Stroll around Avenue Street

Avenue Street is a tremendously famous tract in the center of the city. As you head towards the kempgowda bus stand, you need to keep watching for the "State bank of Mysore" branch on the main road, which is hard to miss by any chance, and there you are, the Avenue Junction. Avenue Street is not only one among the busiest business places in the garden city, but it does take you closer to authentic Karnataka environs.

The first thing which is bound to catch your interest, a huge "Coffee Board" Coffee van which lands at the avenue street junction and sells coffee and tea in cups of hundreds. Suresh checked with them and they seem to sell over 400 cups in the morning 3 hours.!! Cool, rite! It’s even more fascinating seeing the amount of people who throng this place, early morning. Friends, businessmen, shopkeepers or labours, all jam at this place for a quick cup of tea and session of chat early morning and may be a quick glimpse at the crisp newspaper which seems to selling around like hot cakes.  After you spend a little more time, you start noticing the book shops all around this corner. Avenue Street is one of the most important destinations for people looking for second hand books. This place is one of the oldest markets and of course its get extremely crowded as the business commences.

The other important factor which adds to the popularity of this road is its sheer location. Avenue road connects the City Market (aka KR market) to the Kempgowda Road. There are Silver jewellers and brass utensils all along the street, which are among the other most shopped items at this Place.

As we started moving around the place, we could notice all the colours coming together quite early in the morning. There were few small markets around the temple of Avenue road which were quick in setting up flowers, there were kumkum stall which was already getting down to making those huge mounts of kumkum of various colours, ‘beedas’ giving that red colour to the flower seller’s mouth, ‘rajni Saar’s’ colourful sticker taking a bath at the back of an auto, the garbage vans here and there collecting tons of garbage from each corner, small flag shaped, local political party flyers garlanded throughout the street, as if being proud of all the mess, were adding to the mood of this place, as we got busy with our chores.

Avenue street is also known as the photographer’s paradise for the amount of variety and subjects which you could click here, but early mornings, today, I was just about happy and not overwhelmed by what I got there. Reading and hearing so much about this place, I was expecting quite a lot which somehow was not met. Though it wasn’t a feeble experience as well and we had our own share of meeting with new characters and getting a little closer to their lives and touching it somehow. While I enjoyed meeting my other co-photographer friends, I also took a while out to walk down some points less frequented by others. I also spent a while taking to an amma on the street, who was just too old to move her stuff around and was taking help of her son to setup their canopy. She loved the idea of this tall fellow with a camera and a smile and happily posed. While looking her shot at the LCD, she smile and a sense of satisfaction and unsaid thanks came out. That’s the feeling really, which keeps me going down the streets and clicking people.

I continued further exploring this street and another thing which I could notice was, that avenue street also has the most inquisitive set of people. Almost every single person wanted to know if we guys we were doing this as a part of some training. Some mistook us for press photographers and wanted to get into the frame. For few we were intruders early morning and few found a political edge when I overheard someone saying that these guys are going to show the negative side of Bangalore city. Well, society is made up of different kinds of elements and you got to accept it as it as.

We were in for another great location for photography, hidden across a stretch through few streets and some couple of shots away. This was a Sari making unit which we shot heart out which I shall be writing about separately. We continued under the guard of Suresh gounder who vouched for an awesome place for breakfast which was quite nearby. We spent time searching through the streets and could finally find “Chikkana Tiffin Centre” and bet you, this is an authentic, proper Karnataka food which was one of the most delicious serving I tasted since some long time. The location of this eatery could be fishy, but even after you find it, you need to still be prepared to jostle through a huge crowd for this amazing food. Highly recommended even if you have to spend more than half-n-hour like us searching for this place.

                 Well, this was another location covered in the beautiful city of Bangalore. Hope you have your own experiences about this place as well. Waiting to hear from you guys, your experiences of this place and any comments on what you saw via my write-up and shots.

Street Photography:3 key points to sail with

I have been an avid street photographer and have seen lot of people taking interest in this genre of photography. When we see the photos from the street, we always tend to enjoy the story a face or a moment tells but people have shivers down their spine when the idea of actually getting down to the street and clicking strikes them.
Some find it terrifying to go out and click on the street and some find it amusing to move among people. Some spend their time mingling with inhabitants there and some get embarrassed by the attention they get out of clicking photos. Here is a small article which I thought of putting up to help people understand more about street photography and its elements and how to go about it.

