A pushing boy, a walking man, a mountain in alpenglow; the lovely Sujitha of Bangalore, who so badly wants to come to Wasilla

This morning, as I walked, I saw this little kid pushing his pedal-powered four-wheeler up his driveway.

And in the early evening, I saw this man walking past Wasilla Lake. In just three months or so, there could be young women in bikinis lounging about on that beach just to his right.

I'll bet some of you looked at this picture and didn't even know there was a beach there, or a lake.

Here I am, stopped at a red light on the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, looking back at Pioneer Peak through my driver's door rearview mirror.

My niece, Sujitha, has been in this blog before and I am certain that she will be here again. She is a regular reader and every now and then she leaves a comment. She did yesterday, and she badly wants to come to Wasilla. She wants to meet Kalib, she wants to meet Margie.

She wants to meet all of her Alaska family. So far, she has met Melanie and she has met me.

I took these pictures, along with one of her and her true love, Manu, the day after the wedding of her sister, my special friend Soundarya, to Anil. In my 2009 review of May, I posted the one of Sujitha and Manu, but I haven't posted these.

Until now.

Sujitha, we all want you to come to Wasilla. So hurry up. 

Sooner or later, we want your whole family to come.

Here she is, with her grandfather, Natarajan. I took these photos in the Bangalore living room of Murthy and Vasanthi, the parents of Vivek, who married Khena, the daughter of my little sister and made us all family.

Here's Sujitha in that same living room nearly two years earlier, taking part in a women's ceremony for the Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Beauty. That's Vasanthi holding the flame and my good niece Vidya, who loves animals, behind.

Sujitha.

I have photographed but the tiniest hint of the magnificent nation of India, yet, I have so many images that I have never even had a chance to take even one look at myself, and I know there is some good material in there.

I still hope that in the future I will somehow find the time to go through, do an edit, and put up a whole bunch of posts.

If I do, I will mix it all up with Wasilla, just like I did here.

2009 in review - May: Melanie and I go to India for Soundarya's wedding; I ride a bike in the cool Wasilla air; Kalib gets tossed

What a transition, huh? From the ice pack of the Arctic Ocean to a sweltering, sweltering, hot day in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. And it all happened because of this beautiful woman, Soundarya Ravichandran - about to become Soundarya Anil Kumar. I first met her 21 months earlier when my niece, Khena Swallow, married her cousin, Vivik Iyer, in Bangalore.

Yet, it did not feel like I had just met her, but rather that I had always known her. Tables had been set up in long rows for the wedding feast. Guests sat on only one side of the tables so that the servers could file past in front of them, spooning food onto their banana leaves, which served as plates.

She sat at the table directly opposite mine, facing me. So I raised my camera and focused it on her. "I don't take good pictures," she protested, embarrassed.

"That's okay," I said, "I do." 

After dinner, she invited me to walk with her, and we soon came upon a woman standing in a tiny yard behind a tall fence, along with an orange and white kitten and a little white dog. Sandy asked the woman if she could hold the kitten, so she passed it over the fence to her. She went nuts for that kitten, cuddling and petting it, smiling and laughing in true joy. I took some pictures and we have been the fastest of friends ever since.

Thanks to the internet, it is easy to keep in touch.

I call her "Muse," because even from so far away she has caused me to take pictures that I would never have taken. She has asked me to write stories that I might never otherwise have written.

I promised her that when she got married, I would come back to India to photograph her wedding.

And now she was getting married, so here I was.

And this man would be her groom - Anil Kumar. It would not be an arranged marriage, but a love marriage and would cross the caste lines of old.

There were musicians at the wedding, creating music of a type that we do not normally hear, here in Alaska.

And there were cooks, and cooks helpers, creating food as delicious as any that you can imagine. Oh, my goodness... was it good.

Now let me back up a bit, to very early in the day. A pre-wedding, pre-sunrise, ceremony was to be held at the home of the bride. Melanie had come to India with me and Vivek's parents had put us up at their house. We had spent the previous day with Vivek's mom, Vasanthi, shopping for saree material for Melanie and we had visited a tailor, who measured her and then went to work, cutting and stitching.

So, although we were still exhausted from the 40 hour trip, we got up at 4:00 AM so that we could get to Sandy's house in time for the ceremony.

Murthy, Vivek's dad, had arranged for a taxi-cab to pick us up, but the taxi did not show. I was a little distressed, as I wanted to photograph the day's events from beginning to end.

So Murthy put me on the back of his motor-bike and off we went. Bangalore is a huge, sprawling, city - twice the size of New York and, even in the light traffic of early morning, it took us nearly 45 minutes to get there.

We made it in time. Here, Soundarya receives a blessing from her mother, Bhanumati, or "Bhanu."

Soundarya enters the wedding hall with her entourage. Compared to a Indian wedding, a typical American wedding is a brief and simple affair. Many, many, many things happen at an Indian wedding and as I covered a good portion of it to some depth over several earlier posts, I am not going to do too much with it now.

Instead, I will jump to this scene, many hours later, when everybody broke out into applause, because Anil and Soundarya were now husband and wife.

