This was one of my favourite bits about Bombay, despite all the ‘sights’ and smells it often involved. Standing at the open gate, preferable along the middle pole, and just enjoying the humid air hitting the body. Simple, unmatched pleasure.
I miss this.
The BBC has an article with photos of celebrities in front of the Taj Mahal over the decades. The thing that caught my eye was how the sky is nearly never blue in the recent photos. While the yellowing of the Taj’s marble is well documented, the slow yellowing of our sky is well known but rarely discussed (GDP growth trumps everything else).
Here are the photos, chronologically arranged:
Of course this set is in no way representative. They are too few data points. All susceptible to the weather on the day, the camera settings, and the post processing.
There is also a bit of confirmation bias on my part. I’ve noticed, sadly, the disappearance of blue day skies and starry night skies for over two decades. And I probably looked at the photos to confirm that.
But this also gives an idea that this may not be the worst approach. There are probably billions of photos shared of the Taj on social media every year. We could create a program that scans for them, dates them, filters out the outliers, and then analysis the trend of sky colour (and Taj’s marble colour) over time. Time to put all that social media oversharing to good use :)
El diablo susurro en mi oído,
no eres lo suficientemente fuerte
para resistir la tormenta.
Yo le susurré al oído,
“YO SOY LA TORMENTA”
—Azara Garcia de los Salmones Marcano, Ultra runner extraordinaire.
Translation:
The devil whispered in my ear,
you are not strong enough
to resist the storm.
I whispered in his year,
“I AM THE STORM”
Source, via this isn’t happiness
Everything about this photo is … ❤️
The strength in her left arm. Her erect posture, and core strength; no sinking hips.
The heels on her shoes. The wicker basket. The way she’s balancing the basket with her knee. And so how her right heel is so slightly lifted to help bend the knee.
The baby, unbothered by her state but keeping an eye on something. Sharing the carrier bag with the produce, nonchalance.
The clean, but not western supermarket clean, produce on display. Pedestrians all around.
The birthmark, or otherwise, on her right forearm. The angle of bend in the right arm. The strength, and maybe stress, in her shoulders.
The handsome guy with the dark red suitcase. He’s either checking her out, or the produce. His suitcase!
The guy, dressed like my dad in photos of his 20s & 30s, carrying a wire mesh bag.
The white shoes of the woman in the background, sharply in contrast with her well tanned legs.
So much more… but I keep returning to the first thing I see every time… the strength in that arm, those shoulders and her core.
I ended up getting five. I would’ve brought more, but I’d gone late and the library was closing.
I’d reserved Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, so got that.
I’d been looking for a few Hemingway books. I didn’t find anything from top of the list, but did find these two, so got them.
Brad Stone’s Everything Store has been on my radar for a while. When I saw it on a shelf, I picked that up.
And close to it was Seth’s little book. So got that too.
I didn’t get to visit the Sports or the Scifi sections before they announced the library was closing.
Aside: I like how the three small books on the right are, together, about as big as the fourth book. And the four books on the right are again, together, about as big as the one on the left. Fibonacci-esque.
Went to return two books, and maybe borrow one. Ended up bringing seven of them home :)
The one I went to get: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
The two that were in my read some time list:
The four that I picked up from browsing around the sections:
Had this handsome nutter over for half a day yesterday. His behaviour traits all remind me of Chewie when he was that age—restless, cute, ball addict (still is), bark at doorbells (still does), lay down to meet dogs, always wanting to touch some part of me…
It was fun revisiting those crazy, lovely, hyper, cute early days with Chewie, just for a brief morning.
R was meant to buy one for him, but ended up buying one for herself.
