like to have visited all the states in India in the next couple of years.

UPDATE: I had to remove the image link as the linked site seems to have disappeared!

Just a few images to leave you with as we reach another weekend.

It was early last Sunday morning when I was driving down towards Mekhri Circle. There are some nice roads in that area, and I noticed this particular stretch with the sun filtering through. I was late for our early morning shoot with fellow shutterbugs Shankar & Sabir, but I had to stop to capture it!

For the early morning shoot we headed to Hebbal Lake. We were quite late and the sun was out already. That’s Shankar in the distance looking for spiders. Having just bought his expensive macro lens he was just raring to go.

Along with a few members of the office photography club, last Friday evening we went on a night shoot. This was at the end when we were packing up and I noticed this corner of the High Court looking really prettily lit up. I immediately unpacked my tripod to take this last shot. There were a lot of cars passing by, but thankfully, I managed to dodge them.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was showing some of my family members our office campus when I noticed this brother and his little sister share a moment beside the pool.

This is on at Rangashankara on the weekend (25th, 26th, 27th March). If you’re a Bangalore blogger and want to catch it on Saturday or Sunday evening, do let me know. We can even do a mini-blog meet at the cosy cafe… Please leave a comment or send me an email or call (if you have my number :)

UPDATE: Tickets are sold out on Saturday unfortunately! Let’s hope Sunday is available.

I was at the Forum mall on Friday evening buying tickets for a movie. In the queue behind me, a girl and boy were discussing something and nudging each other.

Terrorist… commented the guy to the gal and they nudged each other again. AK-47 whispered the guy, behind my back.

Only then I realised they were referring to me! Later that evening I was going to meet some of my office photography club colleagues for a night photo shoot. I had my tripod over one shoulder and it tends to look rather menacing.

I had to resist the impulse to turn on them, uncover my AK-47 and start shooting right there.

Colours of spring, originally uploaded by anita.

I love the beautiful colours in spring time. It’s all too brief though. And the purple and yellow flowers only blossom for about a couple of weeks but they look incredibly beautiful.

I took a walk around the neighbourhood a few days ago and captured a few of the purple blossoms, which graced every corner. Sadly, they’re all gone now and the summer is upon us with real gusto. It’s been so hot lately, that I feel like I’m back in Mumbai again.

I’ve been using Flickr.com pretty frequently since it appeared on the Web. I like the interface and the presentation of the application. On Sunday night over dinner at a place called Magnolia, we - Adel, Kaushal and I - were discussing the Web’s next apps. Actually, I was pretty zonked having been awake since about 6 am in the morning, but the two of them were going great guns.

Amongst the topic of the conversation was Flickr.com and who it would sell out to. And hey - they must’ve heard us - because the news broke the next day that Ludicorp was selling out to Yahoo! I’ve been thinking about getting a Flickr pro account, but now I think I’ll just wait and see for a while longer.

Kaushal is another Mumbaiite who has moved to Bangalore recently and is currently in the process of settling down in the new city. He blogs at kronicles.blogspot.com. In fact, there’s news that another Mumbai blogger (and we’re not naming him yet) is moving to Bangalore soon. So looks quite a few people are looking southwards :)

We also caught a movie called Chai Pani etc before dinner. When Adel told me about the movie, I thought it was one of those 3rd grade gangster flicks. When he said it had Konkona Sen Sharma I felt a little better (that woman is everywhere these days!). The movie was actually quite good. I had seen the main actor, Zafar Karachiwala in a play called Class of 84 a couple of months ago and found him pretty good. The only thing I found strange was Konkona playing a double role (though she did a good job), the two characters she played were looking too similar. Even though they dressed up one in khadi, long kurtas, dupattas, bindis and nose rings. The movie made an attempt to show how life goes on in India - despite everything - and though the concept was not new, the treatment was pretty good and it had its fun moments. Worth a watch, if you are looking for something to do after a hard day at work!

Also watched Aviator on Sat evening. I know it’s been written about everywhere. I actually thought the movie was a little too long (the feeling you get after an Ashutosh Gowarikar film!). But the acting was good. Leonardo and Cate Blanchett were excellent. I can imagine why Leonardo would have been disappointed to lose out on the Oscars. But apparently, James Foxx was even better in Ray, according to those who have seen the movie. I missed it when it came to Bangalore, so I will have to wait till the video is released.

I thought the skiing course was really reasonably priced at Rs 4500. And then I went and slipped on the snow and hurt my knee. I ignored it for a few weeks, thinking it was yet another small injury. But that was not to be. The knee now has already cost me a few thousands to repair already :)

My 10-day physiotherapy started yesterday and I must say I rather enjoyed it. Earlier, I would feel physically sick whenever I had to go to the hospital for anything - usually to visit someone.

But Manipal where I thought I’d get my knee treated is nice and clean (and mighty expensive, I might add). There are user-friendly boards everywhere (and cash counters too :) at every corner. Last evening, they put this machine over the injured knee and let it get all warmed up. It felt rather good actually, as I nearly dozed off. The physiotherapist, a young peppy woman who joined a year or so ago, kept me busy with her chatter. She promises that all my bones and joints are intact and I just need rest to let it heal. I was rather scared about a permanent injury.

Getting back to my point, I am not fond of visiting hospitals at all. I guess most of my distaste comes from the state of some of the hospitals I have had the misfortune to step into. I have one particularly bad memory of the Guwahati Medical College hospital where everything is so depressing, you’ll fall sick even if you aren’t!

The beds are creaky, the sheets are dirty, the walls are covered with spider webs and falling apart, you can hardly step into the loos (they’re so disgusting), there are people sleeping everywhere (beds, floors, corridors), syringes thrown carelessly in corners, overflowing bins. I wonder how anyone gets better there! I had to go there during a family emergency and I hope I never have to go there again. I’m just amazed at how doctors manage to work there despite all of this.