Tag: India

Chowmahalla Palace

Chowmahalla Palace

Home to the Nizams – the absolute monarch of Hyderabad State before Partition – and  the seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty. The Chowmahalla Palace was completed between 1857 and 1869 – over 100 years since building commenced. Composed of multiple smaller buildings oriented around two courtyards, the palace is an interesting mix of mughal architecture and neoclassical motifs, fitting as the palace was built over the course of many years. The palace and grounds were restored to fairly good condition in 2005 by the current Nizam (Barkat Ali Khan Mukarram Jah, Pretender) and his family.

Qutb Shahi TombsThe Chowmahalla Palace is a nice and quiet refuge from the crowded streets around the Charminar. Expect to spend a few hours walking around the interior of the different palace buildings, be sure to check out the Nizams’ classic car collection, and relaxing in the courtyards around the fountains. The best time to visit is in the evening around Golden Hour, where the clear Hyderabad sun hits the pale yellow buildings and starlings circle above you. Pairing a visit with the Charminar is also a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

  • Hours: Regular Palace Timings for viewing: 10am -5pm (Closed on Fridays and National Holidays)
  • Address: Khilwat, 20-4-236,  Motigalli Hyderabad – 500 002
  • Directions: Go to the Charminar, head toward the Makkah Masjid – ask anyone how to get to the Chowmahalla Palace
  • Chowmahalla Palace on Wikipedia

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Power Outages Hit 600 Million in India

Power Outages Hit 600 Million in India - NYTimes.com

“We seem to have plunged into another power failure, and the reasons why are not at all clear,” said Gopal K. Saxena, the chief executive of BSES, an electric company that services South Delhi, in a telephone interview. It may take a long time to restore power to north India, he said, because the eastern grid has also failed, and alternate power sources in Bhutan and the Indian state of Sikkim flow into the east first.

Power Outages Hit 600 Million in India.

Funny thing about the photo in this article: this could be any day, regardless of the power cut. We have power in Mumbai, but who knows if we will keep it on or if the Indian grid will cascade.

Quiet Kerala

Here is a short from my weekend in Kerala shot with my Fuji X100. The Kerala Backwaters are so different from Bombay it is shocking – not only is it green, but the lack of auto rickshaws and other vehicles honking give the country a relaxing and soothing tone.

The Craft of Everyday

Here is a short video I created along with my coworkers celebrating the craft of the everyday located around our office in Mumbai.

We had a limited amount of time to plan (2 days), shoot (1 day) and edit (4 days), but those constraints ended up making the process a lot of fun. At one point there was going to be a series of hand-carved frames in each shot highlighting the craft, but that became just impossible to execute and (as expected) drew a huge crowed.

Five of us got into a Toyota van and ran around the city for a day filming carpenters, frame wallahs, a paan wallah, a juice wallah, garland wallahs, and a sugarcane wallah. We used my 5d mark II camera and a host of lenses (18mm fisheye, 35mm f2.0, 50mm f1.4, 70-200mm f2.8 non-IS) in a pretty stripped down rig. I didn’t even have my Zacuto Z-Finder with me – so there was a lot of zooming in to focus and stopping down so the depth of field wasn’t too shallow.

It would have been nice to have a shoulder rig, which would have stabilized any moving shot, but we had to content ourselves with locking the camera down on a very lightweight tripod. This ended up being a blessing since we could set up and strike the set quickly, but also meant that we had to really strip down and constrain the shooting style.

Flyover Farm by Fresh & Local

Flyover Farm Sketch

Via Mumbai Boss, comes the story of Flyover Farm by Fresh & Local which is aiming to add farms on top of existing Mumbai buildings, and they have a Kickstarter:

Fresh & Local is a movement to facilitate urban farming in Mumbai. We started in the spring of 2010, in reaction to the lack of fresh and organic produce, and the lack of resources and support for urban farming in the city. We research and develop best practices, design gardens and garden products, host gardening workshops and work in partnership with NGOs and individuals to set up kitchen gardens across the city.

Fresh and Local’s Flyover Farm project is a natural progression and culmination of the work currently being carried out.

Flyover Farm Existing

This is all really interesting, but seeing the existing building stock which is generally of poor construction and knowing how much soil is required to grow fruit and vegetable plants, I fear that not many building can support the weight of these roof farms. I applaud the project, since we have lots of roof space in Mumbai, and the quality of vegetables will undoubtably be better than the ones grown on the sides of the suburban railways.

Protesting in India

I have been in India for the last 3 months, and during that time Occupy Wall Street was occupying everything and in India a series of protests have made the news. Except these protests, how to say it nicely, are really insane:

And these were just the protests reported in the popular press. There are undoubtably many more protests which happen across the subcontinent which aren’t reported in the daily papers.

I challenge you to imagine the situation of a disgruntled man in the West, upset at some injustice, brings a bag of live cobras to the government building and unleash them on hapless bureaucrats.

This why India is amazing – as long as you aren’t in the office when the bag of snakes is unleashed.