The Udaipur Palace

The Udaipur palace silently speaks volumes of hundreds of years of history coursing through the very air you breathe there.  

A massive structure housing a collection of beautifully decorated courtyards, entire rooms made in stained glass, and a long lost history of splendor and untold stories, the palace takes your breath away.

It is also a nice location to get married. These guys let out the palace premises for grand weddings – the Hurley-Nayar type of weddings.

The Jaipur House

My hotel in Mt Abu.  

The Jaipur House is fashioned out of an old Rajasthani Haveli. Situated high up on a hill, way beyond the road where there rest of the regular three-storey concrete jungle type hotels are located, it gives a beautiful view of the Nakki Lake basking in the winter sun. Wide open terraces spread on different levels, quaint wooden chairs and guest rooms littered with antique wooden and metal mirrors and sofas make this place an absolute delight.  

No. They are NOT paying me to tell you this.

Sunset on Nakki

Few things are as beautiful as a mellow colored sunset spent floating on water under the cold open sky. Picture taken on in on Nakki Lake in Mt Abu.

Sifting sands

And we never realized when the sand sifted from under our feet,

and we were left groping in the water for memories.

Hanging on …

On to some threads I hang on,
And on a few, my hopes I pawn 

Sepia Church

Tainted with memories, a ruined church lies waiting under the wet monsoon sun

Tender Curves

Me in the drop

That’s me there, that blue speck in the drop of water.

This picture was taken at Vasai fort, last monsoon, early in the morning.

 

Vibgyor on the Earth

Though I cannot not touch you, while you poise up there in the sky,
I catch you unawares, when tired of posing, on the ground you lie

Hyde Park

Hyde Park is an unbelievable oasis in the middle of the busy noisy world of London. Enter the gates and lose yourself to the calm green environs of the park, to the children practicing skate boards, to the swans idling on the lake accepting nuts from passerby’s, to lovers strolling hand in hand, to the calm and serenity of dense foliage around and acres of green meadows as the sun goes down on this beautiful city.

 

Westminster Abbey

The summer sun falls on the Westminster Abbey in the morning, lighting up the square patch of bright green grass in the middle of the Abbey. This is a west side view of the Abbey. Shadow and Light, Green grass and Blue sky together come together to make a picturesque scene.

 

This is a side view of the long Nave which houses the tomb of Isaac Newton, now made famous by Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.

Trafalgar square

The historic Trafalgar square.  

This picture is taken standing on the entrance steps of the National Gallery – the one housing the Madonna of the Rocks. On the right are Piccadilly Circus, the entrance to the Buckingham Palace from where the marching guards enter and straight ahead, are Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The column is called Nelson’s Column and is flanked by four massive black stone lions on four corners.

The London Eye

The London eye is a lovely way to end a day of weary sight seeing in London. Take a relaxing 30 minute ride on the London, while it slowly takes you to the top of London. The best time to go up is the last ride of the day. That gives you a chance to see London in both daylight – the last fading light of the day and in the dark.  

Catch Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben flanking the Thames as you go up and St Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge as you descend.

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus is one of the rowdiest, noisiest and dirtiest places in the whole of the city. A huge statue of Eros is flanked by jazzy noisy sign boards on the neighboring buildings. The steps on the base of the statue are packed with people loitering around, smoking, drinking and hooting. Hookers beckon every passerguy, while ‘Fuck off’, ‘Fuck you’ are randomly thrown around. Weed smoke in the air and the whiff of alcohol. Ice creams wrappers strewn around, broken bottles lying around, not at all a pretty picture place.

 

The Natural History Museum

The Natural History museum house a huge collection of Dinosaur Bones, skulls, rare minerals, gemstones and other exhibits. Below are  

Fossiled Sea Molluscs embedded in stone   

Cavansite – found in only 2 sites in the world – Oregon, USA n Pune, India

  

Some nice-looking mineral – dont remember name

    

The Adorable Red Bus

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw them first was “Now that is so Mumbai – ishtyle”. The irony being that, these are probably the ancestors of our Mumbai buses.

The colonial hangover is deep!

 

Twilight zone

Undoubtedly one of the most majestic buildings in the city and probably the world too, the British Houses of Parliament and the famed Big Ben make for a pretty picture in the fading twilight.

 

Pictures taken from the Westminster Bridge.

The Roadside Wedding

This is one of the coolest events I have ever seen happening. This picture is taken outside Westminster Abbey where a couple were getting married without the usual hoopla.  Just the groom and the bride, the priest and the open skies. Oblivious to the noisy traffic and camera totting tourists behind them, they step into a beautiful world together.

A trip to the Queens land.

London. In my mind, London was grand, London was rich. London was splendor personified. London was aloof, London was international. London was classy, London was an A-lister. And then, the first day of landing in London, my very first sight was this.  

A roadside tent selling made-in-India scraves, made-in-China bags. Where you could bargain to your hearts content, exactly the way you bargain on Linking Road in Bandra, Mumbai.  The ensuing days changed my opinion of London drastically. More on that later …