“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”
— Robert Frank
A smile can light up a psyche ward.
Photography is an art. People, Historians and critics all rave about it a lot.
If we are talking about nature photography, then I guess the photography is to be appreciated as an art. When humans are to be photographed, I guess the photos come out good or praiseworthy only if the model has struck a proper posed. So, that makes posing by the model a bigger art.
Lately, I have been experiencing this. To be precise, since I have opened this madoversarees. I am in awe of all those lovely ladies and handsome hunks who pose so well and make their pics watch worthy.
My niece is my official photographer for madoversarees (she also handles my account). She keeps getting frustrated because according to her I’m unable to even smile.
She opines, I get stiff and too uptight. I keep telling her that I am stiff and straight shouldered; I can’t pretend to be what I am not.
But, I guess that’s exactly what posing is all about. She keeps complaining that, either I look annoyed, or I look devoid of expressions. Once, I mentioned the famous pic of Monalisa and questioned her, “tell me can you fathom her expressions”? This really cracked her up and she was staring at me with incredulity. Now tell me, “Was I wrong”?🤔
Once, I tried giving a sultry look 😉 and she yelled from behind the camera, “Atya! Why that angry look”?😆 So, I sheepishly told her about my expressions. Looking at her shocked expressions, I burst into laughter and that’s when she clicked the really rare, very rare my smiling pics 😊
Now I know why models are so well paid . Apart from looking good they also need to pose.
True essence of Education
I have repeatedly been asked as to why do we need to study so many subjects like Math, History, Physics, Biology at various levels.
I can’t recall on how many occasions, my students have asked me the relevance of studying Chemistry. Since, I have a certain level of proficiency in the subject, I’m able to give them a satisfactory answer.
Regarding other subjects, I always say that nobody knows what line of work they are going to pursue in future, so our education system is aimed at ensuring that our students have a fair knowledge and understanding of various subjects thereby making them “Jack of all trades……
But, the answer to this age-old question was so articulately answered by my Father (A retired Instructor from the Indian Air Force: an exemplary gentleman, who is a store house of knowledge👌)
Sunday mornings are Skype mornings in the Kulkarni household. My nieces (USA & Canada), nephew, my brothers and my parents join Skype in the morning.
One of my nieces, who’s pursuing her graduation in Psychology at the University of Waterloo (Canada) recently got a job which has NOTHING to do with her Major subject.
So, she mentioned this to us all, and posed the age-old question: What’s the use of what I’m presently studyung? I, too, have studied so many subjects which are not used anywhere at all 🤔
To this my dad very eloquently replied: “Your early education opens your mind. It gradually prepares your mind to receive knowledge. Whatever you learn never goes to waste. If you actually try to learn what is being taught, it never goes to waste. History makes you aware of your past (morever history repeats itself), Science of course opens your mind truly
Math makes you logical and languages needless to say opens up the whole world to you.” BRILLIANT REPONSE!!! 👏👏
The next time the QUESTION is posed to me. I know precisely what to say. Thank you Dad (you never cease to amaze)
Foundations
My tryst with foundations has been not so old. But in a short span of time , I have tried a lot of brands. My expertise lies only in buying after reading somewhere .
Normally it is quite applicable to me but sometimes it is not for me . Bad luck ! I shall start with the foundation which I have now with me and believe me it is not less in number.
So the first one for me to write about is Huda beauty foundation. It is an high end makeup so obviously it is expensive . Cost is 3300. The consistency is thick. To be honest I found it muddy. It is of high coverage. Blends properly and my shade is Ginger bread . Since it has high coverage my melasma is well hidden for first 4 hours atleast .
The second one which comes to my mind is Estee lauder. It is again an high end foundation. Price same 3300 INR. High coverage but it has a dewy finish. Since I have a slightly dry skin, it looks good . It stays for almost 5 hours. Shade is 5W1
Next that comes to my mind is nyx control drop foundation. Good coverage . Price is 1250. I got it for lesser because I bought in sale . Must be for 850 INR. Now since I bought online , the shade wasnt correct. A bit dark. So I ordered a lighter shade . Now I mix them up and use . The result is good. I don’t mix outside but I pt dots of both separately on my face and blend them directly on my face. It is a high coverage one and has matte effect. I also have a nyx foundation stick which is again a lighter shade. I mix it up and use . Stick has a beautiful texture and it blends wonderfully.
