1950s Filmfare Covers.

Stumbled upon these lovely covers of Filmfare magazine during 1950s, and thought of sharing with you all here.

Jeremy Scott for adidas 2013

I had to share this collection in the middle of my own happenings.

You can always expect a bold style when it comes to Jeremy Scott and this time is no different.The collection features plaids, billiard balls, cheetah prints, totem pattern and wings!

Abids Forever!

Hyderabad has developed in leaps and bounds. The city has touched gold since Chandra Babu took over as the CM way back in '95. Since the development of the Hi Tech city on the skirts of Jubilee hills, the main shopping and activity magically moved to Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills. It is a pity scene today. Ask anyone who has visited the nizam city recently, all they talk about is the 'happening' BH and JH, for them Abids, Nampally are just out of the city. And ask any true Hyderabadi, they will vouch for Abids as the main centre.

Yes ABIDS, the name synonymous with shopping and spending quality happy time with family or catching up with the latest release, had a shop belonging to a jewish valet called Albert Abid of Nizam VI of Hyderabad state, hence it came to be known as Abids.

For some, the association have to do with school, college, studying or teaching and for many, like me, its the visit to the cinema or eating out, shopping or leisurely browsing old books on a sunday afternoon.

It had the most english medium schools, Grammar, Stanley, Little Flower to name a few, and kids studying in any were considered 'smart'.

The beautiful Taj Mahal Hotel

Heritage building, once belonging to a Parsi family and later turned into the Taj Mahal hotel, was my family's favorite destination to have yummy south indian Dosa, Idly or full meals, before catching up with the latest release at Santosh-Sapna (I must have had seen more movies in Santosh theatre than at IMAX or INOX.) or Ramakrisha 35mm/70mm theatre. For delicious hyderabadi dinner, we had always gone to Annapurna Hotel on Abids-Nampally road at times after the movie.

Santosh-Sapna Theatre

FD Khan Stores

The Book Store

The Frame Store

FD Khan is one place where the parents will most certainly take their kiddies for their uniforms or school bags shopping, while Femina boutique was gor grown up girls. My mom had always shopped for my dad at S Kumar next to Annapurna Hotel.

Although I had discovered it much later, the area have two historical stores, one catering to framing and other for book lovers.

Abbas and Co has been in the framing business since 1931, “very soon we are going to be heritage”, said the proud owner and extremely friendly Mr. Fakruddin. And one has to mention AA Hussain in the same breath when talking about books.

If you are looking for authentic leather jackets or bags or belt, then head to Abids. If you are looking to explore the churches of Hyderabad, then head to Abids.

Ofcourse its a little differnt story today with the high end glitz or glamour and fast paced of Jubilee Hills can never understand the politeness and slowness of Abids. Thats the charm and character of Abids. Still.

Whether shopping for festivals, special occasions or for that matter anything, Abids was the answer to hop and explore. Its 'Abids forever' for many of us!

A trip to this area is like recharging ones battery.

I used to look at this wonderful architecture with amazement

Meena Bazaar Lane

The Drowning Church of Karnataka

Last monsoon around August I had gone exploring Karnataka as it's blissfully best during monsoon. The very picturesque locations, that at times makes it all so unreal. And not to mention travel by road from Bangalore to Mysore to Hassan and return for the unexpected adventure and fun.

So soon after reaching Hassan from Mysore, I had little time to either relax at the hotel or go explore the famous Drowning Church in Shettyhalli located 13 kms from Hassan. Of-course I decided to explore and glad I did it.

I discovered this church mentioned in Lonely planet, so I decided to check it out. It was close to the evening and the clouds had started to gather but that did not deter me or my friend, Inderjit Nagi, from going ahead. Luckily we had hired a cab from the hotel with a driver who was well versed with the location of this church.

The cabbie took us to the near by bridge from where we could see the church. Not very satisfied i asked him to take us for a closer look. He was quiet sporty. Brushing the muggy and slippery off track road where we almost missed the narrow mud track that takes you close to the church. There was no one around to ask for directions. We parked at a spot and walked through the high bushes along the mud track until we reached an open area from where we could see the submerged church. And the view was breathtaking!

It was built by the French over a hundred years ago and is now submerged under Hemavathy reservoir. From what I understand, the church is not always submerged under the water, but it was hard to imagine it that way as it looked like it was frozen in time. The dark clouds, the still waters and the eerie silence around added to the spookiness. We were the only ones around. It was convincing that there must be hundreds of stories lying buried within its walls – stories of hope, belief, pain, destruction and fraternity. Stories that beckoned travelers like me, but left us unsettled looking for answers.

And i went click, click, click……

Matheran!

So one fine day I decided to explore Matheran by myself as most of my friends were not in the mood to go 'that far'.