Secret of being able to click people:
Situation 1: One morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around taking shots. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and clicks a shot of this lady (your wife in this context) checking out fresh flowers and quickly moves on. How are you feeling now? Anxious!! Perturbed!!
Situation 2: One Morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around. He is taking shot of a vegetable seller. After click he goes to the subject. Both look at his camera LCD and come up with a smile. After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and stands around the shop. He looks at you, smiles as if saying “hey there! Ask me if you are curious”. You pop up a question “Are you from press??” or “Why are you taking those shots??” and he happily replies back “that I am a hobby photographer, work with Target  and click photos around streets”. You feel satisfied talking to him and he takes a shot of your wife checking out fresh flowers. He then shows you the picture on his LCD. The picture is of a hand feeling the freshness of the flowers and you are impressed by his perspective. How are you feeling now? Motivated to click such a shot in the market! Read On.

Here are some aspects of shooting at the streets which I wanted to line down:

1. Getting ready to shoot:• Lesser baggage: While you plan to go out and shoot, plan your baggage accordingly. Carrying too much of gear might not be a good idea because you might want to keep your attention on capturing life in your shots rather than worry too much about the focal lengths. The best could be to carry a nice walk around lens which can work/act as a basic wide angle and extend up to a basic telephoto lens.
• Including longer lens?? Well there are different theories around this question. Lot of people say that longer lens would help you capture shots from distance and hence you would have candid shots without letting people know that someone is clicking them. The other school of thoughts says that get closer and into the frame to capture the soul in your shot. This is all quite subjective. I suggest a middle path, Initially if you are beginning into this genre, carrying a longer lens would help you curb your anxiety and avoid any attention and as you spend more time and gain experience, you can move with a wide angle lens and get into the mid of the action.
• Casual dressing: Dressing might not appear to be an important variable but then it attracts attention as well. Carrying lot of stuff and dressed like a tourist might makes you feel Odd one out in a busy market and attract lot of attention. Dressing a little casually and carrying your stuff in a casual manner would make others feel that you are one of those regular visitors to the market and might feel more comfortable to all around. In some situations, the opposite might work for you. Did I say “there are no rules here!!!”.
2. Moving around in the market:

• Observe: While moving around in a market place or a street, look for activities happening around. Every place is characteristic in its own manner. Try finding moments, Listen to various sounds at that place, notice hustle bustle in the market and how people are busy with their chores. Try to capture those moments. An early morning visit to a market might see people setting up their shops, cleaning around, making small rangoli, or a group of friends hanging around cup of tea near the old tea stall, fresh colorful vegetables with dew like water on them, a call centre cab stopping on the way for the employees to gulp down tea before they hit home are all moments and convey different emotions. You can also use different styles and shots to convey the mood and the time of the day as well. Fresh flowers, clean markets and hopes in the eyes are all conveyors of a morning. Look for usual places with unusual perspective and new dimensions.

3. Living in there:

• Become part of the scene: The best part of being a street photographer is that you get to be the part of the frame. You can mingle with people and be at the thick of things which would not only give you a lot to ponder about but also lot of different perspectives.
• Try and get involved: Most of the times I have gone out shooting on the streets, I have noticed that some of my friends would move around, click a shot and try to move out. This leaves the people around stunned, anxious and sometimes angry. The best method is to get involved with people, share a smile and not run with a photo. You never know, a smile or a small talk might give you lot of great shots.
• Neither appear conspicuous, nor suspicious: Also people, who tend to sneak a shot and move on, might appear suspicious. Be very aware about such activities. It’s very easy for people to suspect you and catch hold of you. So mixing up with people not only yields better shots but gets you into lesser trouble too.
• Bring home a story and not a photo:

