July is a month associated with Shravan, Van Mahotsav or tree planting day, and Gurupournima. Mumbaikars love and hate July because it brings rains and incessant torrential rains too.

And I realized that I have published photo-journals for seven consecutive months, and it is so uncharacteristic of me. I had published my photo-journals sporadically, but this marks a consistent effort. I have my strengths, but perseverance is not one of them. Well, people change!

My critic is at my home. My darling wife, who else? I began this month’s photography by clicking her photograph early in the morning, before sunrise, when she was reading news on her iPad.

I went to the Mumbai airport, and you know that it is my favourite location for clicking photos. But that day was particularly bad. I could not find anything worth a click when I noticed a little girl sandwiched between two burqa clad women. They were waiting for someone. That was a superb situation.

I picked up my phone to click when the girl pulled herself out. I still clicked. This too is not bad, though the golden moment was lost. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the great photographer says, “Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.” Sigh! Life is like that!!

When I turned back, I noticed the beautiful garden at Terminal 2. I had not noticed it although it has been there always, and I had not noticed the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It looks good.

My grandson and I went to the Upvan Lake. It was cloudy. We walked around the lake. Two crows were perched on the steel fence. I took out my mobile and clicked a photo hurriedly thinking that they would fly away. Crows are intelligent birds, and they can understand who is a dangerous man and who is not. They remained perched there and I clicked a dozen photos from various angles. My grandson laughed. “They are posing for you,” he said.

From Upvan lake in Thane we went to Yewoor Hills. The road is serpentine and winding as it climbs up. I clicked photos at the location where the road takes a S turn.

A couple was riding a bike and climbing this gradient when I clicked to capture the moment. There are so many twists and turns in one’s marital life! Rather in a couple’s marital life. Is that what the photograph depicts? It is all about how we see things.

And finally, an impromptu expression of gratitude to which I was a witness. On the Gurupournima day (10 July 2025) the workers of HyTech Engineers called Mr. Hemant Mondkar, the Chairman and MD of HyTech Engineers Ltd to join them in the conference room where a surprise was waiting for us. People express their gratitude to their ‘Guru’ and honour him/ her on Gurupournima day. They offered him a bouquet of flowers and touched his feet.

Mr. Mondkar has taught them the Lean Manufacturing, and they have implemented it. Five workers (none of them studied beyond 10^th std) run the Thane factory jointly, profitably, and supervising 60 other workers, using ‘lean’, and doing a business of several crores. That’s a testimony to what people can achieve when they meet a Guru. And transform their lives! Read more about it here

I wish readers’ will experience transformation with the blessings of their Guru.

Feature Photo courtesy Roses Pixabay

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.