#311 Udaipur, Rajasthan

Last week, I visited one of the most beautiful cities in India, Udaipur. This also happened to be my first trip to Rajasthan, the desert state of India. Udaipur, however, is like an oasis; well I did not visit the sandy parts of the state, but Udaipur surely looked like an oasis. It is beautifully located in the laps of the Aravali mountain range, and is also called as the the Venice of the East and the Lake City. It was setup as final capital of the Mewar Kingdom by Maharana Uday Singh. You can read more about Udaipur on Wikipedia.

Pretty that it is, it did provide ample opportunities to take some great photographs. Being with a crowd is always bad when you want to set out on a lonely photowalk with only your camera. But here are a few shots I did manage to capture:

IMG_9050This is the Rangniwas Palace, a beautiful and inexpensive heritage hotel we stayed at.

IMG_9102Street side shops on Palace Road

IMG_9115The Udaipur City Palace

IMG_9133Inside the City Palace

IMG_9145Udaipur City, seen from the City Palace

IMG_9193Handicraft and other shops inside the City Palace Complex

IMG_9214Truly the most beautiful view, the city seen from Lake Pichola

IMG_9216The Lake Palace

IMG_9223The City Palace seen from Lake Pichola

IMG_9321Enchanting Folk Dance at Bagore ki Haveli

IMG_9348Crowd at Bagore ki Haveli

Clearly, these images do not capture even one percent of the beauty my eyes captured in Udaipur. I certainly will make one more trip! If you have a few days at hand and need a good break, head to Udaipur, today!

#233 That whereby we live

I generally claim to my friends that I stay in one of the highest apartments in Pune. And that is also true! I stay in Kondhwa which is itself amongst the highest areas of Pune above mean sea level and then my apartment is on the 11th floor. When I came to Pune, last monsoon, I would tell people that I get a breathtaking view of the entire city. I can see a long distance, upto the airport on one side and up to Sinhagadh on the other. Ticky tacky box-like buildings in the city and lush green hills on the other side made my heart sing. Come winter and all that was to go. The greenery faded away with the increasing atmospheric dryness. Decreasing temperatures meant that SPM (suspended particulate matter) would stay closer to humans longer. The visibility reduced drastically, from a few tens of kilometres, to a few hundreds of meters in the mornings. First I thought it was fog. Now the winter is over, and the fog just wont disappear. Every morning when I wake up, I see this dreary image. A real image. I feel terrible. I feel chocked and suffocated at the very sight of what I see. I wonder how I will breathe if I go down in the city… Continue reading

#197 Assimilating. One at a time.

Have been out of action on my blog for a pretty long time now. Have got lots to say and share with you all…

Shifted to a new city a few days back, started working, learning, meeting new people…

Takes time to settle down. Not much though. Takes time to understand things. Not much though.

Need time to put down things, properly, in one place, in this place!

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