Street photography is a genre of dealing with people. When someone lets you click their photo or you take without them noticing, you stand a chance to bring their story home. Try and talk to people rather than only clicking them. This way, you would know a lot about the place and their lives. In my interactions at markets, I have learnt a lot from real life examples of those people which is quite inspiring. So, not only click people but try to bring home a story about them.
• Respect privacy: While on streets, there might be lot of situations where people feel intruded, don’t want to be photographed. That is absolutely fine. We should respect privacy of others and move on by sharing a smile with them.
• Gauge the situation yourself: This could be quite important since many a times you might land in a situation which could be sensitive. You should gauge the situation yourself before clicking or taking an action. A sudden fight breaking out on the street or someone suddenly meeting an accident might tempt you to click them but could land you into a sensitive spot. With time and experience at the street, you would develop the eye to gauge the situation by yourself.
• Understand Law of Land: There are lots of places where you might not be allowed to take photos so it’s imperative that you abide by the laws of land. Ex: Shooting at the railway station, bridges, bus stand are all against the law since they could compromise the security, so avoid shooting at such places.

Some basics terms-Photography

Hello All,
I was thinking of starting the ball rolling somewhere and finally choose to start talking about some of the basics terminologies of photography. Here are some of the terms which could be handy while some of you try to grab the basics of the camera. Hope you have a good start on learning.

An example of using different apertures to control depth of field. See a bigger version here


Aperture: An aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels to the sensor of your camera. This is the opening which sets up how the light travels down and the appearance on the image plan looks like. The Aperture values which show up on your camera are also referred to as F-stops. The more the aperture value, the smaller the hole size, and the more the depth of field.
For example:
F1.8 would mean a larger hole which would give you sharpness around the focus area and rest blurred.
F5.6 would mean a smaller hole and sharpness around the focus and it’s near by areas increasing the depth of field.

Shutter speed: Shutter speed also known as exposure means the time for which the shutter is open to create the image on the sensor. Often the shutter speed which is displayed on your camera means that portion of
a second. For ex: if you go out in the light and the shutter speed of the camera shows 800, then it means the camera would expose for 1/800sec to create the image.

ISO: ISO in layman terms means the sensitivity of your camera sensor towards light. The higher the ISO value, the higher sensitivity is induced towards light. ISO is used in the cameras to increase the exposure during low light conditions.

White Balance: White balancing is a variable to control the casting of different colour tones in photos. where our eyes see and adjust automatically, cameras have a variable called White balance which helps you to control any undue casting which might come into your picture. For example: your camera is set to Tungsten white balance and you go out in the morning and click a picture of the lake. It would lend a bluish tone to the photography and you would immediately say that it’s not how it looked like there. You can play with the white balance to get the desired appearance and remove the bluish tone from the image.

Composition: Composing a photo or a composition means how to you place the subjects in the image which you plan to click. Most often we view through a viewfinder or a LCD to click a shot. The act of setting up an image is known as composing an image.

Metering Modes: Metering basically means how a camera determines the exposure of a particular shot. Our eyes are again excellently designed to understand different lightening but the camera sensor works on algorithms to find out the best exposure. In most of the cameras metering modes like evaluative, or matrix mode, partial, center weighted and spot metering modes are available. I shall discuss the usage of metering modes in a different article moving forward.

Focus Lock: Most of the cameras are designed to lock focus on the subject as we half-press the shutter button. Basically we are telling the camera to set focus on the subject. Cameras even provide you options to lock and then track the subject as they move around.

Exposure Lock: Cameras not only can lock the focus but also do lock exposure reading. This helps you to get the desired exposure and focus and then re-composition of your image.

Do share your thoughts or any other terms which you feel could be the part of this Thread. You are also open to pose questions which i shall try to answer or at-least refer to some website.

Glimpse of Ganeshas getting ready

I was dying to shoot through the whole week and kept a close watch on the any events lining up in my club and friends circle but not much action seemed to come through.
Where on one hand I wanted to stay a little wary about crowded places due to Flu being spreading in the city now, I wanted to still click some shots on the eve of 15th august.

