If you call cigarettes cancer sticks, then these must be called cancer poles. Someone from our client's office was driving me to our office in Melbourne and he told me that these high-tension power cables cause cancer. I thought how utterly rubbish it was but then I realized that he is not the only one to say so. There have been studies to suggest that they do cause cancer and there have been studies to suggest they don't pose any threat to health. So far it has not been conclusively decided that these do or do not cause cancer.

A lot of trees around my house are shedding leaves including the almond trees and these trees. I don't know what these are but they seem to take much longer to grow new leaves, the almond tree that shed leaves a week ago is green again. It is full of leaves but the size is a little smaller. I guess the tree on the right is an almond tree as that also has some new leaves. The new leaves are bright and shiny but very soon they will all be covered in dust caused by the construction around our society.

Everything was going according to the plan. Karim “Katta” and Chakram “Chakku” held up the staff of the bank and cleaned the safe in 90 seconds flat. Outside the bank Pappu “Paddle” was waiting in the getaway car. The car was racing down the Western Express Highway and they could have escaped the cops who started chasing them but unfortunately Pappu “Paddle” couldn't stand the heat and pushed the car a little too much. The engine caught fire and the whole car was burned quicker than you can say “robbery”. The car is still lying on the Highway and all three culprits are serving a sentence. They were last heard planning another robbery after they get out and this time they are planning to rope in a better driver for the getaway car.

This flower is called “chudail booti” (witch flower) in Punjabi and it is wild flower. In north nobody really cares about this flower and it usually grows in the hedges and it is never offered in the temples in north India. It may not be considered good but I have nice memories of it. As a child I used to visit my aunt in RK Puram in Delhi and this used to be on the hedges of all the houses. On my way to her home from the bus stop I used to pick these. I liked them because it is not just a flower but a bouquet of flowers, all these tiny flowers are a part of a single flower which is a little over an inch in diameter. These are usually found in yellow, orange and pink colors.

We are known by the company we keep. Lying on the ground, passed out, hugging a bottle of Vodka, this friend of Lars Olsson Smith doesn't seem to be keeping a good company. This shot was inspired by Manu who used to make this teddy sit on this tiny pink chair.

Here is the much awaited sequel to Absolut vodka shots. I posted a few shots of Absolut few months ago and I have been planning to upload a few more. I had about four more shots but now I feel I will post only two-this one and another one tomorrow.
You can check out the other shots too
Absolut Vodka
Absolut mistake
Absolut Clarity

I told you my uncle's story but I didn't tell you about this building. If you have not figured it out, this building is named after the mother of Alexander the Great—Olympia and it is situated in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai. Powai is one place that seems to have enjoyed the services of a town-planner. This place is clean, has footpath, the roads are decent and it is not congested. But I may be speaking too soon. There are more buildings coming up there in the open spaces that may turn this place to be like the rest of the city.

“The image of Bombay I had in my mind was that your bags get stolen the moment you reach the railway station” my uncle told me while visiting me more than two years ago. Because of his experience, he was more than a little scared of coming here. Fortunately his experience of coming to Bombay did not involved lost or missing baggage but I almost got my bag nicked while taking this picture. I was in Hiranandani Gardens in Powai with Mira and Manu and I was taking pictures of this building when a man stopped by my car, attracted by the open bag lying on it. He pretended to look on the other side of the road but his eyes were clearly on my bag. I guess he was really disappointed when I picked my bag and left...or maybe he was relieved that he didn't tried to pick it up while the owner was standing right next to him and that too with a camera.

“Who is it?”
“Courier, have a parcel for you.”
“Great! This must be the leaves I had orderd. You know the old ones were no good so I got rid of them and ordered new ones.”
“I am sure these will look good on you sir. Sign here please.”
“Sure, here you go”
“Thank you, sir”
The tree opens the packet and...
“Darn! forgot to order glue. How am I going to stick them on.”

Comments by Shiv and Abhijit told me that I have made it to the finalist of Photobloggies 2007. Picturejockey is nominated for the Best Southeast Asian Photoblog. A big thank you to all who nominated me and Thanks Shiv, Abhijit, Aashish for your wishes. I know this is not too different from the shot I posted on Valentine's Day but this is the one that I felt was most appropriate.

These are the floor tiles outside the Asiatic Library in South Bombay. You may find it odd, but these interlocking tiles that are used for making footpaths and other floorings always fascinate me. This also reminds me of Yin and Yang. You can also see how a texture is also added to make sure these are not slippery when wet although I am not sure how effective is this.

The previous two shots were of 5-pound notes with the face of Queen Elizabeth II. This is a cent of US with the face of the 16th president Abraham Lincoln. The face on UK currency may change when a new ruler comes but the face on this coin doesn't need to change when a new president is sworn in. Similarly the smiling face of Gandhi doesn't need to change from our Indian currency... at least till the time we get a party in power that has a completely different ideology, one that hates Gandhi.

There is this insignia kinda thingy that is on a lot of places in UK and I am told it is specific to Queen Elizabeth. It looks like . If it really is specific to Queen Elizabeth than I am wondering what will happen when Charles, or whoever becomes the King. That sign will have to be replaced by a sign specific to him. Will they scrap the entire currency and make new one? There are a lot of other places too with that sign like mailboxes. What will they do with them? I guess that is why the democratic nations don't have currency with the pictures of current rulers.

