Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes completed 30 year anniversary this year. Without any doubt, it is one of my favourite daily comic strips. Here are some of my favourites saved over the years. 🙂

Calvin and Hobbes is a daily comic strip by American cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair is named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher. At the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. As of January 2015, reruns of the strip still appear in more than 50 countries. By 2010 nearly 45 million copies of the 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been sold.

Calvin and Hobbes is set in the contemporary United States in an unspecified suburban area, which is vaguely suggested to be in northeast Ohio. The strip depicts Calvin’s flights of fancy and his friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin’s relationships with family and classmates. Hobbes’ dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a live anthropomorphic tiger; all the other characters see him as an inanimate stuffed toy. Though the series does not mention specific political figures or current events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, philosophical quandaries, and the flaws of opinion polls.

(Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes)

Lighthouses/Bucket List Part 5

I finally got the chance to visit a Lighthouse people!! The ticket was only worth 10 rupees, can you believe it?

So on the last day of my trip to Udupi, we decided to visit the Kaup Beach. The beach is really beautiful with the blue Arabian Sea roaring in front of you. Also, this shore was really deep compared to all other beaches, you step 10 steps into the water and you are completely submerged, the waves were also much higher and wilder.

SOOO BLUE. 😛

To be frank, this kind of blue is a rare sight so I was really pleased. But, let’s not digress from the Lighthouse! Let me give you a step by step description. So we walked some 50 steps to reach the main door of the lighthouse. At first it was closed but thankfully opened half an hour later.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

Then there were an additional 100+ steps to reach the top. There were a set of spacious spiral steps and another set of very steep and congested steps. I was really scared while clicking this picture because I was literally standing on the edge, holding out the camera in front of me and people were passing behind me in the tiny space.

THE STEPS.

This crazy bunch of guys you see walking down, were shit scared and took forever to step down, I utilised the time to click pictures while the others blamed them and not me for slowing down the crowd. Then there were also these beautiful windows which gave a view of the outside and when you’re tired because of the climbing, it also provided you with a breath of fresh air. 😛

A WINDOW IN THE LIGHTHOUSE

When I finally reached the top, huffing and sweating and panting (almost sounded like the wolf from Three Little Pigs there), this view welcomed me!

It was totally worth the climb. I took pictures of all 4 directions, and of the top and bottom as well. There was a family chilling on a patch of stones right below where I was standing.

Family.

Finally after clicking about 50 pictures I came down, it was almost the time for sunset. I was just really happy that I saw something new. Oh and I also had one whole fried fish, alone! It was yummy! Thankyou Kaup (Kapu) Beach! ❤

LIGHTHOUSE AT SUNSET

 

Nostalgia Trip: Nickelodeon

I don’t know how many of you remember the time when NICKELODEON used to have the best shows for kids.

There was Legends of the Hidden Temple, Global Guts, Rugrats, Monsters Aaaah! Real Monsters, Hey Arnold, Rocko’s Modern Life, Kenan and Kel, CatDog,The Amanda Show, Blue’s Clues, Chalk Zone… and the list just goes on and on.

I was taken back to the time when I begged my Mom to cook me a bowl of maggi and plop down in front of the TV when my favourite shows were going to come on. These are some of my favourite memories from when I was seven years old. What happened was that during that time, my cable operator gave access to Nick for a week. I was hooked! And then he suddenly disconnected it. My grief at that point is just indescribable and then thankfully we shifted to Bangalore where I could access it all the time and that too in English!

There was so much that was new to me in those shows. It was a whole new cultural experience and definitely my first exposure to western culture.

I loved the coins that OldMac used to give out in Legends and I still play the Steps of Knowledge, then there was Rugrats, oh I hated Angellica soooo much! There was Arnold, the cutest boy ever, and Helga, a character framed so well, a reminder of a phase that every teenager goes through, the conundrum of love and hate. The crazy fights between cat and dog, what a concept, I wanted to be on Global Guts and climb that mountain and press all those buzzers!

When I was watching all these shows online yesterday I was reminded of how much I loved them and like Kel said “Awwh Here it goes again!”

A collage of 90s Nickelodeon Shows

Vintage Memories

Midnight Musings. Credits: Meself. 😛

Midnight musings with a new found app. It’s interface is amazing. It worked exactly like a typewriter. Didn’t autocorrect, did not move to the next line. Pretty awesome. ❤

Bucket List Part 2

Living in the Mountains.

My love for mountains is just never ending. There is nothing in the world I would love more than living my life there. This is perhaps on the topmost preferences on my bucket list.

I wish I could just leave behind this crazy world and live there amidst nature at its best. I wonder how, just how did all these places came into existence? Why do they inspire us? Why are all of them so different? Beaches and mountains and plains. (P.S. my instagram bio reads “Mountains Beaches and Everything in between) I think why a particular person likes a particular kind of place depends a lot on their personality. For instance, I think I am more intrigued by places which are silent, calm and slow. The weather also makes a lot of difference to me. I’d rather have an everlasting winter than an everlasting summer. The mountains are thus perfect for me.

Clicked at Triund Trek, McLeodganj/Dharamshala.

The First Trip

Taken at Neemrana Fort Palace.

I never knew that the decision to go to a trip with three crazy guys would be a catalyst for many more trips to come and hell this was an amazing one. To all those who live in New Delhi, this quaint little town is too humble to boast about the beauties it veils amidst its hills. It is just a few hours away from Delhi and the main attraction is the Neemrana Fort which was built in 1464 A. D. It is the perfect weekend destination for those who want to get away from the busy city life and also those who love adventure. The fort has now been converted to a fort-resort with rooms and facilities that will make you feel like royalty. Flying Fox which organises adventure sports all around the country, has now also come to Neemrana and provides the facility of ziplining over the hills surrounding the fort. The picturesque-ness of it all will definitely leave you breathless. The Flying Fox Team will be there by your side all the while and they are a really fun group of people who will entertain you throughout the ride.

Sunset at Neemrana

The moment that stole the show for me was the sunset. Set between the hills, it is like a wall of fog envelops it as the sun sets. The rays spread out till as far as you can see. The spread of tiny houses until the horizon, and the sun setting behind it, is as beautiful a scene as you can experience in a lifetime!