Sunflowers for the Summer Solistice

To celebrate the Summer Solistice and the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere I've decided to post pictures of sunflowers which I photographed last week.

Between Hangala and Gundulpet are fields of sunflowers on either side of the road.

 Technically summer has given way to the monsoon season in India and fields of nodding cheerful sunflowers makes the drive so much more special.

 A field of these bright cheerful flowers are sure to inspire most people, it certainly inspired Van Gogh.

 Cultivated for their seeds these sunflowers are the source of sunflower oil.

Enjoy the summerand all that it has to offer you.

The Colour Purple

Am I the only one who's noticed this phenomena or have you noticed it too?

In the past decade or so more and more people have taken to painting their houses and business establishment in bright colours. 

  

This penchant for bright colours stems from the need to stand out I would think, after all there's 1.2 billion of us jostling for attention. More than ever before, the burgeoning  middle classes are becoming proud, first time home owners and a distinctive exterior colour for their new home makes a statement. Besides, visitors won't have to bother with GPS they would just have to look for the purple house with orange and green trim. 

Could the need to be unique be the only reason? Asking around I was told these bright colours were Vastu colours. Of these vastu colours I'm partial to purple because it doesn't feature prominently in the Indian art and culture colour palette with the exception of Indian sarees be it Kanchipuram, Ilkal and Benares to name a few.

According to Vastu, purple inspires respect whereas this interesting infographic of colours and their significance around the world says purple in India denotes sorrow,comfort and nobility.

In the past if purple was not visible was it the preserve of only the wealthy because it was expensive to create? I know with natural dyes fabric or yarn would have to be dyed twice - with indigo and then with madder to achieve a deep rich colour like the colour of the jamun fruit. A beautiful colour but no match for the brilliance and intensity of  the purples which chemical dyes and paints could produce.

Vastu and the building boom has taken Egg Plant Delite, Velvet Night, Dark Triumph, Intense Purple and Orchid Bloom from merely existing in an Asian Paints shade card and unleashed them on the landscape along with a hundred different bright colours.

Purple spotting has become one of my pet projects.Purple pops up in unexpected places like this freshly painted house glimpsed while driving along a back road in the Nilgiris.

 Before the mist shrouds these purple beauties.  

If you have to make a statement and you want to stand out purple wins hand down. Not limited to paint, purple has caught the imagination of the people with this song Oodha colour ribbon from the Tamil movie Varutha Padatha Valibar Sangam.
Have you spotted purple recently? what was it? I'm curious.