Seems strange to be posting after a few days’ gap…I usually make it part of my daily routine to post something to my blog. It sort of clarifies my thoughts, let me share my experiences, and is also good discipline for a champion procrastinator.

Wealth and power…I’ve been thinking about them, and one of the ways of demonstrating wealth and power seems to be related to how much space one can get to call one’s own, and how few people one has to share it with. The more wealthy one is, the more space one seems to want…a large house, either a sprawling bungalow or a multistoreyed palace…perhaps several homes, spread out over the globe. And the next thing, of course, having acquired that space, is to prevent as many people as possible from sharing it….except the chosen few of one’s friends, and those who will help maintain that space. Only those invited can breach the walls…walls which are, very often, physical walls around the residences of the rich and the privileged, with security guards to ensure that the hoi polloi and the uninvited do not gain access. Telephone lines are private or unlisted, mobile numbers are not given out…the rich person is veiled in a shroud of his or her personal space, and inaccessibility is the mantra.

Photography…is it documentation, or is it art? Now that the enhancement or manipulation of images is in the hands of the photographer,in these days of digital photography, rather than the faceless “colour laboratory” that used to process film, the question arises with unfailing regularity.

On the slopes at the outskirts of Dehra Dun, we wandered along, looking for the sub-Himalayan birds that had been seen in such plenty in March of this year. While the others continued their search….they climbed down a steep slope that I had no intention of negotiating, with two cameras and a pair of bincoculars….my attention was riveted by a colourful vision that climbed up that same steep slope, and came up on to the road….

Here’s one of GD’s favourite songs: