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The four minarets of the taj mahal are only visible from the front. If you look from the side, you can only see three of them. A symbol of love, 20000 craftsmen had their hands amputated by the emperor so that they could never again replicate the monument.
The ornate designs on the marble are not drawn using paint, but carved out of marble and filled with semi precious stones imported from various parts of the world.
as the saying goes, the world is divided between those who have seen the taj mahal and those who haven't.
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as a kid, I used to sneak out of swimming classes in summer to learn roller skating and obviously lost out on a life skill. when an opportunity came by this year, I spent six months from april to october to close the gap. I learnt the basics for four months in a 4.5 ft deep 20m pool, then moved on to learn a bit more in a 16ft deep 50m pool. All this finally culminated to my first open water scuba dive on Halloween and getting certified as an open water/advanced open water scuba diver a few days later. I took up an introductory module on underwater photography as part of the course (which is more about diving than photography, because you have to slow down to a crawl in water, try not to scare away fish, avoid touching the aquatic life or accidentally causing damage, avoid upsetting any residents underwater etc. and then take a photo) and walked away with an image of the clown fish "Nemo" and the sea anemone. It is a fitting conclusion to the experience of learning to dive because "Finding Nemo" gave many people a really fun understanding of aquatic life, ocean currents and dangers humans pose to aquatic life.
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A bunch of tourists on camels and let's call the man holding the leash... the camel herder or maybe he herds the tourists...one signal and each of the camels lines up one behind the other. Such discipline at the Hundar desert in Nubra Valley.
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close your eyes. visualize the largest IMAX screen you have seen. imagine that screen a hundred times larger and surrounding you all around. fill that screen with a desert, tall mountains, blue skies, rivers and rough roads.
can you feel it?
open your eyes. get off instagram. book a flight. fly to Leh. see it yourself.
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an early morning in Benares, captured inred, orange and grey. the reds represent the significance of this place in Hinduism. the oranges represent the sunset of our lives. the greys represent the final rites of passage at the ghats when we are finally consumed in the pyres.
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