Posts tagged "india"
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B Sides (India)
When I think back to the life I led in my 20s, I will be forever grateful and amazed that I got to do the things that I did. How did I figure out how to travel around the world, eating, working, writing, taking photos? I don't think that life exists anymore. Not in the same way anyway. But I really milked it for what I…
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The Best Camera is the One You Have
I have been an avid enthusiast of phone photography and videos even before iPhones arrived in the world. To that end, I still chuckle when I think about how in the mid 00s, I not only took cool photos that I still love today, using a Nokia N73, one of them even went on the front page of Flickr for a while! A photograph…
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Silhouettes
Most people love the Golden Hour. I also love the moment just before the sun sets where the light changes so quickly you don't know what you're going to get. A photo of temples at Angkor Wat, some time in 2005. Nikon F-601, not sure which film stock. A photo of camels in Jaisalmer, India. 2006. Canon 350D.
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Jharkhand Task List
Jharkhand task list photo Some of you may know that I have spent the last 9 years or so working to support children's education in Jharkhand, India. In better times I visit them 2-3x a year. I want to share something that stuck with me the last time I went: one of the girls we work with showed us their daily schedule.…
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Akhuni
I could not believe my eyes when my wife Sabrena put on an Indian movie on Netflix and we saw at least two Northeast Indians at once. On screen. Having lines. Being whole people. Doing something. Something that seemed important. "Axone" (pronounced Akhuni) - is a Naga speciality dish made with fermented soya…
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Kolkata Kalling
12 years ago I came to Kolkata for the same time. At the time it was still mostly referred to as Calcutta. Kolkata, where every return feels both familiar and new. The city doesn't change; but you do. Every picture I have of it from 12 years ago still looks like it could have been from December, when I last visited.…
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Paths
12 years ago this time I was deciding where I should go, what I should study, at university. I was also four months away from deciding I would try to be happy in spite of my newfound queerness. 11 years ago this time I was in Kolkata, volunteering with an organization, not knowing I would go on to do that in the…
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Gyanada 2014
As you may know, I set up The Gyanada Foundation last year. We've spent the past year building the organisation and learning as much as we can. Last year, we supported 150 girls in India. This year we hope to raise that number to 350, including the existing students we have onboard currently; also expanding…
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The Geography of Hope
At 18 I certainly believed I knew everything. I did not know just how much it'd hurt this boy's heart if I told him the inevitable: that I was in love with someone he could never be-a woman. We went to our favourite bar and sat glumly while he tried to drink away his pain and anger. At that time it felt as though life…
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Rebuilding
Almost exactly two years ago I was, too, on a flight to India.Only then I did not know exactly how drastic a turn my life would take on when I returned. More and more of my friends are getting diagnosed with diseases similar to mine. Autoimmune diseases are the new black.Across all of these experiences the one we've…
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An Indian Decade
I've been coming and going from India for the last ten years. In 2004 I started to hatch the first plans to flee the terrifying life laid out for me - that of a student in a Singapore university, doomed for the corporate world or for the civil service - into the wide open arms of India, which changed everything, and…
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A Weekend Getaway
As many of you will know by now, I have spent a substantial part of the past decade travelling through India. I still feel like I'm barely done with scratching the surface. There's just so much to see in that vast, amazing country that I call my second home. For some time now I've wanted to go to Coorg. Coorg, also…
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Gyanada Foundation Soft Launch
I've thrown myself headlong into work — real work, and then foundation work. India is an important part of my life and I owe everything to her. Over the past couple of months, my friends and I have been busy putting a little NGO together, the Gyanada Foundation. Today (Tues, 12 March) between 7 and 9 in the evening,…
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It Was All New
I have a tattoo on my lower back. It was given to me by the grandson of a tribal village chief. I grimaced for hours on the floor as he used the primitive tools and ingredients that had tattooed his Iban people for centuries, on me, a girl from a big city. I'd always wanted a tattoo, but didn't know what; this one…
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The Places We'll Go
Five years ago, I said: "Ask me again a year, three, or five from now and all I will remember is driving up, around, up, around, up, around, in the swirling clouds as the rain lashed at my windows and I feared for my life, balanced so daintily in this tin can navigating itself on the hairpin road." Plenty has…
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Taj Mahal Foxtrot
A note from New Delhi Taj Mahal Foxtrot, namesake of the book by the same name by naresh.fernandes Another new year, another bad habit: I'm late, again. Just a few days ago, I was sitting at the back of a Toyota Innova, stuffing my face with mithai and chips — not at the same time — thinking what a nice surprise it'd…
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Lakewood
Thiruvannaamalai to Yercaud, 155km, though it ended up a lot more I come from a place with no highlands. No real ones, anyway — the highest point, Bukit Timah Hill, is a mere 163 metres. Enough for families and joggers to work up a sweat on Saturday mornings; not quite enough to keep going. You run, you jog, you break…
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The Great Southern Trunk Road
Madras to Thiruvannaamalai, 185km I've often said India never calls for me, she mostly shouts. With India, there is no moderation: you either love her, or you hate her to death — she never cares for you, or you can't get enough of each other. It's clear which camp I fall into. I could have been in class, somewhere in…
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We Have No Dungarees, Saar
Madras, India There are slower ways of seeing India. On a buffalo. On a "two wheeler", a motorcycle, stacked to great heights with assorted luggage until you can't see what's in front of you. Or on foot, "by walk", like a sadhu with no clothes on. We travelled by autorickshaw. An autorickshaw isn't…
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Bombay Burning
I don’t have to tell you what happened in Mumbai. You already know it. I wasn’t there that day, and although I may at some point in the future, I have never lived here. Not in the real sense of ‘living’ somewhere, with bank accounts and rented residences, or jobs. But Mumbai is my city, my friends are Mumbaikars, and I…
26 posts tagged "india"