Grey days in Bangalore

It's been really drab here lately with the monsoons having finally hit with full force. The sky has been cloudy more often than not. It has rained almost every day for the last couple of weeks. Not all the time, but it rains hard for a while every afternoon. This has made it harder to get out of the house and do any photography. Saturday it was threatening to rain all morning, and the wind was really blowing. Unfortunately our house now has another house built up right next to the big picture windows we have on the ground and 1st floors, so it looks dark inside all the time. I was starting to feel a bit stuck, when I decided to head out anyways. Then the rains hit. I wasn't really feeling 100%--tummy problems-- so I gave up on Saturday and stayed home and read instead.

Sunday, I felt I just couldn't let the weather get the better of me. So about 3:30 I grabbed a rickshaw and headed for Sankey Tank--which is where the photo above was taken. It is the season to dunk Ganesha in the water, which is part of the reason I was itching to get out. I did manage to get a few photos of one being dunked, and later another showing up as I was getting ready to head back home. A couple of notes on the Ganesha activities. Some families have their own, and they come to dunk him, or do it at home in a bucket or elsewhere, but there are these larger ones which get taken around the neighborhoods. It seems that this activity is mostly young men, and they use a tractor, truck, or any other large vehicle capable of carrying him and them. They will decorate it up with flowers etc, and then they follow, or ride banging drums, and chanting loudly. Sometimes it will take them half an hour to go one block. Other times, they load up in the truck and go joy riding, yelling at everyone as they go by. It seems to be mostly a joyous celebration. And they are thrilled to have their pictures taken while doing this.

After wandering around the tank (or lake as we in the US would call it), I wandered down into Malleswaram. This is an older neighborhood close to Sankey tank. I wandered down Sampige road to the market, and back up. I must say it was nice to get out and wander around. I didn't even get rained on--lucky me. I did find this key maker, there is a fellow like him on the main road near our house too, but I got this one on camera. He shapes the keys by hand with various files. There is nothing mechanized about this process. (There are also higher tech places to get keys around). I also spotted these flowers which were knocked down by the rain into a construction site.

Last weekend we were invited to Manju's daughter's first birthday party. It was at his house. We had a nice time, but were again the guests of honor. We got the only chairs in the house (and there were about 25 people there); we got the first pieces of cake, the first food & drinks. I always feel a bit weird about this, but this is how it is done. Here is Manju with his daughter. You can see more on my Flickr page, including the candle which looked more like a bonfire and played music after opening up, and some of the other visitors.

And finally the grey days, sometimes lead to some fantastic sunsets. Here's one taken from the roof of our house. I was just trying out the camera.