Red clouds by night

I have never seen such dramatic red clouds floating by. The breeze is just lovely tonight and though I am no expert at night photography, I just tried my best to capture the amazing sight.

The weekend brought the monsoon with it and so much respite to the heat. It was just getting too much and it had to be over. I will miss the mangoes though.

Days have been so busy, my mind has been occupied, weekends rush by, I took pictures hoping to blip and never end up doing so, and time just rushed by me. Am I losing out to time?

I just read two books The Bookseller of Kabul and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Both books have been written about the same time when the Taliban were created and ruined Afghanistan, how the lives of people were turned to hell, how they lost everything they owned including their lives and people they loved, how they remain scared for life if they lived... it is quite amazing. I don't mean that the books give a completely negative perspective, but they just highlight so may issues faced and particularly the lives of Afghani women. How miserable can one's lives get when you are the underdog mostly, taken for granted, expected to submit and endure all that is thrown at you. I applaud these women who survive all this with great courage and hold the pillar of their families in every circumstance, enduring quietly all the pain that is meted on them. The scenes of war and ruin, of drought and hunger, of Talibanic barbarism... is all just too much in one world and the one life we have.

Makes me wish for peace, and a world where what matters is to each his own, and one where we live as a community in harmony. I am truly moved by these powerful narrations.