Getting to Matheran is half the fun; It is well connected and the nearest station from CST is Neral Station at the bottom of the hill. It takes approximately one and a half hour to reach Neral from CST. At Neral one can avail taxis which cost about Rs 250 to go till Dasturi. Its a very scenic one hour journey through the valley climbing the hill top. From Dasturi Naka one can either walk (its so much fun, especially as you will be walking on the red earth)or take a pony for Rs 200 to reach Matheran. Besides, shared taxis are available for only Rs 50.

Mumbai-Neral, 90 kms. Neral-Matheran,21 kms.

Ok so finally am in Matheran. The best thing about this hill-station is that no cars or heavy vehicles are allowed into the town which makes it a very peaceful place to stroll. So walking is an activity that will be richly rewarded, especially for those who love being close to the nature. I just took the toy train tracks to reach the main market area, I was not in Matheran to explore picnic spots or run towards sun set points, although the place is exploited of them, but I just wanted to explore the place as it is.

So taking the off beaten road, I went about the village from its by-lanes and almost lost tracks.

It was nice being close to the nature relishing every single blow of wind on the wild trees and soaking in the silence of the nature, at time getting disturbed by horse riders, otherwise this place is heaven for those who do not like or wants to break away from the mad city life. For sure, here, the time stops.

Just few words of caution:

Carry a good pair of comfortable walking shoes. Matheran is quite dusty and there is red soil everywhere.

The roads can be rough with many small stones in them, but they are not sharp craggy rocks. If you wear a good pair of shoes with thick soles you should be fine. Obviously, if you don't intend walking much then this doesn't really matter too much.

The weather is truly excellent as you can walk around even in summer without feeling too uncomfortable. Morning is the best time from trekking but be ready for a hazy view as the cloud covers the place at early morning.

Carry water.

Try to avoid carrying too much baggage with you.

The charges for horses differ. The horse keepers charges anything between Rs. 100 to 500. You can bargain.

Carry enough cash with you, as there is only one ATM in Matheran and unfortunately it often does not work during monsoon.

There are monkeys around. Please do not feed them or play with them. Don't openly carry any food articles with you, as monkeys would definitely try to snatch it away. Sans food they are pretty harmless

Was so inspired by the hill station, I did four watercolor-pen works as a tribute to this lovely place.

Kali

On a friend's recommendation, I decided to visit the Kali Puja Pandal put up at Andheri Sports Complex. She insisted that the decor and lighting were strictly not to be missed. I was lucky enough to reach there at the eleventh hour of the third and main day of Diwali and was awestruck with the gigantic Kali statue that stood in Pandal that was a life-size replica of a temple in Kolkata.

The approach to the Pandal was kitschtastic! The decorators were called in from Kolkata who played with LEDs, fairy lights and halogens to create pieces of art of which most were in motion. Besides the usual floral designs, there was a robot with stretched arms that reminded me of Big B's lightbulb flashing costume from his movie Yarana. Perched on a stand right opposite this robot were three LED parrots that were whistling at onlookers and were also set in a mechanical motion of grooming each other. But perhaps what stole the show was a larger-than-life LED statue of a girl who was swirling and so was her skirt, at the hem of which were small baskets attached equidistant from each other and in these baskets were tiny dolls of human babies. A very surreal exhibit, this one!

Moving on, devotees were guided through a canopy that was lined with 2-D LED displays with themes like Indian Army, Indian Navy, Air India, Zoo and Circus. These too were programmed exhibits and had some elements that seemed to be in motion.

Finally, there it was. The actual temple-inspired Pandal that was flanked by two beautifully decorated plaster-of-Paris elephants on either side of the entrance. One had to climb a few steps (which were positively not older-citizen or disabled friendly) up to enter and then climb down to step into the main hallway. From the ceiling of this hall hung a magnanimous chandelier, befitting a palace of a king and right in front stood the over-sized, breathtakingly beautiful statue of Kali Ma, complete with demon heads in her hands and around her neck, blood-shot eyes, fiery red tongue and Lord Shiva under her feet. Two idols of Bhairavi (another avatar of Kali) were placed on her either side and were seen beheading Chanda and Munda, two chief Asuras (demons). The Pandal was scented with incense and was alive with activity. Bengali women were distributing prasad (sweet offering) to devotees and were also putting teekas (marks with red colored powder) on their foreheads.

Being late in the evening (it was almost midnight, actually) it was not crowded much and allowed me to take few shots at leisure.

Outside the Pandal the Bhog Khichadi was being distributed to all, irrespective of their religion, caste, creed, class and color. I got me a plate too and relished it while the dhakis played their drums and danced in front of the Pandal.

Here are a few shots!

LED exhibit at the entrance.