The Monsoon Herald

You can take me out of Goa, but you can’t take Goa out of me…

A walk around the campus at Kasiga, and I chanced upon… Goa!

These red flowers are called Scadoxus multiflorus are native from southern Africa. The Portuguese brought them to Goa, planted them around their houses and now they spread all over the coastal area. Locally known as ‘fireballs’, ‘powder puffs’, ‘monsoon roses’ or ‘blood lilies’, these flowers announce the arrival of the monsoons.

Here is a mesmerizing time lapse video of the monsoon rose, that is here today and gone tomorrow.

More and more Marigolds

It seems like they have come up overnight… there are marigolds everywhere. I would never have imagined a simple flower like that when grown in abundance can make the place come ablaze!

So let me take you for a short tour around the Kāsiga school gardens.

The pictures above and below are panorama images of the marigolds on the way to the academic block.

And here is the patch of the same lovely flowers outside the dining hall lawns

Try to spot three different varieties in the maze of gold below…

… or just enjoy the ecstasy of the colours and fragrances!

Can’t wait for the next season of flowers!

Kasiga@Dawn

The Kasiga School announced a cross country run for the students and I was dreading the moment because I was to be on duty at 5:30 am on a Sunday morning!

But when I reached the point where the run was to be flagged off I pointed my camera to the sky and captured some breathtaking moments of the the colours of dawn.

5:30 am – Blue skies at the entrance gate of Kasiga School

6:10 am – Sacred Dawn … the temple and the sun

7:10 am – The sky is ablaze

And here’s the proverbial early bird…

Next time, no cribbing about getting up early!

Ethereal Landscapes

Another drive up to Mussoorie over this weekend. And as we sat lazily watching the clouds go by… This was another of those moments where the landscape looked the same (ie. something I have clicked all too often), yet I wondered how could I capture it through a different lens.

What turned out was indeed a sight to behold!

School visitor

Kasiga School boasts of an environ closest to nature, it is no surprise then to see our friendly neighbours (viz. insects, animals and reptiles) saunter into the corridors on a daily basis.

Today the celebrity during the juice break was a tiny grass snake. Unfortunately it chose the noisy junior school block to make an appearance and had to beat a quick retreat. But not before I was called to snap a few pics!

Can you spot it in this picture?

Peace @ work

The Kasiga School celebrated the International Day of Peace today, with the theme: Sustainable peace for a sustainable future.

Amidst all the speeches highlighting the significance of this day, what touched me the most was that the students pooled in their ideas and resources to create banners, placards and logos for the event. Hats off to their creativity!

Here are a set of images of the morning’s celebrations:

The peace logo

The components of peace

The Principal’s speech against a very powerful backdrop

The Junior Choir singing the Peace Anthem

Peace march showcasing the Millenium Development Goals

Students march around the Oval (Cricket Field)

A rainbow for the teachers

Teacher’s day at the Kasiga School was a memorable one for me… not only because the students didn’t allow me to teach in any class I went to, or that they surprised me with a shower of confetti when I switched on the fan in one of the classrooms or the tiny handmade cards that I got from so many. All this was proof that being a teacher is indeed such a noble profession. And while I walked back home the heavens had something else is store for me. I quickly got out my camera and snapped a panorama of a beautiful rainbow in the sky!

Cheers to teaching and teachers everywhere!

Tons River Trek

Kasiga School is lucky to have a river (or more of a roaring stream) running around the campus. Sunday saw us take a day trek to this ‘Tons river’

The Tons is the largest tributary of the Yamuna and flows through Garhwal region in Uttarakhand, touching Himachal Pradesh. The Tons valley is a remote area and has a culture unlike any other in the region. The villagers in the Tons valley are believed to be descendents of the Pandavas and Kauravas from the epic Mahabharata.

This river boasts of adventure sports in river rafting… however, we had a different kind of adrenaline rush when we explored some of the undiscovered parts of this river