Portraits from London Museums

In September 2014, I visited London along with family. Trip was a gift for my daughter on her 5th birthday. So trip was planned such that, places were given priority for her amusement, like aquarium, London eye, kids camp and huge shopping mall for toys. I tried my best to keep the photography at second place and first preference was given to Gauri. I carried OMD -EM5 Olympus camera, and two lenses, 12-50 and 40 to 150, on full frame it translates to 24 to 300. Camera and lenses are so small that, I could carry them in small waist pouch. Thanks to unbelievable  5way image stabilization of Omd –EM5 and great low light performance up to 6400 iso. Images are from two museums, Victoria and Albert’s museum and British museum; few images are from and around Buckingham palace and few are taken from the sightseeing bus. The art exhibited there was of par excellence, and very often from unknown artists. I tried to render it such that, how those art works evoked emotions within me (No offence to artists). After few years, once more I wish to visit London, just to see British museum. I stood there at the centre of British museum in silence amidst of vast human endeavour from Stone Age to Smartphone.

Emotions

Emotions are strange. Monsoon is setting in and nostalgia is slowly creeping in. Emotions represented in images. Sharing, happy, sad, thinking, trapped all feelings failed to expressed in words are here.

Life of Pi

My wife got bored of cleaning the home and wanted to watch a movie. Itunes- pay –buy- Life of Pi- But slow internet, life of pie trickled slowly into ipad all night. Next day life of pie was there on Pad. I can’t say she liked that movie. She did not give any review nor compelled me to watch and hence I assume that it was not great. Meanwhile, Gauri too watched partially “tiger wala” movie. But most important point is she did not watch the beginning of the movie. Now fast-forward 2 weeks. Her all pink-panther, curious George, snow white, Krishna and of course Doremon were over.  Sharp 10 pm my wife takes remote to watch Grey’s anatomy. After a short fight, Gauri is pushed to next room to watch her stuff on computer.

 I am relegated to do the job of computer operator or phone answering machine. Yesterday Gauri was suffering from running nose and mild fever. Her Random access Memory (all parents know how random child can be) accessed “tiger wala movie” aka Life of Pi. Opening shots fine, zoo part enjoyed- dialogue part got bored. Fast-forward the movie- or I have to explain the dialogues and the consequences. Questions pop up much faster than subtitles in the movie!!. Now ship scene has started. Rain, storm, ship sunk; boy and tiger survived. Meanwhile she forgot to clean her nosy and got engrossed in rapidly happening sequences. Cast away is drifting in the sea, then fish, then, meerkat, floating island......... she watched with few questions.

 Now, suddenly she popped up most important question; where are parents of the boy ( appa amma elli?). I said they are drowned (trying to give reality). She went to her mother and asked where his parents are?  She didn’t get satisfying answer. Now it is already 12 pm and Gauri is sleepy. But she is determined to find out fate of his parents. I said I don’t know. She said you know. She sat on my lap. I said may be in the end those parents come and pick up the boy from hospital. It gave great hope to Gauri. She sat patiently on my lap and watched last boring 15 mins with lot of dialogues. She did not ask anything. She was sitting quietly to see happy union of son and parents. Well, they never came. Ending titles started to roll. I turned off the PC and looked at Gaui’s face. She looked at me and said “I feel like crying” “( alakke bartha iddu) ”. Then she held me very tightly and asked “rain and storm over?” 

Epilogue: Since she did not ask about his parents, I think she realized what happened and hence the question about rain and that hug.( Photos are just represent Gauri's mood)