Trailblazers

Milestones set in stone.
They say, go down this way or perish alone,
Without this path, you’ll stay frail.
Forget they do, that grassy trail,
That had seen its last traveller in brocades
And will see it’s next one in shades.
This isn’t the road not taken,
‘Tis the trailblazer’s haven.

This photograph was taken at the Dachau concentration camp, Germany in May 2012.

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram profile @himanshusahay.
To buy prints of my photographs, visit http://instacanv.as/himanshusahay.

The Beautiful World

The world is beautiful, we just need to open our eyes to it.

For more of my photography, visit my personal Instagram: @himanshusahay or view my travel series: @ffaops. To buy prints of my photographs, visit https://instacanv.as/himanshusahay or http://himanshu-sahay.instprints.com

Tranquility in a Death Camp

The road goes on
The sky is infinite
Trees dot the skyline
An image of tranquility
In the middle of a death camp.

Photograph taken at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.
Check out both the edits!

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram account @himanshusahay . To buy prints of my photographs, visit http://instacanv.as/himanshusahay or http://himanshu-sahay.instaprints.com

A Star in Time

Star of light,
Star of time,
Shooting past a barren sky,
Like a shepherd’s torch
In a desert land,
Approaching the depths of the world.
Fearless, blazing,
Fire within, raging.
A spectacle to behold
The eternals are told.

And when the light goes out,
A door is shut.
A part of this world,
Damp and cold, withers.
The winds moan,
The animals groan,
The sea cries,
But, with time, the sorrow dies.

And then the sun comes out.
Brevity is awakened.
Its short slumber, disturbed.
The flowers laugh,
The rivers race,
The world is back on track.

The Solitary Walk

“The Solitary Walk on the Path of Life”

This photograph was clicked at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram accounts: @himanshusahay and @ffaops . To enter my Instagram contest visit @photolocker and tag #photolocker . To buy my photos, visit http://instacanv.as/himanshusahay or http://himanshu-sahay.instaprints.com

Sleep Deal

My weekly thoughts:

Sunday 9.00 a.m. – I need more sleep.

Monday 12.00 noon- Sleep is awesome.

Tuesday 2.00 a.m. – To hell with sleep, I need to watch this show.

Wednesday 3.00 p.m. – I ate too much, now I’m gonna have to sleep at my study table.

Thursday 3.00 a.m. – Should I sleep? Nah, its the weekend. I can squeeze in another movie before daylight. (Note: The UAE follows the Friday-Saturday weekend system, don’t ask me why.)

Friday 2.00 p.m. – Mom shouts, “Get out of bed!”. I dutifully obey and go to the washroom and sleep in the bathtub.

Saturday – 11.59 a.m. – My brain says, “I’ve got school tomorrow. I better go to bed now’. What I do – Turn off lights, whip out iPhone.

Good night!

An Awkward First Date with a Scientific Calculator

The SATs!
My preparation for the SATs resulted in my first significant encounter with a scientific calculator. And it was a comic first date!
Studying in the Indian system of education, my use (and knowledge thereof) of a scientific calculator was limited, as we Indians prefer to calculate every thing in our heads. So the first time I used a scientific calculator in its true self was when I answered a mock SAT test at a popular SAT coaching centre. After unwrapping the brand new gadget from its box, I quickly put it to use, in order to calculate a long expression involving decimals. And too my horror, the answered was in fractional form! The scheming little devil! To add to this, all the answer choices were in decimal form. My date had trapped me! A cold sweat broke onto my forehead as I couldn’t perceive the thought of getting a single question wrong, especially in Maths, my strong subject. Yeah you read that right Americans, I said ‘Maths’ not ‘Math’, because that’s how I roll. (Forgive the sudden need on my part to sound cool, that was just my nerdy-gangsta sense kicking in).
So as I sat there, the calculator stared at me. It was motionless, almost as if to prove its innocence. The question, on it’s part, chuckled, as if it was my destiny to get it wrong. Regardless, the stipulated time for the section I was attempting, got over, and i made an educated guess for the answer (no it wasn’t a wild guess), and it turned out to be the wrong answer. Oh the heavens!
That day I went home with my calculator and tried to read the manual. Guess what, the manual was in Chinese! It was almost as if the universe was playing a practical joke on me! I cursed under my breath and threw the calculator onto my desk, not knowing that an expression was typed into it. As I watched it land on my table, I noticed that a button on the calculator had got lodged inwards and I proceeded to pull it out. As I got closer, I noticed that the answer to the aforementioned expression was displayed on the screen, in (yeah you guessed it right) decimal form! The button that had got pressed inwards was actually the ‘format change’ button, with some misleading labeling on it! I thanked my stars and grabbed the calculator in a bear hug (don’t ask why)!
As it turned out, my first date with the calculator had actually ended well, and it was the precursor to a vast legion of future dates with the cute little educational gadget.
I’ll say no more.