Her face is on the currency of UK. I guess it is somewhat like a small image album for her to sho how she has aged over the years. If she had cared to keep a note everytime a new picture of her is painted on it, she could arrange them in a chronological order and see her face change from what it was in 1952 when she became the queen to what it looks like now. To see how her profile has changed, I guess she can refer to a postage stamp collection.

Today is one of those days when almost every company is trying to make money out of your emotions. For the past few days the newspapers are full of ads of suggested gifts for Valentine's Day right from holiday packages and gold jewelry to restaurants. Just think if there were not so much of hype around these festivals created by these companies, would people still be buying so many gifts? If not would they really be missing out on the spirit of these festivals?

David thinks it is an Eagle but one of my friend confirmed that this is a kite and I guess he is right. Eagles are usually bigger than kites and although there is nothing else in the frame to indicate the scale but since I have seen it sitting on the terrace, it is indeed smaller than an eagle.

Even if I continue staying in my house, I will lose the view I have and I will also lose magnificent birds like this who will not come here once there is another row of buildings separating their home from ours. This is either a eagle or a Kite that was sitting in the roof of our building. Apart from this, there are owls, parrots and some really big bats that we see around our house because there is only a road separating the Aarey colony and our building. Unfortunately Oberoi builders are making a housing complex where Fantasy Land used to be and once that is built, I guess we won't see these birds anymore.

Some things are built to last like the things you see in Indian trains and this letterbox. If it was a little lighter it might have been uprooted in the night and could have been sold as scrap metal. Stealing metal is such a big crime in India that now the covers of man holes are made of concrete instead of steel.

One of the things people visiting us from north indulge in is shopping. They go crazy and usually have to buy an extra bag to carry the stuff they end up buying here. During one of those shopping sprees Mira's sister bought these for Mira. This has left Manu confused who still thinks it is aunty's chappals.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was surprised to see this can on the shelf of a shopping mall. When I got closer I realised it is not the beer but a “non-alcoholic” drink. I am not sure why they make it. In India alcohol and tombacco ads are not allowed in media so a lot of companies make verious items ranging from water to soda and music CDs to clothes with same brand name as their whisky, rum, beer or cigaretes so they can advertise them. You will see an ad of Soda with people enjoying something in glasses and making merry and you will automatically think of the whisky of the same brand.

The license raj is supposedly over in India but still there are plenty of things for which you need a license and getting those licenses are not easy. Among those is a bottle shop. Getting a license for selling booze in not an easy thing ad every year the license of such shops is renewed. Just before those licenses are to be renewed, there is a big sale with booze available at a very cheep price because they don't want to be left with a huge quantity of booze if the license is not renewed. This is why I was quite surprised to see this can of Beck's in my local shopping mall. More on it tomorrow.

You can see both in these flowers. It is full of new flowers that have just blossomed or are about to bloom and along with them are flowers that are already dead. I took this picture a long time ago in Powai.

“The stupid instruction leaflet said I will get more volume body if I blow dry my hair with the New Super Ultramatic hair dryer and this is what I got. Gotta sue those misleading bastards for fraudulent advertising.”

As I have mentioned earlier as well, my decision to buy something is sometimes based on how the picture of that thing will look. This bottle of starbucks frappuccino coffee is no exception. I picked up this bottle when I read the name Starbucks. I put it down when I read the price and finally put it in my cart when I realized that I liked the shape of the glass bottle and the graphics. I have not tasted it yet but hope it will not disappointing like the Schweppes tonic water.

I held on to this picture for quite some time because I was not sure why I liked. The only thing I knew was that I did like it. Please let me know if you like it or not and why.

After reaching Australia, the first thing I did (after calling up home) was to write letters to most of my friends and posted them. A couple of days before I had to post them, I spotted a letterbox quite near the tram stop where I lived. "Nice thing, I won't have to go too far to post my letters," I said to myself. When I tried to post the letters, I was completely baffled, as I couldn't find a slot. A man saw me revolving around the letterbox and said "This is an old mail box, not in use anymore. If you want to post letters, use that one" and pointed another mailbox just a few steps from there. The mailbox I was trying to use was the old fashioned one and they had discontinued using them and had installed the new boxes but kept the old one for aesthetic value.

Just like I started liking Ambassador because of its dated looks, I have started liking the mailboxes here for their dated look. I prefer these to the cubical boxes that they have now. The sad part is that these are not maintained with love. If you see the pin code is actually dome with a common stencil of 4000, the neXt two digits, the most important ones, have been left out as they were to be painted manually. Similarly the time of next clearance is to be changed in that slot by the postman every time he collects mail but he is not bothered about it.

About 10 years ago, I used to get very excited by the end of the year and every time I leave or enter my house, I would look in the letterbox for New Year greeting cards. At the same time, I used to visit the card shops and would buy greeting cards that I would be sending out, different kind of cards for different kind of people. I would buy some very relevant cards for close friend and generic cards for the rest. Now I don't even bother looking at the letterbox for those cards as no one is sending them anymore. The only one sends and receives now are the SMS and the ecards.