Kingly experience at ChokhiDhani, Jaipur

Kingly experience at ChokhiDhani, Jaipur 

A Rajasthani Village themed restaurant

A de'light'ful experience: The village is decorated with plenty of lamps placed everywhere including in and around the house, on the bridge, and open places. 

View from the watchtower. The place is spread around in not less than 10 acres.

Various kind of typical folk dance performances keeps on going around: Dance, Puppetry. Drawing Mehandi on hand is an attraction for tourists apart from other paintings and art form.

Food is served in traditional style. Normally group of about 20 people seated in a rectangular fashion and bonfire at the center fuelled with pure ghee.

Typical thali served initially. More and more food items keep on coming too fast. Food made in lots of ghee.

And you can take a photo with Rajasthani headgear.

Some celebration

Some celebration

A dance display at Rourkela on Mahashivratri, Near Laxmi Narayan Temple (Rourkela). I tried to get some info, however, what I got is not enough and reliable. Will update in future. After visiting Laxmi Narayan temple, I was on the way to Vedvyaas, I saw this procession. An unplanned photoshoot, thanks to these unknown participants.

Wandering Destination : Elephanta Caves

Wandering Destination : Elephanta Caves

Elephant caves alias Gharapurichi Leni - are located near Mumbai. It is the first is a large group of five Hindu caves dedicated to lord Shiva, the second, a smaller group of two Buddhist caves. Caves carved in Besalt rock dates back to somewhere between 5th to 8th century. It was designated UNESCO heritage site and now maintained by ASI.

Main cave : Shiva Cave. It is the largest among all whose roof is supported by rock columns

Each wall of main cave has large carvings of Shiva. The famous Trimurti is located on the south wall.

Main cave shine of Lord Shiva

The other caves ahead of main cave

Some caves are unfinished, some got destroyed

Lots of monkeys re found the on the island. As happens everywhere, monkeys snatch food items from the hands of travelers and enjoy themselves.

Just after the last cave, a nature trail goes ahead to the top of the Island. Hardly visitors take this path. Don't miss this, go ahead to see the beauty of the surroundings.

Left of this trek you can see Elephanta Dam

Canon trek: Most of the path is build with concrete, thus walking is easy

Beginning of summer - trees shade their leaves.

Canon Point: A historical canon installed by Portuguese is preserved. Many Hindi movies from early 90's are shot here, as I was told.

Tata power plant located in Uran. Bay of Uran is famous for Bird watching, especially Greater Flamingos.

JNP seaport on Nhava Sheva Island. Sea in this part of Arabian sea is very busy due to Naval HQ at Gate way of India, private yachts, tourists for Elephanta, and a lot of good transport ships. On the travel to Elephanta from Gate way one can capture the variety of ships. Check my earlier posts about "Ship watch at Gateway"

The skyline of the great Mumbai seen from the top

Idols of Hindu god and goddesses for sale. Bids and other jewelry is also available at the shops near the entrance to the caves. I found it costlier than at the main land, advice not to buy.

Entrance fee:

• Citizen of South Asian countries : 10/-
• Other countries: 250 /-
• Children below 15 years : free

Timing

• Open from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
• Closed on Monday

How to reach

Elephanta Island is located near the Appolo Bandar (ner Gateway of India) and can be reached by a ferry boat from Gate way of India in less than half an hour. On the way you can shoot some outstanding variety of ships anchored.

‘Kanchi Abhijana’ - Odissi dance by Manoranjan Pradhan

‘Kanchi Abhijana’ by Guru Manoranjan Pradhan and Troupe

National Institute of Technology, Rourkela is celebrating 53rd Institute Foundation Day on 15th August 2014. To commemorate this day, various programs have been organized bythe Literary and Cultural Society of SAC. Major among them was a SPIC MACAY event, ‘Kanchi abhijana’ by Guru Manoranjan Pradhan and Troupe from Utkal University of Culture.

Director of Dances: Guru Manoranjan Pradhan and Minati Pradhan

Artist: Manoranjan Pradhan, Minati Pradhan, Sachikanat Pradhan,

Other photo series of "Kanchi-Abhijana" published:

• Set of Black and White photos
• ‘Kanchi Abhijana’ - Series of Dance Mudras by Manoranjan and Minati Pradhan

Profile of Manoranjan Pradhan [1]

Guru Manoranjan Pradhan was trained at the Orissa Dance Academy in India under Guru Gangadhar Pradhan and completed his Master's degree in Odissi dance at Sangeet Mahavidyalaya, Utkal University. He underwent rigorous training with the doyen of Odissi dance Padma Bibhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra. He has performed on the stage & TV in India and abroad. A major time of his career has been spent dancing and teaching in Canada, Mexico and the United States

He has served as a guest lecturer in Odissi dance at the Standford University and shares his experience through extensive teaching at Odissi Dance Academy and Odissi Research Centre in Bhubaneswar. He toured the USA with Ralph Lemon's "Tree", second in series of the Geography Trilogy, with a company of dancers and musicians from all over the World. He also performed in Germany, Italy, Croatia and England.

Manoranjan Pradhan is married to dancer Minati Dasgupta (Now Minati Pradhan).

Few words about SPIC MACAY:

Thanks to Spic-Macay to let me have many wonderful experiences to listen live to some of great Indian performers. At IIT Bombay, I got an opportunity to listen to Pt. Runu Muzumdar, Pt. Arti Ankalikar-Tikekar, Pt Vishvamohan Bhatt, and Pt Vijay Ghate. Now experiencing simlar at NIT Rourkela. Looking forward to cover many more such events !

SPIC MACAY (Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) is a voluntary movement founded in 1977 by Dr Kiran Seth, a Professor at IIT-Delhi who was awarded the ‘Padma Shri’ for his contribution to the arts in 2009 [2]. 

Intention is to enrich the quality of formal education by increasing awareness about different aspects of Indian heritage and inspiring the young mind. It seeks to inspire youth through experiencing the rich and heterogeneous cultural tapestry of Indian and World Heritage, with a hope that the beauty, grace, values and wisdom embodied in these arts will influence their way of life and thinking and inspire one to become a better human being. For this, the most accomplished artistes of the country render programs of Indian classical music and dance, folk, poetry, theater, traditional paintings, crafts & yog  [2].

Felicitation of the performers by Prof. Sunil Kumar Sarangi (Director, NIT Rourkela)

Experiences while shooting:

Photographing Odissi performance is a great opportunity to practice different aspects of photography. Almost every time I did, I have enjoyed. However, this time shooting at Behera Auditorium experience was a sad episode. Light operator seemed to be too innocent and operated the lights like a switch-loving child, a child who switches on and off at its will. To add to it, lights were LED based and were located at a lower height. LED lights with violet and red color are difficult to focus in. Avoiding a direct light appearing in photograph was a task in itself.

This experience taught me following lessons:

1. A lens more than 200 mm focal length is a must in kit. Longer focal length will help in choosing a good background, specially when some banner is displayed on stage.  I used 105 mm macro lens.

2. Underexposed but sharp photos are better than no or blurred photos at all. As I shoot in RAW, I can fix some of them later.

Reference:

[1] http://odissi.blogspot.in/2007/09/manoranjan-pradhan.html
[2] http://spicmacay.com/