The little devil

A Memory in the Rain

The sun rises,
The clouds burst,
Amidst the mist,
A memory churns,
Into the rain
It is hurled.
And then it beams into the sky,
Behind the mountain of joy.
The rain cedes
But leaves behind,
The seeds of a dream.

I clicked this photograph from the window of our car, in the German countryside. I have edited it to give it a prophetic look.

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram: himanshusahay

The Ghost Writer

The ghost is back, back to complete the unfinished story of his life, back to conquer his quest, back to realize his goal, back to put pencil to paper, back to awaken the world. The ghost writer has descended.

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram: himanshusahay

The Lady of Darkness

This is a photograph I had taken at the famed 16th century beer hall Hofbräuhaus in Munich. It has been edited to give it a mystic look. I call it ‘The Lady of Darkness’.

For more of my photography, visit my Instagram: himanshusahay

My First Poem!

Hey guys! This is a poem I had written last year for my English assignment at school. Incidently, it is also the first poem I wrote. I had posted it to my first blog TheCarManiac, but it was virtually unread there. So, I decided to reblog it onto this blog, primarily due to the great response I received from you guys on O Snake of Trepidity. Thank you so much for that!
The link to the original post is here: http://thecarmaniac.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/age-with-grace/

TheCarManiac

  We ascend the steps of life, ever hoping to stay young.

The laws of nature defy our hopes, but we go marching on and on…

Gracefully we age, gracefully we cease,

This journey of life, matures yet another seed.

 

 

 

Here we go, us mortal beings, 

Trudging on life’s path, beating the odds, adding feathers to our ever growing cap.

And when it all ends, gracefully we fall as a leaf in the wind.

 

 
The psalm of life, whether in the morning, whether in twilight,

Gives a joy beyond all worth.

With grace we live all our life, age no bar.

Relent to your plight, not a chance.

 

 

 

Happily live life to the nine, 

Happiness in your deeds, happiness in your words.

Young at heart, that’s all that counts.

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O Snake of Trepidity

She seethes and secretes,
We pull up our sheets.
We fear her might,
Her poison dark as night.
We know not that our footsteps
Scare her to dregs.
While we sleep in beds,
She curls up in empty kegs.
And so ends another day
Of fear and dismay.
I write this for thee,
Thy glorious and free.
O snake of clemency,
Why dost thou live in recreancy?

The Journey to the End of the Beginning

The accompanying picture is one that gently cradles one’s thoughts into the surreal. I clicked it at the Melk Abbey in Austria.
To different people, this picture may mean different things, but to me, it is ‘The Journey to the End of Beginning‘. It signifies the transition of a boy into a man. The tunnel of childhood is well lit, but it darkens towards the end. That is when a new light is seen, the light of adulthood.

Studies and !3eyond

 

Miracles Do Happen

Miracles do happen, don’t they? Well, I wouldn’t be one to judge, and the science fraternity will certainly disown me if I go around spreading such ‘misinformation’. But on a deeper note, how many of us have witnessed things in life that somehow go beyond the realms of rational thought? The answer is, few and far between. But ask any one of these people and he/she will say that miracles do happen, in one form or another. Now a miracle may be as small as finding a lost item in a totally unwarranted place when it could easily have been lost to the forces of nature, as has been my case, or it could be as big as the mystifying recovery of a loved one, from a life-threatening situation.
Science dictates the prevalence of reason over philosophy, but what if the situation in question cannot be explained by science? What if science has no answer to a real world happening? These thoughts ought to be pondered upon.
Being a student of the technicalities of science, I would be going against my subject if I said that science is not all-consuming. But there you go, the mystic elements of nature continue to baffle and elude the minds of us rationalisers. I think some secrets are best untold.