While looking at my old pictures I found this picture. I am not sure why I didn't post it at that time so here it is.

But three is not necessarily a crowd...specially if it is beer bottles. Somethings get stuck in your head and one of thos things is the ad of “The Inkeeper” I saw in Australia all those years ago singing “There are twenty four stubbies of beer in a slab”. So many people lose their driver's license in Australia because of drink driving. There is a huge opportunity waiting to be exploited but there are no takers. If they could follow Bombay where you can get even a single bottle of beer delivered to your doorstep in resonable time, you could help so many people drink in the safety of their homes rather than running their cars in electric poles.

At this time of the year the almond trees lose their leaves. The leaves turn red from green; they yellow before finally falling on the ground. In a matter of few days the entire tree is left without a single leaf. This reminds of the Gulmohur tree. On this trip to Delhi I realised that there are Gulmohur trees in north India as well. The strange part is the time of their bloom. In Bombay they are full of flowers just before the monsoon but in north, they are having flowers now and that is how I realised those were Gulmohur tree.

Same bike as yesterday. Looking at this bike I am reminded of the Moto Guzzi motorcyles, specially by the way the engine is sticking out.

I don't know what one of my neighbor does but I have seen him with some old and some new motorcycle including a really old Royal Enfield Bullet in his living room on seventh floor. Seriously. This old BMW also belongs to him. I was trying to do some work on the project I was working on but just couldn't so I decided to take my camera and go downstairs and I saw this bike. I was planning to take its pictures for a long time and there I was ready with the camera but I am not really happy with the shots I got.

Some people don't realise how awful they are at singing. You will notice that the loudest person in any bhajan singing group is the most besura of them all. The same is true for the two brothers who have been doing Ram lila near our home. They are the most awful people I have seen and heard and the nosiest one too. In the middle of the night when one is trying to sleep they will shout their dialogues that will make god wish that he should not have given language skills to humans. Then after a scene of three minutes, they will break for half an hour to change the sets and while that is happening there will be all sort of nonsense going on the loudspeakers.

As I mentioned I was not too well while in Delhi. I was sitting with my camera in my hand thinking of what to photograph. During they day there were a few squirrels around this lamp and on the tree next to it but at this time there was nothing, just the light and the silhouette of a few leaves of the neem tree.

I never get tired of taking picture of a few things over and over and one of those is the airport and the planes. I feel a little uncomfortable taking pictures at the airport because the rules keep changing almost daily. Sometimes it is “strictly” prohibited to take pictures at the airport and at other times it is perfectly all right to do so. I do switch on the camera and click a few from the window of the airplane.

I am back in Bombay after my holiday in Delhi and Punjab. It was fun because I attended a wedding after many years and not so good because I fell sick in Delhi. Mira's brother got married and like any other north Indian wedding, it was fun. I took some image at the wedding but those images are in the card that Mira has so I will be posing them only after they come back to Bombay in November. Till then I will post some other images I shot in Delhi.

It is a very pleasent change to see the clouds and sky from 35000 feet above the ground. What you see is in total contrast to the ususal Bombay sky. It is amazing how blue it looks and how white the clouds look, even whiter than their whitest rin or tide white.

If you go to interstate bus terminus in New Delhi, you can hear the bus conductors shouting the names of destinations “Chandigarh, Chandigarh” or “Ambala, Ambala” and so on. The same is now the scene at the airports now. You can hear the airlines people coming to round up people of their flights “Any people traveling to Delhi by Indian Airlines”. The budget airlines have made flying affordable but have created some problems and not to forget the queue of planes waiting for their turn to take off and land.

As you all know, Manu wants me to buy a plane for him. Over the weekend I thought I should do a market survey and see what all is available. I saw quite a few of them and finally settled for this Boeing 747. It is quite spacious and with some modification, you can have a pretty decent thing going. It was almost finalised but then I realised that it will be way too bigger for my parking so I dropped the idea.

A few days ago manu took a broken plastic hanger and stuck both ends of it in his ears “I am a Doctor” he declared. His next visit to the doctor made him like the stethoscope even more. Since he was so interested in it, I bought him a doctor set and this is the stethoscope from it. I guess this set was targeted at girls but Manu is not old enough to refuse it for it's pink colour. He likes it and keeps performing his check on Mira and me. Why do all the kids want to be a doctor or a pilot or something like that. I have never met a kid who wants to become a graphics designer or an accountant or one of those careers that more people end up with than doctors or pilots.

This is a picture where it looks more like what it is—a toy. If you look at the nose of the aircraft, it looks like it is smiling. This is the first trip when Manu was old ebough to understand the full magnitude of a plane as I mentioned yesterday and he is fascinated by it. While talking to him over the phone, he said “Papa is going to buy a big aeroplane for me”. Wondering if I should start an airline.

Manu and Mira flew to Delhi today. Till last afternoon we were thinking that the flight was i the evening and realised it was in the morning when I was taking a print. Then the flight was further preponed by 15 minutes. After the security check Mira called me that they are in the bus going to board the plane. A few minutes later I got a call that due to some technical reasons the flight was delayed and she was back at the airport. Fortunately the flight was about half an hour late and when Manu landed in Delhi, he was quite excited and was showing the big nose, the big feet and the big arms of the aeroplane. Funny what kids see, once he pointed at the rear view mirroe of a car and said “Look. Car's ear”

Everyne wants something or the other. He wants the body of a Mr Olympia and I want to cut down on my cummute time. I am now spending about 3 hours a day travelling for work and I have to start two hours earlier than my previous job. I just wish there was some way that could prevent this wastage of about 15 hours a week.

The other side of the same clip posted yesterday. Handsome and Valuable—What more can you ask for

When I think about it, there are quite a few of my past jobs that I joined in the month of October. I joined Ad-Mag in Melbourne almost exactly 10 years ago on 2nd of October. I know now what do people mean by time flying. It was ten years ago that I joined Ad-Mag but it definitely doesn't seem that long ago.

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