Mountain Ebony

I am fond of flowers and the specie we shall be talking about is quite common in India. When it is common, what could be the purpose in bringing out a post on that. Not because the buds are used to prepare pickles or that the bark of the tree has medicinal properties. The reason is simply my vested interest. I happened to click some photographs while I was at Coimbatore. I came across a different kind of Mountain Ebony (Bauhinia Variegata) hitherto unknown to me which looked very attractive. I wanted to show it to my folks driven by a sort of  childish instinct in me.

This kind of Yellow as also White are very common

In India alone, there are around a dozen varieties and some of them turn into creepers as well. The tree is medium sized and has a brown bark which split vertically. The flowers could be either white, yellow or red. All these varieties are found through out India. They are grown in gardens as ornamental trees. It starts flowering during February/March and by May fruits could be seen. The leaves are split into two parts and generally  both the parts remain folded together. Once the leaf is opened up, it would resemble a Camel’s foot and it is also called so.

In view of its medicinal properties the bark is used in Ayurveda for treating blood related problems, skin diseases, itching, boils, eczema etc.

In India the names we get are: Sanskrit = Kashchnar, Hindi = Kachnar, Marathi = Koral/Kanchan, Gujarati = Champakanti, Bengali = Kanchan, Telugu = Devakanchanamu, Tamil = Mandarai. Kannada = Keyumandara, Malayalam = Mandaram, Punjabi = Kulad.

My first Camera

While loafing around the Internet, recently I came across a picture of an Agfa Box Camera, which used to be one of the prized possessions with me for quite some time, some 55 years ago. The picture seemed to be peeping into my eyes as if asking me if I recollect any thing associated with that box. I was then a boy of 13 years and after persistent requests my dad yielded and bought me one. He also reminded me not to ask for funding for the film rolls every now and then. The camera was a basic one with a lens, a filter, very few aperture settings and with the provision for a flash unit which could be mounted on the shoes provided on its body. There were other similar cameras without any lens and they were known as pin hole cameras.

Discovery of the picture prompted me to go through my old B/W  photo albums so as to enable me to refresh my memories associated with that Camera. Particularly I was interested to locate the photographs I had taken at the Air Strip when the Home Minister, Mr. Govind Vallabh Pant,  landed in my small town. Since I was the only one holding a camera, I could find my way to the IAF aircraft and very close to the minister. There were, however, limitations in taking snaps. The camera would permit only 8 snaps for a roll of film and therefore there was no freedom of taking any number of snaps as the modern day digital cameras could afford. I did take few photographs and exhausted the capacity. The town had a small photographic studio run by one K. Narsingh Rao. Necessarily we were required to go to him for processing. Incidentally I had caught on my film a wealthy businessman garlanding the minister. It seems that the studio owner  informed him about his photo showing him with the minister.  The businessman came to me personally and wanted me to part with the photograph as well as the negative. In return he offered me 10 rolls of the 120 film (Ilford) and thus I could replenish my stock of raw material. I very much needed. I was too happy as I was not required to beg my dad for funding for this purpose.

My searching the old albums though brought back many old memories, I could not find the photograph, I was looking for. However, there were many others and had different stories behind them. Incidentally I got this one below, a tribal fishing under the famous Chitrakot water falls and I could relate it to my own obsession these days, blogging and waiting for some one to come by and drop a comment.   

 The color effect credits to Picasa