I contacted few friends but most of them seemed busy this weekend or were out of town. Somehow I had made up my mind to go out and click.
15th aug, I got up and it was still drizzling. I was a little delayed in starting up since i preferred to enjoy the morning cup of tea from my balcony enjoying the rain. Soon i got ready and packed my gear.
As I moved out of my place, it struck me that I could try Bengali association before going to pottery town. I was alone so little skeptical about if they would let me in. On the front of the Bengali association, there were some preparations beginning for the 15th Aug celebrations and I smiling asked that fellow if I could take some photos inside where the artists would be working. He in turn smiled and said "go ahead, jus let arun know". I went inside and asked for arun. Arun dada, a senior artist, in his matured way told me that we don’t let people take photos apart from press, though, you can take some. He also told me not to take photos of some of their processes which I was happy to agree to. Inside, there is a huge compound where it felt like being amid army of gods. Hundreds of ganeshas, durga and bal hanumans rested around and kept an eye on my activities :)


I started taking shots and also could discuss with the artists about how much time would each one of them would take. I would cautiously move around, so that I don’t disturb them or don’t break anything.


The amount of concentration their work requires is enormous though it might look too colorful to an outsider. I spent some 20 mins and then took leave off arun dada. The time was now 8:30. The rain had stopped but it was still overcast. I decided to move towards Pottery town from here.

The sky opened up by the time I reached there. The place looked revamped this day. Huge stalls with life-sized ganeshas could be seen around the pottery town and most of their usual pots and lanterns were given backseats, since this is ganapathi time. I choose a shop and clicked ready ganapathis there. He told me that they finished making those some days back but in the ground near the school, some more might be coming up. By now, I was feeling quite happy to have some shots done, but was looking to catch shots of artists working. I got my opportunity soon.

Near one of the tents in the school grounds, artists were working on putting up finishing touches to the ganapathis and I could shoot those scenes. It was inspiring to see them work so hard and yet be so creative.

I finally could quench my thirst for shooting and returned back home by 10 am. Do tell me how you liked the pictures and talk about your experiences if you were shooting or seeing some of these works going on in and around the city.

Regards,
Saurabh

Softbox setup and getting some cool studio type shots

Liked the shot!!! Since some time I was thinking about making some set up for myself to click some studio type shots. It looks fantastic when we see those crisp shots in white or black backgrounds in infinite mode and the product seated in between. Frankly, but just looking at those shots we don’t come to know what it takes to get those outcomes. I am not a professional and hence have limited knowledge which I gained from reading online and experimenting. So here are the things which i would plan to showcase: 1. Setup of creating a cheap softbox. 2. Using the softbox. 3. What other options I have seen. Creating a soft box setup: Now frankly I am very cost conscious fellow. Until and unless I see a reason or a measurable outcome, I don’t like to spend money, especially on photography stuff. Rather i would buy some stocks :). May be that’s the sole reason I haven't got my hands on a DSLR yet. Here are the items you would need to get started: 1. Carton box- After the Friday office, I went to the kiryana store round the corner and asked him the typical carton boxes which are lying with them in plenty. Asked him if he expected something for it but costed nothing since our regular groceries come from there only. Cost=0 Rs. 2. Scissors, Paper Cutter, Selo Tape - Available at home, so Cost=0 Rs. 3. Trace paper or Butter paper Sheets-2 Sheets from the stationary store @ 4Rs each. Cost=8 Rs. 4. White Chart-1 sheet @7 Rs each. Cost=7 Rs. So, all set with the initial items to begin with at the cost of 15 Rs. Pretty cheap rite. Here is how the carton looks like: Listing some steps which followed next: 1. I removed the top closing ends. 2. Now to the other three sides, Side 1, Side 2, and top side 3, I started cutting huge windows out to leave frames from the sides. I have depicted them with white line in the below diagram. That’s what you need to remove. 3. After you carefully remove those out, the box would now look like a frame ready with you for your studio setup. 4. The empty frames now need to be covered with butter paper so that you can diffuse soft light through that to your subject. Remember, the three sides, side 1, side 2 and top side 3 are the ones which would have the butter paper stuck to. This is how it would look like after sticking the butter paper. 6. Voila we are almost done…I cut the white paper sheet per the size of box and covered back side 4 with it and also spread it across the Bottom side 5 to give us a nice clear white background. And this is how it would look now. So, this is the point where the soft box studio setup is ready to be used for our purpose. Now towards our second step, Using the soft box. I don't have any external flashes to fire from any direction, so i planned to use my night lamps shades from the bedside for this purpose. Here are the items which i use for the next steps: 1, My tripod- You bet tripod is lot useful for things to hold other than the camera. 2, A lamp shade or simple bulb holder. 3, 100 Watts bulb. It suited my requirement. you can tweak that per your requirement. 4, Camera. My reliable Sony H50. 5, A subject to shoot. :) I mounted the lamp shade using my tripod and now the light was coming from the top of the subject. Here is how it looks with the subject "Ganesha" enjoying all the limelight. Here is a closer look at the setup. And just to give you an idea of how the tripod was used and how the light was hanging around :) And finally here is the outcome of the setup you just saw. I was pretty happy with this cheap and fast setup. I think a flash would be much more helpful which is something I feel could be among other options. Of course, I used a small thermocol piece (lying useless in the TV carton) to reflect light in some shots even better. I hope you find this tutorial useful and please do leave your comments If there are any more options by which things can be improved.

