Week 48 - Golden Temple

Week 47 - Thumbi

Week 46 - Flower garden

Week 45 - Eezhaattumugam

Week 42 - A village view

Week 40 - Chakram

Week 30 - Sparkles

Week 22 - Country road

Week 20 - Pearl drops

ഒരു കുടയുടെ മുകളില്‍ തുള്ളിക്കളിക്കുന്ന മഴത്തുള്ളികള്‍

Week 13 - Resting Top

Week 11 - Pearl

Week 10 - Beach house

Week 10 - Music wave

Week 6 - Repose

Week 4 - Jubilant

Jubilant

Week 3 - Elephant attack

A wild elephant attacking a jeep at Muthanga wild life sanctuary, Wayand, Kerala.

Muthanga wild life sanctuary offers wild life safari to the tourists. They take the tourists in jeeps through the forest and we can see wild animals.

During our trip, we saw the elephants standing near the road. Our jeep was the first to arrive at the scene. We stopped our vehicle and waited for the elephants to go away, but they didn’t. Another jeep came after us and the driver of the jeep was courageous to drive near the elephants. However, as the jeep approached the elephants, one of them charged the jeep. The jeep had a narrow escape. On seeing this incident, we and the people in all other jeeps behind us were scared.

We all waited for sometime and the elephants went away from the road to the forest. On seeing this, another jeep drove ahead. But as the jeep reached near the spot where the elephants were initially standing, the elephant came out of the jungle and tried to charge the jeep. Since the driver sped away, they too had a narrow escape. The elephant was actually hiding behind the trees and waiting to attack. This incident scared us even more.

Finally after waiting for about 15 minutes, the elephants went inside the forest. This time after making sure that the elephants had really gone inside, we continued our safari.

In case you haven’t seen, watch this video found in youtube where an elephant attacks a jeep. The people in that jeep really had a scare of their life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWnPiiMKSeM

Week 2 - Water Diamonds

This time, I decided to go against my convention. Instead of using my wide angle lens to cover a larger area and using a slow shutter speed to "smoothen" the water in the waterfalls, I used a telephoto lens to cover only a small area of the waterfalls and a fast shutter speed to "freeze" the water.

These were taken at "Meenmutty Waterfalls", Wayanad.

Week 1 - Sojourn

Sojourn.

Fishing boats waiting at the harbour. Taken at Azhikode, Kerala.

Week 52 - Bringing to focus

Week 51 - Some more history

Paravur church - one of the seven and a half churches believed to be established by St. Thomas.

The Marthoma Pontifical Shrine at Kodungalloor, Kerala, the first of the seven and a half churches believed to be established by St. Thomas. St. Thomas is believed to have landed in Kodungalloor in 52 AD. In AD 72, he was martyred at Mylapore, near Chennai. His relics were taken to Edessa, Turkey by a merchant on 300 AD. In 1953, Cardinal Tisserant, then the Prefect of Oriental Congregation, on his historic visit to Kerala took the bone of the Right Arm of the Apostle and deposited it in this church. See image below.



Holy relics of some other holy people.
The altar of the church where the St.Thomas' relic is kept.

Week 50 - Fort Kochi

Some of the historically important places in Fort Kochi, Kerala, India.

The Jewish Synagogue.

The "Paradesi" Synagogue was build in 1568 by the cochin jewish people in the kingdom of cochin. It is called "paradesi" synagogue because it was used by the "white jews", a mixture of Jews from Cranganore, the Middle East, and European exiles. (The "black jews", they believe, descended from the oldest Jewish communities which settled in Kerala from AD 72 onwards when the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans). It was built adjacent to the Mattancherry Palace temple on the land gifted to the Malabari Yehuden community by the Raja of Kochi, Rama Varma.

The top of the Mattancherry palace temple and the Jew Synagogue.

The Mattancherry Palace temple and the Mattancherry synagogue share a common wall.

Koonan kurisu (The bent cross)

This is the place where the christianity in Kerala began splitting. The koonan kurisu was established in 1550 and the "koonan kurisu sathyagraham" (the bent cross vow) took place on 5-Jan-1655.

From the hypothesized arrival of St. Thomas in A.D. 52 till the Koonan Cross in 1655, the history of the Indian church is common. Not much is known about the early history of the St. Thomas Christians, but two facts stand out clearly. Between the 3rd and the 9th centuries there were waves of immigrants from Mesopotamia (corresponds to regions of modern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran) to Kerala, and from the early centuries, this Church, with its liturgical center in Edessa, Mesopotamia, had also claimed its origin from St. Thomas. (As per Act of Thomas, St. Thomas started his preaching in Syria, so the immigrants might have been converted by him at Syria).

When the Portuguese came to India at the end of the 15th century, they were surprised to see christians (syrian) in Kerala. The syrian christians had connections with the churches in the Persian region. The portuguese, who were catholics, tried to convert the syrian christians to catholicism. They resorted to a number of tactics to achieve this. But when one of the Bishops from Syria was allegedly murdered by the Portuguese, the syrian christians gathered at this place and re-affirmed their allegiance to the Syrian Orthodox tradition. Families of Syrian Christians held on to a rope tied to this bent cross and swore never to convert into Catholicism.

These people now form the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, the Mar Thoma Church, and the Jacobite Church. The group who did not participate in the Koonan cross sathyagraham came under papal authority and are called the Syro-Malabar Church.

An antique shop on the Jew street.

Santa Cruz Basilica

This historic Church was built by the Portuguese and elevated to a Cathedral by Pope Paul IV in 1558. In 1795 it fell into the hands of the British when they took over Cochin, and was demolished. In 1887 Bishop Dom Gomes Ferreira commissioned a new building at the same site. The Church has since been proclaimed a Basilica in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

St. Francis Church

Built in 1503 by Portuguese Franciscan Friars, this is India’s oldest European Church. Vasco da Gamma was buried here in 1524 before his remains were moved to Lisbon, Portugal.

The tombstone of Vasco Da Gama.