Wishing You Merry X-MAS

Let me wish all my dear blog readers a happy Christmas and prosperous new year.

The birth of the lord in Jerusalem was first witnessed by cattle, followed by shepherds and three wise men from the east. God always gave preference to simplicity through out history and the birth of the King of the Kings reassured simplicity.

MAG Photo Exhibition (MindTree’s Artistic Guild)

Along with MindTree’s tech fest – Osmosis, a photo exhibition was held on behalf of MAG (MindTree’s Artistic Guild) promoted by Subroto Bagchi. From among 1200 photos and art pieces, 100 were selected for the photo exhibition. Happy to share with you all that the above two photographs were selected for the final exhibition.

Well known photographer Mahesh Bhatt and journalist Vinita Shetty judged the exhibits and they put star rating for each art works. The winner got a three star rating, who took the photograph of a fast moving cyclist through a busy market.

Let me proudly share that the first photo published above got a star rating of one; a monkey watching the valley down from a tress projected out from the peak of Nandi hills. Both these photos are already published in my blog.

Nellu Koythu – The Harvesting of Paddy in Wayanad

I made a promise to my dear readers when I published the article Njattumkandam that I would be back with the photos of the harvest season. See Njattumkandam here ==> Njattumkandam

Finally the time of paddy harvest for the farmers of Wayanad is arrived, December; the season of fog, the season of beautiful clear sky, the season of Christmas, the season of happiness, the season of waiting for the new year and so on. The slanted sun rays during this winter season, fog, happiness in the hearts of people - everything makes Wayanad's beauty tenfold during December.

The night time too turns beautiful with a clearer sky with more starts visible than during the other eleven months. Off course the decorations of cities and individual houses for Christmas adds to the peak.

In most of the paddy fields, harvest will be over before Christmas, making the cattle farms filled with hay ready for the rebirth of Jesus. For the tribal people who alone have the expertise of harvesting the paddy, it is the end of “Pathambu”. The word Pathambu means a whole cycle of the paddy cultivation. A group of tribes will take the responsibility of cultivation of paddy from Individual land owners starting from growing the seeds till the paddy is harvested. The profit for the above process for the tribes was given to them as a share of the result of the cultivation.

Katta

“Nellu” as the paddy seeds reaped are called has become the name of a very famous old time Malayalam movie, which mainly described the story of a race of tribe in Wayanad. The famous song from this movie “Kadhali Chenkathali” sung by Lata Mangeshkar will be in the heart of every true Keralite.

Katta

On tenth of December, I woke very early in the morning and reached the paddy field owned by us at 6:00 am. The harvest in this field was about to start the same day. I enjoyed the wonderful morning before sunrise with dew drops hanging from the paddy plants and the spider web created on them, making it astounding.

The sun slowly peeped through the fog covered sky on the top of some coconut trees in distance. The golden rays of the sun made the paddy field also golden as well as the fog turned golden. Wav! Such a nice chance for photography! After taking a few more snaps I returned home to have my morning tea and breakfast.

Later around noon time I went again to the field and got some more photographs. The hay with the seeds in them is made as a bunch and carried on head by tribes to the ground where the seed will be separated from the hay. This hay bunch is called “Katta” and the process of separating the seeds from the hay is called “Okkal”. In olden days this was done by hand manually by beating a bunch of hay on the ground repeatedly of with the help of OX pulling a stone above the hay spread on the ground.

When technology progressed most of the work is done using a tractor. It starts right from ploughing the field to harvesting the rice crop and separation of the crop from the hay.

Picnic to BanasuraSagar – Wayanad

18th of November was a cloudy day. I was there in Payyampally to Sajith’s engagement with Shymol. After attending the betrothal, we four planned to visit this wonderful place – BanasuraSagar.

Along with my mother, Baby chettan and Unni chettan (Bennison – Texas Computers, Mananthavady) I started towards Manchoora and BanasuraSagar. We stopped in-between for coffee and reached the location within one hour from Payyampally.

I could not believe my eyes. I was not ready to believe Bennison’s words when he said that we have such a beautiful location in Wayanad. I never expected such a beautiful place in the midst of Wayanad where most of the places are hilly.

We reached Manchoora first and got a good view of the storage area of the dam. There has been a lot of protest from the people of Wayanad against the construction of this dam. Yes, a dam causes a lot of places to be swallowed by the water making the living creatures naturally inhabited to move on to find some other place or they just die and disappear.

The blue-green mountains visible behind the dam are an ideal location for trekking and mountaineering but with risks of animal attacks. I am researching about how to do that, I mean where to start, which all paths are available for trekking up the mountain, how safe it is, how long it will take etc…

Dragonfly Up above the Clouds

The dragonfly was caught accidentally while taking this photograph. I was trying to take the golden line over the border of the clouds. What if we could fly like a falcon? We could have taken amazing photographs and do many more wonderful things.