The small star fruit plant in the compound is as always laden with fruits. It looked pretty! and even more so when cut to make those little stars from which it has been given one of its several names – the star fruit! Otherwise also known as carambola and in my language, heinoujom.
The Daily Post prompts us on ‘Optimistic‘ while Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge for this week is ‘Pink-Magenta Flowers‘: for me the two prompts seem to converge on an afternoon of Pink Ice flowers.
Flowers never fail to lift my spirits. Sometimes I just like to sit in gardens or lawns among the plants and flowers. These pictures were taken on one such occasion when I spent a lazy post-lunch winter afternoon on a break from a long spell of what seemed to be highly unproductive effort to finish something I was working on. For the short time I spent there, it made me feel good to reconnect with nature and remain positive.
Cee’s challenge invites for flowers in the colour range of pink to magenta. I am sticking to the colour pink and to one flower, the Pink Ice flower. I got distracted with the bees hovering around these flowers. It was such fun to watch the buds unfurling right before your eyes in moments. In the next few moments, the first bee sat on it and in a short while there was a party of bees! I did have fun taking these pictures. It was much later that I realised I had not taken any photograph to capture the flower itself as the main focus!!
©ingallei
p.s. trying out the slideshow in this post, not quite able to make up my mind if i like it or not. would really like to hear your thoughts
My response to Cee’s B&W Photo Challenge – anything that starts with the letter ‘S’
Sea, sand, sky at Kerala’s Golden Beach, Varkala (India)
S is for ….. Sea
S is for …… Sand
S is for ……. Sky
S is for …….. (wish i could say ‘Ship’ but it’s a boat!!)
©Ingallei
A scene at Wangoo village in Manipur (NE India)
My submission in response to Majka’s photo challenge ‘From Above: Trees‘. This is a shot taken on the hillock in the outskirts of the village of Wangoo. I had written my thoughts on the trip on an earlier post. The river is the main source of water for the villages along its bank. locally known as turel achouba (the big river), its English name is the Manipur river. It drains off water from the Loktak multi-purpose dam. from this view point, it is the skies, the river and the trees that is striking.
The trees, however, veils the houses on either side of the river – something i appreciated on visiting the village after taking these shots.The river bank ran along the backyards of the cluster of houses on the east. It was approaching evening by then. there were people drawing water, washing utensils and checking on the fishing nets they had laid down earlier in the day.
©ingallei
My response to Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge: Blue-Purple Flowers
Commelina/Dayflower – Wangden Khoibi (in Manipuri)
Blue Pimpernal – called Neel (literally blue) in Hindi, not sure what it is called in Manipuri
not sure which flower this is
Morning glory – mayeplei (Manipuri)
I realised i had many photographs of flower in the blue-purple colours and some I had already posted earlier on my blog. I am sticking to the colour Blue. Just for the fun of it, i have arranged them in order of the size of the flowers. Except for the third flower, the others are considered wild/weed. I wonder what the third flower is.
©Ingallei
Portulaca Grandiflora
Another one from my Mashoodpur visit. I found this hardy little plant nonchalantly flowering among the stones and bricks of the wall between two houses in this little urban village of Delhi.
I am not able to recall its name in my native language but i used to have this in my flower-pot sometime back. It is quite a perfect kind of plant to be suspended in those hanging pots. It has bigger flower – bigger than the one in this picture which is in fact smaller than that of an oxalis bloom. The ones in my flower spot had similarly given miniature versions of the bloom just like this one but its parent plant had bigger blooms. I wonder if it has to do with soil.
According to the flowers of India, this is the portulaca grandiflora also called the moss rose. I always thought portulaca was another plant (apparently i had mistaken it for purslane). the interesting thing is how this flower is quite the time-keeper: in Bangladesh it is known as time-phool (time flower), in Hindi it is called nau-baje or 9 o’clock as it flowers around this time of the day and in Vietnam it is called 10 O’clock.
It must be quite a punctual flower to be given such a time-specific name! I wonder what it would have been called before the clock was invented!
©Ingallei
…. and that makes me wonder why we are so in love with beauty and yet are so suspicious about it.
In flight: evening rendezvous continues; entries from My Peafowl Diaries ©Ingallei
A peacock among peahens: .. and that is performing for an audience: entries from My Peafowl Diary @Ingallei
Another view from my balcony. The community centre continues to be a hangout for these beautiful birds. they are beautiful no doubt but they sound horrible!! The male of the species sounds worse – almost like braying or a keyboard with the wrong chords, but don’t they simply look amazing!
‘The pride of the peacock is the glory of god’ – William Blake
The courting season – entries from My Peafowl Diary
……….and that is what i call basking in someone else’s glory. Pea fowls frequent the little community centre right in front of my balcony on the first floor. I have usually photographed them from the same balcony. sometimes they look up to me – when they are on the ground; but very often they fly up to the second floor and look down on me. Sometimes they sit there as if posing for me and challenging me to take more shots. I took this shot last month when I found this peacock spreading out his wings in full glory but he did not want me anywhere near him and because of the iron rails of the center’s walls, i could not take a full blown picture of him. the peahens sure it made it up for me though!
©Ingallei
Blue pimpernal: the little blue beauties
My walks at the nearby park continues. I chanced upon these sleeping beauties (below). A flower after my own heart for the simple reason that it is a late riser like myself! At eight – eight thirty in the morning when most people are up and about, they were still sleeping so I had to come back again for them at a later time – i went around eleven to give them enough time and i found them in full glory like bright little blue stars in the green bed of its foliage. oh yes! I would definitely love to have them when I have my own garden.
sleeping beauty: blue pimpernal yet to open
©Ingallei
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