I bought two nykaa foundation sticks. No 05 and 04. 05 is darker shade and the last one . I bought thinking I will use for contouring and funny part is it was exact my complexion. Haha. So again I use both the sticks . It blends nicely but has a bit of oily touch. Price 525 INR
I also have Nykaa skin genius liquid foundation. It is very runny ad somehow hasn’t appealed a bit to me . Price is 575 INR . Shade is golden honey.
I bought Bare minerals from USA sephora . I got it for 37$ which when converted into rupees is 2700 appox which is cheaper as compared to Indian Sephora price . The first thing is I need to go Mumbai for Sephora. It is a runny liquid. The coverage is high and the finish and blending is awsesome. Shade is Nutmeg.
I have MAC too. My shade is 44 NC. When I bought it was perfect but offlate I have a feeling it looks darker on my skin. It has been with me for a year so maybe if you keep it , it gets darker ? It is for 2700 INR . What do I say about its blending and finishing ? Naam hee kaafi hai .
I have also used Revlon photo ready foundation which I used for maybe a week . It was long time back. That time my skin was without any pigmentation. So I found it good. Now I have some dark spots on the cheeks , so need high coverage foundations.
I have used faces and loreal infallible as well. I did not have a very good opinion about both. Faces was very liquidy and infallible wasn’t of high coverage . Next in my list is Bobbie Brown , NARS and Fenty.
Just waiting for my next trip abroad
Sarees at shopper’s darbar
Am a member at Pinterest and in my spare time I browse it a lot. I am addicted to good clothes and so I keep saving lot of pictures so that I can buy them as and when I get it .
One such saree I had downloaded from Fashons LK . I had been searching that left and right . I posted the same on shopper’s Darbar .
Education system in India
I just happen to attend a workshop on Trinity college . It was about the course which they offer at various levels.
To prove his point , the speaker rather for that matter everybody starts with bashing of Indian education system. At such times I wonder if am the only one who doesn’t find anything wrong with the old education system ? For example he said according to some survey after 30 years there will be such jobs which nobody has thought about . His question was are we preparing our kids for that ? I was thinking which maybe wrong , when I was in school or even a batch of 1992 of class xi was in school , who had thought about the present jobs which are available in the market . But look at the population of India of that age group . They all are doing so well.
Everybody including the great educators keep criticising rote learning . To be very honest , I don’t find anything wrong with rote learning . Students learn mathematical tables with rote learning coz of which they do calculations fast. If you start understanding the tables and then calculate ,it doesn’t work. Then of course people will ask me what’s the hurry ? Or maybe why calculators are bad ? Well for that I don’t have an answer . Everybody has different capacities and different ablities . Certain people with rote learning method do well in life and some people with proper understanding can’t . I always feel the students who have ability to understand and then write turn out to be good teachers. I am not trying to say that a job of teacher is not so good but then neither it is very sought after.
If our education system was at fault , how come so many Indians have done well globally ? I am not against the interference of technology in education world, but can there be a substitute to a teacher ? Well technology can make task of a teacher easy. So many Indians have done extremely well are from the era when technology was hardly used in the school. Sunder pichai chief of Google happens to be a Jawahar vidyalya student . He must have passed his X in 1985 from CBSE board ,where and then again technology hadn’t surfaced so much . Of course I haven’t spoken to him or done a research .
I am not against the use of technology in the field of education but am certainly against the belittling of the Indian education system . Everybody keeps comparing our education System with the European and American . We all know what their education system is producing and what we are giving to the world
Bad deals at SD
There are certain sarees , dresses or suits which have been a bad deal at shoppers darbar . It just doesn’t look like shown in picture or someother problem it has .