Trip to Lepakshi

How could i showcase the eagerness inside to drive down to Lepakshi over a weekend after i had seen some road trip photos of this place. The day arrived soon, when we planned to start our Saturday morning early in the morning and pull over at this famous place. Indeed it had been a long time i had driven to some place and we choose the long overdue, Lepakshi.

The Drive: Neighborhood was still asleep and the weather was cloudy as we left Bangalore. Soon as the Sun surfaced over the horizon, we were nearing Chikabalapur.
The directions are pretty straight forward to reach this place. From any place in Bangalore, you need to head towards the new International Airport in Devanhalli and from there on, continue straight on Hyderabad Road. Lepkashi is actually a small village on the outskirts of Andhra Pradesh and hence lies quite close by as you leave Karnataka State Limits. The distance is around 125 Kms from Bangalore and may vary from which point in Bangalore you are starting.
We stopped over for a quick cup of tea and enjoyed the beautiful surrounding. The drive is extremely beautiful and the roads are quite good apart from minor issues. at few points the road has bad patches.

• There are lot of diversions throughout since lot of maintenance work is happening but mind you, the stretches are beautiful and the road is fun to drive on. I was wondering that for miles and miles of that fantastic road, there was hardly any traffic. We were cruising above 100 kmph through the most of the journey. the drive has typical curves and most of the places, you could have a visibility of more than 4-5 Kms due to the levels which is a delight while driving. Soon as you enter Andhra, spotting the turn towards lepakshi can be tricky for some. You cross over the "RAKSA ACADEMY" on the left side which is nearly impossible to miss...the right side would be a RTO Check post. Be a little slow since you would need to take a left after the academy. I could not see any boardings to help but a small market and a broken road on the left is the point to look for. This place resembles the small bus stands in villages. Lepakshi is around 15 Kms inside from this point.Reaching In:
  The road inside is bad almost throughout, so the 15 Kms take a while to finish but suddenly you forget about hectic roads of Bangalore and the surroundings are soothing. As you reach, first is the Nandi Bull park with the biggest nandi statue in the country. The place is nicely maintained and amidst the village. The Nandi statue has been carved out of a single stone and faces the main Shiva temple of Lepakshi. You can ever seek help of a guide there to get to know the complete details of it. We got to know the Alzankar on the nandi and the other related stories to the carving of the statue there. We spent some 30-40 mins enjoying the place and clicking some shots. Still early morning(8:30), the weather was cloudy and we rested in the lawn for a while.The weather was magical for sometime and i could get a good photo of the Nandi against that backdrop of the sky. The well maintained park in front just adds to the beauty of this place.Also found some Murals and carvings on the stones lying down in the Park. The villagers around this place take very good care of this place. I could not see any traces of any garbage or something which tells me that the other way round. Even met a amma who every morning comes over and cleans the place for worship and sets up everything.We were the first to arrive there. Even a family of monkeys was sitting and sticking together on the temple wall. :) Though the temple opens up early and the place looked extremely hushed early morning time.Near the main gate, a young boy sold raw mangoes with salt and gave us a fantastic look as we just arrived. There was a drinking water station near by and a small place to rack up shoes for visitors.We got our first glimpses of the temple main entrance. The temple really looked beautiful and neat. The cleanliness of the place was just overwhelming by now.The main temple, is around 100 mts from the Nandi Bull park. The temple is built on a high platform and hence gives a very medieval feel. Outside the main gate, the board tells you that the temple falls under the ASI now and photography has been relaxed for this place, provided you don't film this place and use it commercially.After we got near the main entrance, the magnanimity of the temple could be felt. There were few guides available on the entrance, off whom we indulged one to show and detail us the temple. The insides of the temple are all stone carvings and have been maintained quite well.Also we could see some of the statues being damaged which is sad part. the priest and the guide both acknowledged that visitors try and temper