From a Nature Lover's camera

We have a nice old mango tree in our backyard. While building our house, my father wanted to chop it off  since he feared it will damage our building structure. It took a lot of assuring from my side and a dream from his mother to make him comfortable about leaving granpa tree untouched. Once we had the building ready, he once told me that he was glad he gave in to my suggestion of not cutting it as it makes our house more prettier and keeps it cool.

So you can tell from the story that I love nature and call me a tree hugger but there's nothing that brings me more joy than seeing a tree filled with lush green leaves swaying in the wind and nothing that brings me more sorrow than seeing a tree being felled to build more houses or widen roads. Flowers bring joy to everyone and so do birds so my feelings are no exception but animals of the other kind are a different story. I like them in the jungle or in the zoo. Now if I don't stand in front of a snake, a bear or a tiger smiling and enjoying its beauty while it crawls/prowls towards me does that make me strange? If I don't stand and smile enjoying the way a monkey jumps from one place to the other while it slaps me does that make me strange? Hopefully not many will say it does. Nevertheless I like capturing anything from the nature - a pretty flower (or a bunch of them), a rain bathed tree, a colorful fruit, a silent river, thundering clouds or an animal of any kind (not the creepy carnivorous kind - at least not while in direct contact with them) in my camera.

*Please click on them to view larger images

A couple of hours before I was to travel to NJP station from Jalpaiguri to board my train back to Sealdah, all of a sudden the sky turned dark with clouds moving in from nowhere and winds gushing at a speed of at least 100 kmph. As much as I was nervous about not making it to the station on time, I could not help but get hold of my camera to take a few clicks of those amazing clouds.

On our way back from visiting a site in Kalchini, all of a sudden we found ourselves in the midst of a storm. When it stopped there were trees all over the road so we had to find alternative ways to get to the main road from the jungle but while we did so, we could not help admiring the beauty of the lush green jungle drenched wet after the rain  glistening in the light of the sunset.

The puddles created by the rain stopped our vehicle at one point and when we got out of the car I realized I was standing in front of this tree - the same tree that I had purposefully stopped in front of in my last visit to take a picture. What a coinicidence? In english "nature calls" means something else (we're not going to talk about that - thankfully) but well, this was another type of a call from nature. The arch of the tree looked even more prettier after the wet shower.

 

One of the good parts of visiting the various catholic health facilities is that I get to enjoy and take pictures of their well maintained gardens (and orchards in some cases). 

It is that time of the year - there're Lychees everywhere - especially in North Bengal. All the Catholic facilities coincidentally have at least one Lychee tree. Those sparkling red lychees looked so pretty (and not to mention mouth watering) on those lush green leaves that it seemed I was looking at a Christmas greeting card filled with all those red on green. So the camera obviously  had to come out of the bag ...