Monday 21 January 2013

mundane monday - # 13

i should probably be calling today's pic 'anything-but-mundane' monday. unlike most other weeks where the photos are mostly of things that are in normal, everyday use, this week's subject is a bit different. its beautiful, vintage, and not something commonly used everyday.

this is a rakkodi (or rakodi or raakodi) - which is a traditional indian ornament or hair-piece, worn in the back-centre of a woman's hair. once a commonly worn ornament, it is today used only by classical dancers and as part of bridal hair-dos. it also remains a part of the traditional ornaments adorning deities in most south indian temples. and since such jewellery was originally meant for the use of temple deities, its called temple jewellery to this day.

the temple jewellery originally crafted for deities and royalty would have been in gold, but the later versions for dancers were made in silver, set with stones and given a gold plating. the traditionally used stones were a deep red and green, along with pearls. the special ruby-red stones are called 'kemp' and have a beautiful deep maroon shade, which is often difficult to find in modern day stones.

From mundane monday


coming to the piece that is in my possession, it is a silver one, passed down from my maternal grandmother. my mother's earliest recollection of it is around 1960, maybe it was bought even earlier. the piece is missing one or two stones here and there, but those that remain still retain their quiet, classy beauty, stirring your imaginations of life in the days gone by. it sits in a small wooden box, which has its own distressed vintage charm.

for those who are not familiar with them, another interesting piece of info about these traditional temple jewellery hair ornaments is that they never have any kind of clip or clasp to attach them ! they are tied to the hair with pieces of black string (black because indian women have always had black hair, unless coloured in modern days), and can only be done by those who have practice and experience in doing so.

btw, i hadnt posted about the edits to the photos in the past few weeks... as always i use nothing more than picasa to touch my pics, and this week i chose the 'focal b&w' effect in picasa which has made only the centre portion of the pic in colour. also added a little black vignetting around the corners, and used a little 'soften'ing.

Monday 14 January 2013

mundane monday - # 12


From mundane monday


everyone has something to keep safe and secure. but in a very ideal world, if no one desired the possessions of another and if everyone had very little to hold back from others, there would be no need for locks and keys, right ? its ironic though, that the more 'civilised' mankind has become, the more and more complicated and complex the locks.

it might come as a surprise to many that even today, there exists a place with no doors and no locks. in a small village called shingnapur in maharashtra, india, none of the houses have doors, leave alone locks. and yet there are apparently no reported cases of theft. the main temple of the village is that of Shani baghawan, who is the deity representing the planet saturn. the strong belief in the village is that any theft would be punished by the deity, and hence the buildings remain without doors & locks !

are you the kind who is particular about keeping your stuff off-limits to others ? can you imagine ever living without locks or without a door ?

Wednesday 9 January 2013

a colourful start to the year !

so its nine days into the new year already. and i havent posted a single word so far, though there was a lot running in my mind. that is in fact one of the main reasons why i didnt write anything. there was a lot going on in my mind alright, but most of it wasnt good. for a lot of reasons, i was filled with a lot of anger, frustration and resentment. my moods were crabby at best and bordering depression at worst.

as far as i can remember, i have generally been a happy and cheerful person not affected by circumstances, but of late the conscious choice to stay happy is becoming more and more difficult. i think my tolerance towards people and their idiosyncrasies is becoming lesser with age. thankfully though, i've been feeling much better the past two days, and in a much better frame of mind to write something.

thats enough rambling i think. now on to other things. i wasn't able to post this week's mundane monday because of internet connectivity issues (which, incidentally, has been driving me crazy, on and off, for the past couple of months). it got fixed (for now, at least !) and i spent quite some time yesterday and today catching up on some of the usual blogs and websites i frequent.

which led me to one of the coolest things i've seen in recent times, and i wanted to share it here.

have you ever thought of, or tried searching images by colour ? what if you could extract all images of a particular colour you want, from among millions of images ? somebody just found a great way to do just that.

just drop whatever you are doing, and try out the awesome multicolour search engine created by tineye labs. you can thank me later :)

you can choose any colour, or a combination of upto 5 colours, and see the images uploaded in flickr in that colour. you can even adjust the amout of each colour that you want. these are from among the creative commons images on flickr, and just page after page of colour unfolds before you !

heres a sample of what i tried - see what catches your fancy !

are you the kind who always thinks green ?



or like me, do you like teal and blue ?



or maybe you have a thing, for purple and pink ?


or do you need more than just fifty shades of grey ? :)



 and if nothing else works, how about a burst of sunny orange ?



try it out, and if you have an interesting colour combo, let me know !
have a colourful year ahead !

p.s : i first stumbled upon the multicolour search from here