with those carvings sometimes resulting in those damages.Shown here is the Durga Maa in her full grace. We were explained the complete story behind about Durga Maa by the Priest there.We went around the whole temple and kept getting amazed by the various facets explained by the guide. We were shown the main deity of temple and its complete story by the priest. The guide then showed us the carvings of Ideal man and Women and their characteristics. He then showed us that lepakshi is the only temple where lord Shiva and Vishnu Face each other, else everywhere else they are kept besides each other.He also showed up the Ramalinga which was setup at the place where jatayu was found by Lord Rama. The place got its name from the same story. While jatayu sighted Ravana taking away Sita, he fought and got hurt badly. he was found lying down at the same place by Lord Rama. Rama said " Le Pakshi" which in Sanskrit means "Pleas Getup, Bird " and on the same, the village was named Lepkashi.
  I was just mesmerized by the Parvati Aman and her excellent dressing here. The temple is really old and low on funds but maintained excellently.Then we saw the Dance hall formations or Indra and this was quite fascinating. he took us to this huge pole which is attached to the top but is almost 1 inch above the ground.The guide told us that long back a British Scientist researched on the same and confirmed pole being in air and also being the epicenter of the balance of the whole hall.
  We moved towards the back and found a huge Shiva Linga and snake mounted over it. The guide explained the complete story about it also as to how the linga was brought from kashi to be kept here since the snake statue was a little damaged. There are lot of excellent carvings through the temple and one can enjoy those there.The incomplete dance hall of Shiva parvati's Marriage engulfs in itself, some of the most unknown and amazing stories from our mythology.The Guide is a must have for exploring this temple to understand the actual details around the temple.Every portion of the temple engulfs some or the other story behind it. During a huge festival there, these halls are used for the visitors to stay there.While the day unfolded in front of us we were overwhelmed by the beauty and the historical past of this temple. We took around 2.5 hrs to go through this place completely, and then relaxed in the lawn of the temple, where we had our lunch. The day was setting in and the temperature was now increasing.
  Finally having a relaxed hour there and small nap and fun talks, we planned to start back. On the way back, in the village limits, we saw a huge gathering of people on the banks of pond. I stopped the car and we say that villagers were dealing in fresh fishes. they had lot of teams inside the pond and few of their people sitting on the edge making deal. You could order the type of fish you want and they would find that for you. these were full fishes being sold here and they were as huge as 15-20 kgs...i was just even scared to see those big fishes.The entrance of the village has these huge storks planted there to show you that birds have made this place as their natural habitat. The trip finally ended with we reaching back at home in Bangalore by 3pm.
• Directions: Catch up the BIAL Road which leads to Hyderabad and continue till the RAKSA academy in Andhra Pradesh. from the junction on the road here, Lepakshi should be around 15 Kms.
  Tips:
  • The road is excellent all most throughout but the humps are bad in the Karnataka areas. drive cautiously and try to tackle those humps at 45 degrees.
  • We could sight very few petrol stations through the trips so just ensure you have enough fuel with you. The most of the petrol stations we could see was in the 25-30 kms stretch in Andhra. Don't know whats wrong with Karnataka though.
  • Also not many good places on the way to stop by so plan for your breakfast accordingly. We decided to take a munch around chikabalapur but could not find a place to stop for family. Luckily we had sandwiches packed for the lunch.
  • There are no options literally available at this village, Lepakshi apart from packed items like chips, biscuits for consumption and there is no good place to eat here. we had lunch packed with us so enjoyed the place the best way. If you plan well, the garden at the temple serves as a great place for a good picnic with the family.
  • Excellent grapes are sold mid way so do find out sometime and try picking few.
  • Do ensure that the extra tyre is in place since through the long stretches on this road, there is hardly any help available, if needed.
  • Enjoy the ride through excellent views and landscaping. Have a fun filled and safe trip.
  Warm Regards,
  Saurabh mittal, quitefar@gmail.com
  

