Gokarna.

Here is a bunch of old pictures from Gokarna, back from 2007. I was just reminded of them by purely_narcotic's group invitation in flickr. (Thank you.)

Keralappiravi dinam (the day Kerala as we see it on the map today was born under the provisions in the State Reorganisation Act 1956: November 1, 1956) fell on one of those days. This we celebrated by walking about under the sun on the beach sand, with intermittent supplies of beer made by our favourite alcohol baron's bird-logo'ed company. (Right, November 1 is Karnataka Rajyotsava also, to be fair to the lovely people that's provided us with economic refuge. Salut. Merci.)

On the other hand, legend is that Parashuraaman (alias Parashurama, alias Parasuram) hurled his mighty axe all the way from Gokarna to Kanyakumari, and then rose from ocean the glorious People's Communist Democratic Republic of Kerala. Until the first democratically elected Communist government actually happened, and them filthy Comminists brought the Kerala Land Reforms Act (1963) into effect, descendants of the original Brahmin settlers to whom Parashuraaman had relinquished land rights (this was out of caste allegiance, I believe) ruled over all Kerala landmass. (Feel free to form your own Brahmin hegemony conspiracy theory, or variants, or counter-theories thereof.) Anyway, this is the mythological and perhaps historical significance of Gokarna, at least for us beef-eating, rum-drinking (this bit about food-alcohol habit is not vast generalisation, my Highly Scientific Observational Study has proven this to be correct) abnormal Indian populace. So while there, we naturally joked about throwing another axe in the same general direction in order to claim some more expensive real estate. After all we owe it to the original land-grabber, don't we.

Now, what's interesting about this picture is that four of us saw the same thing and shot it in more or less the same way.

• Here is a picture maxaud took, with his digital SLR, with a 50mm f/1.8 lens.
• Here is a picture blackfin2 took, with his digital SLR, with his almighty Canon L-series lens.
• And here is a picture lomax13 took, with his paavam film SLR and a paavam "kit" lens, on Kodak Ektachrome (E100G or maybe E100VS) slide film. This by far is my favourite of the lot.

(Right, pseudonymous sissies, all three of them.)

I believe this is sufficient reason for continued love for film, even in its humblest incarnations: those days I carried an old light-leaking Yashica Electro 35 GSN with me, and this was shot on some very ordinary Kodak Colour Plus film or something. (I actually like the light leaks.) We further discovered the very cheap Sterling 125 B&W film (Rs 35/roll, no more) in a Gokarna photo studio. Apparently this is Lucky film or something bulk-loaded into rejected film canisters. It'd have been wonderful if I could find some more of that to play with. (Results from this film are actually quite decent. I haven't made prints or anything, still.)

(I apologize for using too many brackets, including this one.)