Ponto de Vista

Classic! I love that they managed to spell the hardest word right, but not the rest 🙂 
I know, I know, the guy stenciling it on is probably illiterate, but the lettering is still funny. Thanks for the entertainment Delhi ‘govrment’!

I can’t get over this album sleeve! It’s from an LP of my mother’s, issued in 1964, featuring classical compositions for that most weary sounding of instruments: the shehnai. I don’t really have an ear for it, but what marvelously eye-catching, modern cover art!

Borrow

In the Grand Palace, Bangkok, a mysterious edict near the entryway. Whatever could they mean?

P.s. We saw perfectly marked ATM’s everywhere. Is this the rogue machine that calls a spade a spade? Is this the ‘rage against the machine’ machine?

Bhumisparsh

At the UNESCO heritage village of SukhoThai, the seated Buddha in bhoomisparsh mudra. Elegant, graceful, serene. Nina and I got there early is, on a scooter (with helmets, thank you very much) and explored much of the old ruins on foot. A lot of people had the same idea though. We saved the best for last and although it got hot, at least the crowds had thinned. We got a private audience with many Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.
The audio guide was useful, but the site map was confusing. And no one told us there was a separate entry fee for the other older park, but we snuck into a section of the old kilns anyway. I think two nights in the city were plenty, and we stayed in such a fantastic Ruen Thai hotel, made in the old Lanna style with solid teak, structured around a swimming pool. Great breakfast, helpful staff, free bicycles, sturdy tree furniture. And a bus stand pickup we somehow missed. Oh well. Still a superlative layover.

Sandwhich?

Unless you know which side your bred is battered … you are tost!

Humayun’s tomb, through lattice work in Bu Halima’s Gate. We’re developing an audio tour for Humayun’s Tomb and Nizammudin’s Dargah. Check it out at www.audiocompass.in.

This is my mother’s stray button collection. When I was little, it occupied my OCD younger self for hours to spread them out, arrange them by color, then by size, then by material. She has wood, bone, crystal, plastic, matte, shiny, glittery, round, oval, innies, outies … endlessly fascinating even now.

This is the welcome mat outside a friend’s house. The irony is that the wife bought it. Consider yourself warned.

(p.s. Rohini, this one’s for you! Congratulations and all good wishes to you both.)

In a soul-less mall in Singapore, we chanced upon this space where volunteers were asking passsersby to leave a message and a little bit of themselves behind through impromptu art made from colorful pipe cleaners. I made a flower (of course) with two different colored pipes but I was amazed at the imagination and skills of the other artsy-craftsy people who’d come before!

A teeny tiny, fully ripe, totally sweet watermelon from my mother’s terrace vine. July 2013.