I begin with the first of mine at SD. I bought one saree from Smiti Mishra who I guess doesn’t sell anymore at SD. The pic is shown below and looks excellent in the pic .
in actual , the saree doesn’t look like this at all. The colour of saree is very very light . The fabric is chanderi , transparent and doesn’t have shine at all. It just doesn’t look like this. Of course the embroidery is same . I had bought for 1600 I guess. The good part is she exchanged it with the dress which is ironicaly my second bad deal. The actual pic of saree is👇🏽
The second was again from her which was a dress . They call it kurti but it looks more like a maxi dress. Now , this when I bought looked exactly like the pic .
ofcourse the dress which I bought did not have a cut at the back . It looked extremely beautiful. I was very happy . I had worn it and clicked lot of pics. Then I washed . That was the end of it . From a floor length dress it became a almost knee length. It drastically shrinked.
The third one I bought was from Tanu Rawal. The picture was awesome and as soon as it was posted , there were lot of inquiries. I don’t know how many actually bought but I ordered one . First the delivery was super slow . I got it after a long time and the fitting is extremely bad . The dress somehow looks bad . In the pic as you can see , dress is beautiful . Price 1600
Then the next is again from a Rawal but her name is Suchita Rawal. It was a long black dress . I fell in love with the pic and immediately ordered it . This dress was for 2500 but after seeing the pic I thought it might be worth it .The delivery was super slow. The fitting was extremely poor and the zip at the back was stuck. I thought it is my bad luck but surprisingly the same zip problem was with the same dress which my friend bought from her . No explanation no offer to change the dress.
The last so far bad deal is latest one from Ekta pahwa. The lady is sweet and very prompt in her answering . The delivery was fast but the dress fabric is very substandard . I guess can’t expect much in 799
Everytime I get a bad deal in dresses , I think I won’t buy anymore dresses. But then once in a while I do get to see dresses or rather pics which are irresistible . Hopefully this is the end of it
Earrings from Richa
Recently I bought two pair of earrings from SD. Vendor is Richa Menghani.
First about the earrings. The pic shown below was my first choice and I have been looking for this piece since long . Lot of vendors had but somehow most of them were selling above 300. I was just on verge of buying it when I saw it with her . She is selling it for 250 and the quality is very good. It looks nice and will look good with open hair ( my opinion).
The second piece is also very beautiful but the lower part of it that is zhumka is very huge . Somebody with a big face , might be able to carry it off nicely . If you have a small face then it might look very big . The piece is very fine. The lotus looks very dainty but zhumka comparatively looks huge. This again will look good on any ethnic dress. Both the pieces have silver Finnish. It is not those oxidised ones.
About Richa , she’s somebody who is not interested her own business but is also concerned with her customer’s pocket. She doesn’t charge much and keeps giving tips on buying stuff. Another vendor who has her heart at the right place .
My recent neckpieces
It’s been long I haven’t written anything about my shopping . Of course that doesn’t mean that I haven’t purchased anything . As mentioned I am addicted to shopping . It gives me a high for a short span . I buy clothes and I buy jewellery online a lot . One such site is shopper’s darbar and the other is German oxidised silver jewelry.
I bought two neckpieces from Aarthy . She is from Chennai and has a good stuff. The first was a chain with lord Ganesh in the pendant. I have been looking for it and have seen with lot of vendors. The cost I found a bit more with most of them . I asked Aarthy about it and within no time she confirmed it . The cost was much less than the other vendor’s quoted price . Generally if the cost is less , sometimes the quality is compromised. So with a bit of apprehension I ordered. When I got it , I was pleasantly surprised. It is a beautiful piece . It is very delicate and an exquisite piece .
It is exactly like the piece in pic. Price is 520 plus 80 shipping.
The second is German sliver necklace bought from her which is again very majestic . It looks extremely beautiful and classy. this piece also looks like the shown in pic. It was for 600 plus 80 shipping .
A good deal I feel . She is very polite and the delivery is fast .
This will go with any dark colored saree and it will give a ethnic look . Especially on cotton and silk sarees I guess can be worn. Shall post a pic of wearing the same on a good cotton saree. Till then bye
My OCD
Obsessive complusion disorder is when a person repeats a certain pattern of behaviour. I have this disorder of shopping . Every second day I think j won’t buy anything and third day , am ordering something or am in one of the shops buying .
