Happy Dasara!!!

Today is Dassara, the 10th auspicious day after the 9 days of Navratri. The day when Ram was victorious in the battle against Ravan and killed Ravan version 10.0. Effigies of Ravan are burnt down against the back drop of Ram Leela in many places. The day is marked with different kinds of festivities starting with an early pooja. Even the cars are worshipped and garlanded. Even we did pooja of both our cars this morning before I headed out to work. This day comes I think exactly 20 days before Diwali.

The 9 days of Navratri are filled with people gathering to play the garba and the dandia raas. Originated mainly in Gujrat, this has become a very popular social event and has spread not only across India but also worldwide. I myself not being a big fan of either of those, we decided to skip the event this year, even though I heard that it was very well organized and attracted a huge crowd. I remember going to this huge Durga pooja at the Shivaji Park and gasping as to how fierce but beautiful the huge idol of Durga looked.

Getting back to Flickr, below is the link to my photo stream:
My Photos on Flickr

Yellowstone Trip

Its been a week since we went to Yellowstone this summer and I am still going through the vast pool of photographs, deciding on which ones to upload. Since I bought my first digital camera, there is an exponential increase in the number of photos I have had to manage. My Picasa account is also almost full and am now considering buying a Flickr Pro account. It costs to create a Pro account but seems like its worth it and has less hassles to worry about space and other issues. Although I prefer Picasa any day ove Flickr due to its simplicity, I am warming up to the idea of switching to Flickr. Have some 500 plus photos to go through for this trip and it has been time consuming. Add to it the processing time of the photos in RAW format. But I like doing it and thats all that matters.

Weekends recently have been also busy with playing a cricket tournament. So there is even less time then. I don't know what the article is supposed to focus on: the awesome yellowstone trip or flickr or our cricket tournament? None the less, we had a great trip to Yellowstone this summer. It was our second time to that place and it was just as good as the first one. Though we did not get to see the same amount of wild life as the last time, it was a good outing with our friends. We saw a 2 hour documentary yesterday on Yellowstone, I think it was called "Yellowstone: Battle for Life" on Discovery and it was nothing like what we have seen there. This was about the survival tactics of the wild life there in winter. I had heard that they were going to keep all the loops open this winter in order to attract more tourists. One thing I would like to do there is camping, may be not in winter though. This time our group consisted of 14 of us. When in such a big group its always fun and cheaper to book a cabin/lodge there and we did just that. Our wooden lodge was in Island Park, Idaho, though a good 20 minutes from the west yellowstone entrance, it was gorgeous and most importantly tremendously spacious with an awesome wrap around deck/patio. As the path to Norris was closed we had to drive a lot on the first day to get to Mammoth and were kind of dissappointed to see just one point in the entire day, but it was fun when we returned to the lodge and grilled some juicy spicy tandoori chicken. And did I mention all the booze that flowed as if it was water. Then a few hours of the game Taboo which was cool with such a big group. Next day we managed to cover some important points on the way and managed to click some good photographs. Then some more food, booze and taboo. The final day started with an ugly hangover but we were in no rush to get back to SLC and slept in.

In the meanwhile I had abandoned this article for a while and have created a Flickr Pro account and have successfully uploaded a bunch of snaps of our trip. Out of those some have gone on Orkut too. I have also been looking out for a long time now for some good photography lessons/classes. But have not managed to find one. The one I found was really basic, like at a 'Dummies' level. Also in the mean while the cricket tournament has ended. We faired a notch better than the previous one but still have a long way to go. Hopefully the next year will be far better than this one. And with the season coming to an end we are trying to get in as much cricket as we can play. Apart from the results though, it was a wonderful experience, and has become some sort of a social event as our wives get to meet each other and gossip as well. Hardly a single sqeuak or a cheer is heard on the field as they gossip away. Alright it looks like its time to go for another of these socio-cricketarian events.