To most of us in Delhi, the Earthquake on 25th April was a grand performance by Earth... until the reports of great devastation started emerging from Nepal and Bihar. After that the entire world responded with great empathy. Help started pouring in as countries like India, China, Pakistan, US, Israel reacted within hours and rescue teams, supplies, doctors, and even hospitals were sent to the affected areas. All this was indeed heartening to see and will probably make some difference to those who are directly or indirectly effected.
But we cannot for one moment forget those who have lost their all in this calamity, or not give a thought to those who have lost their family members, or those whose beloved houses came crashing down on them. All within a few seconds. We also need to remember that this could easily have been us. All of us after all stay on some seismic zone or the other. And it's not only earthquakes, Mother Nature has a holster full of weapons to unleash on us. And God knows we have done enough sins to incur her wrath.
In a few days, life will move on, as it has to. We will probably give only a passing thought to what happened on 25th April. The day will become a memory, just like the megaquake of 2004 that was followed by a Tsunami and the quake that brought heavy destruction to Gujarat in 2001. We will keep living our lives believing that our species rules the earth, that we are safe in the house we have built, that we will live forever. Lessons, it seems, are entirely lost on human beings.
Like everyone else, we at Photo Journey will also move on, but somewhere deep inside our hearts a seed of doubt has been sown regarding our position in the scheme of things. We no longer feel indestructible. We know that any instance some mishap can pull the red carpet from beneath our feet and we can topple down gracelessly, like someone who never existed, like someone whose life didn't mean anything. But this realization won't disempower us, we will use this to use our time more productively, to create more impact on others. And to take the first step in this direction, we at Photo Journey will do everything in our hands to help the victims of the recent quake, to ease their pains.
This being our monthly post, we will now give you a recap of what Photo Journey was up to this month. We remembered our recent travel to Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh. With the temperatures going up here in the plains, the thought of the mountains is a pleasant one:
We continued our series on California and this time reflected on the joys of exploring a beautiful country with friends. And also paid a visit to the China Town in San Francisco.
The heat normally doesn't stop us from exploring places in and around Delhi and we continued with our local travels too:
We covered literary events too, this time discovered our love for poetry as well as good literature.
We met a celeb or two, and realized not all of them are as comfortable in front of the camera as we would imagine them to be.
We shed a few tears here. It is always sad to see a beautiful place close down. The musical evening was good fun though.
We remembered our old workplaces and got nostalgic:
We had our tea and reviewed it too. We realized that expensive doesn't always mean good.
We visited and reviewed a couple of hotels/restaurants, both in and outside India.
The spotlight this month was on two very talented photographers. This is what they told us about themselves:
And in the midst of all this, we also philosophized and opined:
And like every month, we also shared technical tips with our fellow photographers and travelers. Here are our posts that capture our learnings:
And no month can be complete without generous contributions from our guest bloggers. We present to you the inspiring posts by Parnashree and Saurabh.
Little Lhasa by Parnashree
Bay of Aquarium, San Francisco by Saurabh
We have long been aware that there was no page dedicated to the guest authors who have made Photo Journey the place it is. And this month we did something about it. We added a page dedicated to our guest authors. Check it out.
We have long been aware that there was no page dedicated to the guest authors who have made Photo Journey the place it is. And this month we did something about it. We added a page dedicated to our guest authors. Check it out.
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