Born free but everywhere in chains

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free, and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

*Stay free, where no walls divide you
You're free as a roaring tide
So there's no need to hide

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
Cause you're born free

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TO lose one’s faith surpasses

TO lose one’s faith surpasses
The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished,—faith cannot.

Inherited with life,
Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
And Being ’s beggary.

Emily Dickinson

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I HIDE myself within my flower

Olympus D425

HIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

Emily Dickinson

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The Cat and his Pet

Canon Powershot S3IS

 THAT love is all there is,

Is all we know of love,

It is enough, the freight should be,

Proportional to the groove.

Emily Dickinson

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HIS mind, of man a secret makes

Canon Powershot S3IS
Badrinath Temple

HIS mind, of man a secret makes,
I meet him with a start,
He carries a circumference
In which I have no part,
Or even if I deem I do
He otherwise may know.
Impregnable to inquest,
However neighborly.

E.D.

An Ascetic outside the temple of Badrinath.

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A Dancer

Olympus D453/C170
An old Self Portrait 

This picture was taken a longtime ago when I had just started with my 1st tiny 4mp cam. That time I could not even figure out how to use the timer or the flower meant Macro mode :P 

Anyway I took this in my room in candle light. This is a Hand Held shot. 

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The hijra of India

Badrinath, H.P.
Canon Powershot S3IS

The hijra of India

The Ancient Indian Kama Sutra refers to people of a "third sex" (triteeyaprakrti), who can be dressed either in men's or in women's clothes and perform fellatio on men. The term has been translated as "eunuchs" (as in Sir Richard Burton's translation of the book), but these persons have also been considered to be the equivalent of the modern hijra of India.

Hijra, a Hindi term traditionally translated into English as "eunuch", actually refers to what modern Westerners would call male-to-female transgender people and effeminate homosexuals (although some of them reportedly identify as belonging to a third sex). Some of them undergo ritual castration, but the majority do not. They usually dress in saris (traditional Indian garb worn by women) and wear heavy make-up. They typically live in the margins of society, face discrimination and earn their living in various ways, e.g., by coming uninvited at weddings, births, new shop openings and other major family events and singing until they are paid or given gifts to go away. The ceremony is supposed to bring good luck and fertility, while the curse of an unappeased hijra is feared by many.

Other sources of income for the hijra are begging and prostitution. The begging is accompanied by singing and dancing and the hijras usually get the money easily. Some Indian provincial officials have used the assistance of hijras to collect taxes in the same fashion; they knock on the doors of shopkeepers, while dancing and singing, and embarrass them into paying.

Recently, hijras have started to found organizations to improve their social condition and fight discrimination. There has even been a wave of hijra entering politics and being elected to high political positions. In the epic Mahabaratha of India, Arjuna, one of the 5 heroes who is originally a handsome man, warrior and great archer becomes Brihannala, a eunuch when they spend their last year of exile in the kingdom of Virata. Brihannala/Arjuna lived among the palace women as a teacher of song and dance.

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Weathered faces lined in pain

Canon powershot S3IS
Badrinath

Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless heads on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

-Don Mclean

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PORTRAITS are to daily faces

Canon Powershot S3IS

PORTRAITS are to daily faces
As an evening west
To a fine, pedantic sunshine
In a satin vest.

E.D.

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Portrait of a Parrot

Delhi Zoo
New Delhi,
Canon powershot S3IS

One of my fave shots. Makes me feel so lazy and dreamy. Takes me back to the time when I was just a child and living on the top most floor of the building, I use to spend hours in mid summers day gazing lazily at those big birds circling the clear blue skies. Soaring and rising...Nostalgia hits me...the lightness of the summer air, the emptiness of the drying trees, the howling hot and dry winds, the parched silence of the afternoon, the eager wait for the evening, those days of slow simple dreamy doordarshan....I miss those summers.

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W a r r i o r

                                                  
Renuka lake,
Himachal pradeash, India.
Nikon D70

Featured in www.nikonstunninggallery.com & www.earthshots.org
Renuka lake is a small, tranquil and not so known place around 320kms from Delhi. A little ahead of Nahan, this place is a holy place for Hindus. The lake here is said to look like a woman's figure seen from the top of the hill it surrounds. Fishing is prohibited here as a result the fish are really old and huge in size. They seem to have little fear from humans and you can see them upclose while feeding them.

Apart from the temples and the lake, there is a wildlife enclosure which is what pulls me back to this place time and again. The Lion Pride there. Around 4 to 5 lions and 10 to 12 lionesses. They have a big enclosure where they roam around freely. But usually they can be seen basking in the sun next to the fencing. This picture is from one of those moments. They were hardly a meter away, all lazy and sleepy. It was the most memorable time I have ever had at renuka.

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