This week on Sentient Snippets: bizarre beauty, intense admiration, earthly stars, artless art, and the miracle of feeling.
A small change in perspective and a gorgeous form of beauty turns ominous. With its unusually bulgy eyes bringing new light of awe to yours, a cat snake can be something you would want to look out for when you are in Anaimalai. While it was slithering away into the sinister folds of darkness, this snake was thus captured when the source of light was placed beneath it, making it bizarrely beautiful. Its movement marked by fluid-like curves never leaves a tangible trace whatsoever, except for the wonder it etches on your heart.
Cat snake, Anaimalai, by Santosh Saligram
We are constantly surprising ourselves with the immensity of admiration that never ceases for these wildcats. And we hope it’s infectious, this joy, as we long to share it with you. Our expressions fail, at least verbally, when we try to capture them, and hence, such images. A fleeting moment framed – of a leopard grimacing at the flies he was trying to sway away with his tail – a memory saved with the sound of the shutter to later evoke mute melancholy.
Leopard, Kabini, by Santosh Saligram
Experience it on our ‘Leopard’s Lair’ Photo Tour.
Here, stars bloom against green foliage that could be your dark sky. How do such fragile beings weave such strong constellations of memory and beauty in the mind of the beholder? How do beings of such short lifespan bloom and wither away like it’s that simple to be that graceful? Why do such small details evade us when we are bogged down by the mundanity of life? And is this why we keep longing to go back to the woods, their the enigmatic, deep, dark depths?
Monsoon flower, Amboli, by Santosh Saligram
Experience it on our ‘Monsoon Magic’ Photo Tour.
Allowing yourself some guiltless joy by letting more of the mountain air into your lungs, breathing and observing how even the simple act of breathing feels liberating in these high altitudes, every turn and every sight worth saving as photographs, allowing you to make many memories to so tuck them away into the scruffy folds of feeling – all possible in Ladakh.
Mountains by a lake, Ladakh, by Sachin Rai
Experience it first-hand on our ‘High on the Himalayas’ Photo Tour.
Don’t moo your mushy emotions away just because it’s frowned upon in the world of humans. A gaur calf is the epitome of all that’s innocent and adorable even in the wild. A bale of brown naivety, so artful in its artlessness, that even conundrums bring joy and peace for a change. See if a gaur calf can speak to the innocent child in you that refuses to grow up, especially when you are in the forests of Bandipur.
Gaur calf, Bandipur, Santosh Saligram
Experience it on our ‘Southern Splendour’ Photo Tour.