Eashwer Dass

An acquired taste that can prick your wallet If you are a durian lover, then you are so doomed! We now live in a time that the price that you pay for your acquired taste is as bizarre and freaky as the robust smelling delicacy itself. It’s become quite unthinkable to stop along roadside stalls breaking long journeys across the countryside to indulge in one of our many National die hard habits, which is to savour on fresh durians as well as other local fruits and produce. Enter the new business concept of cafes just serving durians and curtains down to the days when Malaysians just enjoyed squatting on roadsides to gobble up the fruit sold at throw away prices. The top of the range of the fruit is known as the Musang King and has an asking price of RM 70 to RM 100 per kilogram, whereas, in China, people actually pay a King’s ransom to sink their teeth into its sweet yellow flesh. A durian contains 5 or 6 pieces or fleshy seeds inside its compartmentalised thorny shell, ...

NOT TRUE This is an awesome portrait of two beautiful women on the cover page of an elite fashion magazine featuring the untapped beauty of the African continent and her people. Both women are highly acclaimed professional models, bathed in the finest branded perfume, masked in branded makeup, wearing a fine collection of branded non-precious contemporary jewellery and cloaked in trendy summer wear.  And that's just nonsense! THE TRUTH These two African women woke up this morning and promised that they would live life to its fullest as they do every day, as simply as they breathe the crisp Ethiopian air. BEAUTIFUL Dressed in their pleasant hand woven garb and donning local handcrafted colourful adornments wrapped around limbs and neck they set off to catch a bus into their local village town.  EDit . Photo: S. Gopinath

  Coz, they don't give a tinker's cuss Take a look at kid's clothing, they would eventually be reduced to a faded and tattered pile of rags within no time but just hold them up for a while and reminisce on how much delight they would have given you as especially their lingering body odour.  Imagine the struggle that these fabrics would have tolerated against the best detergents available in the market and more than often lose the battle to come out clean and spotless. Definitely , a little more seasoned and a shade of colour loss from the rude tumbling of a  heavily soiled pre- programmed wash  mode  set on the  washing machine.  Just think of the little bodies these apparels host, the bodies that least care about the type of clothes their mommies or daddies buy them. No matter what type of clothes these little bodies are wrapped in, be it branded or a one picked up from the flea market on a bargain, its origin or history d...

The Brahminy Kite With iron-claw grip, the Brahminy kite remained perched on an insulated power line, that slung between two electric poles while maintaining a guarded distance from its predators. These beautiful predators are super cautious about their safety, which is only second to their deadly instincts for hunting. This majestic brown eagle watched us, watching her with our smartphone cameras rolling, photo shooting the rare event that was going to be multimedia material in the split second after the sound of shutters dies down. The event went on for a few minutes with the beautiful bird fluffing its feathers while showing off and probably even aware that it is being remotely digitalised in megapixels as video clip trophies going viral for human entertainment. The bird finally got a little restless, maybe even a little bored and decided that its time would be more wisely spent not by amusing humans, but rather shopping for a prey without a prayer whic...