I had particiapted in a contest organised by SD . I generally hate to participate in such things, but I did . I won and that’s how I got to Priyanka Gaur. She had organised through S D and was the sponsorer . I got a beautiful red coloured fulkari. I was overwhelmed because after leaving school I guess I never participated in contests. During parties , where housie or tambola is played , I have never ever got even a prize for zaldi five or any line , leave aside the full house . Such is my luck .
So winning this contest was like a winning a jackpot and Priyanka was my lucky mascot. I was overwhelmed by all this that I decided to write on her page about the beautiful fulkari duppata which I got . To thank me she has gifted me another beautiful duppata. Who does that ? How can she be so sweet and giving 🥰
I was feeling a bit odd that she is gifting me time and again and I haven’t bought anything from her . So I decided to buy a saree, fulkari again, from her .
The saree is exactly like it is in pic. It looks beautiful only it is navy blue. The fabric is chinnon but must be a mix coz it is heavy and if am not mistaken , chinnon is light with a nice shimmer .
This saree is on the heavier saree but it looks awesome. Some people prefer saree which is not light weight , for them it is a good choice . The draping is also easy and surprisingly the fall is good .
Priyanka is very kind and very sweet in her talks. She doesn’t bother you by flooding mobile with pics of her products. She is very patient .
Price of saree is 2250 . I had seen the same saree with another vendor for 2550. So I guess it is worth buying .
Kalamkari and Parsi saree
I am very fond of kalamkari print . Be it a saree or a kurta or dress material . I see it , I have to buy it.I have two kalamakri sarees gifted by my friend Menaka . She bought it from Calcutta. The fabric is cotton and the feel is awesome. The design is very confusing . Though it had blouse piece but wasn’t clear from where the blouse starts . But when. I wear these sarees it looks good. At least to my eyes and that’s important for me . Very important. One of these saree I saw at fabindia which they are selling at 2300. Am sure my saree must not have cost her same. Not coz she won’t buy me expensive but simply coz she has bought from a shop. Fab India is expensive .
The next two sarees I bought from Nallis and the fabric they told me is cotton silk. I buy so many sarees but am u nable to distinguish the fabric. This fabric is very beautiful and has a good flow. It has good length and height and feels soft to touch.i bought it for 2300
This one I bought from Shivani Surma from shopper’s darbar . The fabric is chenuri silk. It has various colours but the colour I wanted did not have the same design , so I chose black. The fabric is not soft , fall is also fine but feel is not soft. It is unlike silk feel. When you think about silk, the first thing u think is softness . This saree has Kos which is like the fabric goes tedha but on wearing it doesn’t seem so . It looks good .I bought a same saree in beige colour . It looked awesome in the pic . I fell in love with the saree and same kind . Alas! This saree looks totally different . The colour is dull and not at all like in the pic . Both are for 3600 . Rest of the vendors sell at 4000 to 4200 I have posted both the Pics. The first is pic everybody posts and the second one is original pic. She had of course offered to take it back .
This is again a red kalamakri which I bought from Shivani . There are lot of colours in this . This is some kind of silk so the draping is easy. Fall is good and soft to feel. I absolutely loved this piece . This is for 1550. Again some have it for 1550 and some are selling as high as 1750.
This black and white kalamakri I bought from Riya Joseph I guess from SD. This saree is beautiful and is for 1900. The fabric is awsum and fall is good. This vendor is somebody who doesn’t waste her time in chatting . You want, you buy . You dont want kindly do not chat or ask questions . Anyway I wanted to so no problem . It has a blouse piece which has lot of kalamkari design on it I stitched it but don’t wear on this saree
Parsi saree I bought from a shop at Grant road Mumbai. It’s the old part of Mumbai which resembles Paris streets minus the crowd. Some streets of Paris were reminding me of this place except the cleanliness and population. Anyway there are about 5 shops on Grant road. I saw all and finally decided on this shop called Pushpam. It is Georgette saree with jaal pallu. It had a seperately cut blouse peice though it is of the same fabric. It comes with fall and picko. So only blouse has to be stitched and it is ready to wear.Cost 9500. There are more expensive sarees with more of different kind of work . My saree has typical traditional parsee work .
Parsi sarees originally were handmade but now all of then keep machine embroidered. Of course there must be some shops which keep hand embroidered parsee saree. I shall buy and then write a review till then cya.
amlostbutwhere 