ktravula – a travelogue!
reflections on the world



I took these series of photos in April.
The flatness of the land here makes it easy to have some of the best sunset views I’ve ever seen. My current apartment also overlooks an expanse of westward land that makes it a very delightful place to be relaxing between five and six during summer and fall evenings.
I have just return from Alton, a little town twenty minutes away from my current location. The most dominant news item on the radio was the record heat waves that has got the whole country talking for the last ten days and will continue for the rest of the week. One other prominent feature of that trip was the enduring image of the Alton refineries purring “loud” smokes and fumes into the atmosphere.
I could only ponder the irony of it – on the one hand a deadly record heat all around the country occasioned by gas emissions and other environmental ills, and on the other the sad reality that things won’t change at once just because we wish it to. We can at least still take pictures from inside of air-conditioned vehicles.
Campus, December 2009
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
- Arundhati Roy.
