Sunfeast 10k Marathon, Bangalore:31st May,09

This was the Big day. 31st may, 2009. The day when Bangalore was Slated to run, and Run for a cause. This was the day for Sunfeast 10k Marathon and other host of various runs for different categories of runners. It looked to be a beautiful and a promising day from the very beginning. We Rose early and sipped our share of coffee at a near by Cafe Coffee Day on Lavelle Junction.
Not Everyone was excited and there were sure some surprised faces seeing so many people early morning. If you are statistics man, the count of people was a whopping 23,000 but believe me, it was even more than that counting the required volunteers and policemen to manage such a huge Show. It appeared as the whole town was awake this early.
First was the turn of Elderly folks to start their Run which was so fun filled that everyone on the sidelines would have felt left out. At least i did. All of them wore yellow tops and they were so enthusiastic about it, that one cant put in words. Some of those were in groups and used this opportunity to loud their voices, some simply enjoyed the attention from the fellow photographers and onlookers on the sidelines.
There were some curious faces also seen around. Lot of visitors looked anxious and looked confused. Although they were raring to go.
Some of the elderly didn't pay much attention and in-fact called out to people on the sidelines to not stand there but join in for walk/Run. Now this was serious stuff for them.
There was a good arrangement of aid available for all different walks. Lot of volunteers carried medical kits and there were ambulances on the stroll.
The inside of the Stadium started getting filled up in the morning itself. It was nothing more than riot of colors where everyone was coming in to participate, have fun or cheer this big event.
Then was the Turn of Elite Women's 10k Marathon and whole stadium roared and cheered and these ladies zoomed away out of the stadium.
If it was time for the Open 10k to start and people were lining up for that, this RJ started to get the ball rolling for the Kingfisher 'Run-In Costume' event where they choose people with diverse and exquisite themes to dress and awarded them hefty prizes.

As the Gates opened for open 10k, people thronged out of the stadium and most of them looked at ease and well prepared for the event and rather looked to be enjoying that.
The Open 10k saw a sea of people running through it. notice the back of the stand where from all the people are coming and are waiting for their turn.
Honorable Chief minister Mr. Yedurappa came to the stadium and looked cool in his Nike track suit, though he strolled through the Lap inside the stadium and spoke to the media.

On the other hand it was time for the ladies to fire all cylinders and touch down the finish lane for the Elite 10k Women's marathon. This was quite a close finish.

Police men had their fair luck of getting close to the celebrities and enjoying the day, though i found the security to be lousy. i Saw lot of photographers jump those grills and get down near to anywhere they wanted and i was wondering if the CM or anyone around had any security at all. In fact the event of this level where thousands of people are all stuck in a stand before they go out for a run, the security should have been a point of most importance. But the complete event was soft on this end.
As Deepika Padukone came in to the stadium, she got lot of attention but first on she went on to give away awards to different winners.
The VIP box had lot of colors and cameras pointed to them while Deepika enjoyed a good gallery view of this whole event.
The most enjoyable of the day was the Majja run where people dressed in most interesting of costumes to run for different reasons.
Kids had good time with their parents and sure they got the best of views of this event.
This group of corporate folks too ran in their effervescent yellow colored Ts.
A fellow dressed in Indian clothing and carrying map of india showed the situation of the country and how the blood was flowing throughout...
A kathakali Dance also put up lot of effort to get dressed and walk for this run.
Some volunteers just carried their Placards and cheered through the crowd.
Now this group was quite inspired by mythological characters and also carried their message on different issues.
A fellow dressed fully with CD carried his message about Piracy.
Another huge Group from CUPA carried their message across and all the members dressed like animals.


A fantastic day and the enthusiasm of the people was unmatchable. I am sure everyone watching them would have been overwhelmed by it and would have felt like running with them.

Do put in your comments if you like something or disliked something or felt that any facet was missed out through this.


Warm Regards,
Saurabh Mittal, quitefar@gmail.com
9880199422