This doesn't mean the ceremony was over. Many things would yet happen.

Finally, they got to eat. They fed each other little cakes, kind of like what happens at an American wedding.

After dinner, the ceremonies moved to the house of the groom's mother. You see the hand that gestures? That hand belongs to a photographer that the groom's family hired and he, along with his videographer, was a nightmare to me.

The videographer had a powerful, harsh, flat, spotlight, the likes of which I have never seen in the US. See the beautiful light from the candle? In about two seconds, maybe one, that videographer will blast that light away with the searing, brutal, glare of his spotlight.

The photographer will shoot his stills with flash, straight on, giving it the most washed-out effect possible. He will interrupt things and order people around.

And the photographer was very aggressive - he used his shoulders and elbows whenever he got near me.

But I was in his country, and this seems to be how wedding photographers go about things here, so there wasn't much I could do about it. I had to accept it and work around these two guys the best I could.

Ah, if only I could meet them on the ice-pack one day!

But you know what I would do if I did? I would help them out as best I could.

The bride and groom enter, kicking over a container of rice. More things happened as well.

Then there was a break. We all gathered around this laptop with Anil's brother, Ashok, and his wife, Thruptha, to look at pictures of their wedding, which had happened a short time before. That's Thruptha on the screen and sitting at right.

In the middle is Melanie, so beautiful in her new saree.

Melanie receives a blessing.

When it comes to my picture in this blog, my policy has been mostly to photograph shadows, sometimes mirror images and once in awhile a self-portrait.

But I want to include this one to promote my nephew, Ganesh, "Gane," Sandy's brother. He is a natural born photographer, wants to become pro and he ought to. He likes to roam around in the forest to photograph elephants, especially the big "tuskers," and other wildlife that he finds there. He does a good job with people. He did not have a camera, so he picked up mine and shot me drinking from a coconut, with these two characters nearby.

It was now about 1:00 AM. We moved back to the home of Sandy's mom and dad, where the day had begun.

Thankfully, the photographer and his videographer did not come. I had this to myself.

I should note that I did not manage to get any of the evening home pictures in my earlier series, either here or at the house of Anil's mom, so this is the first time anyone has seen them - even me.

Bhanu blesses the new couple before they enter the house.

Inside, there will be more blessings, for both the bride...

...and the groom.

This is Sandy's sister, Sujitha, "Barbie," and her man, Manu. It is kind of complicated to explain, so I won't, but they are hoping to have a wedding ceremony before long and they want me to come.

I want to be there but I am so broke now, I don't know how I can pull it off. But things always change so we will see.

Melanie and I did some touring after that, with Murthy and Vasanthi as our hosts. Being a host in India means something different than it does in the US. They would not let us pay for anything. We traveled by hired cab, and they paid for the cab and driver. They paid for hotels, they bought our meals.

If we started to look at souveniers, they would buy those, too.

I am pretty certain that if the richest family in the US were to be the hosts of a dirt-poor family in India, that family would not let the rich people spend hardly a rupee, but would sacrifice all that they had to make them comfortable.

Sandy and Anil came on the first trip, Vasanthi on every trip, usually with Buddy, who you can meet in the original series. Murthy had to work and so came only on the final trip.

To date, I have not found the time to even look at but the smallest portion of my take.

Sometime, I hope to sit down and do so. When I do, I will share the results with you. I am certain there is some good stuff in there.

As you can see, the momma monkey loves her baby. She told the daddy monkey to go to the store and buy a soda pop for the baby. As you can see, he did.

But then the daddy monkey drank all the pop himself. He refused to share. He was that kind of monkey.

We saw many wondrous things, including this ancient temple at Hampi. I had pulled this image at random out of my take for the original post.

Fishermen, at sunrise in the Sea of Bengal, offshore from Chennai.

And then, one day, I was back home in Wasilla. It was raining. Compared to India, it was a cold rain. I got on my bike and pedaled and pedaled. The cool, clean, air was so good to breathe, the cold rain felt wonderful.

But don't misunderstand. There is something about India that I love deeply. I wish that I had found the place when I was younger and that I had the money to go back again and again.

Even now, I want to go back again and again.

Yet, I hate to leave Alaska for very long.

That is the conundrum. 

Kalib, of course, must be included in this post. I actually took this shortly before Melanie and I left for India. Kalib had come down with pneumonia, but was getting better.

His dad made certain he got some air into his lungs.

Camera shy man and his cat - fur on and off the body; a tiny bus in India...US and India come together in one little baby

I meet many people when I walk about and one of them I shall call Bart, who I see often, but never photograph, because he is very camera shy. We stand and talk about all kinds of things, from his stint in the military to his recent heart attack to my shoulder injury, but mostly we talk about his cats, Varmit and Jesse James.

When I got there today he was a bit  worried about Varmit. I was not certain how long he had been out there with the cats, but he said that Varmit had disappeared. He had not seen him for quite awhile, whereas Jesse was staying close.

As soon as he said this, I saw Varmit looking at me through the bushes and grasses. "There he is!" I said, pointing right at the little creature you see here.

Actually, I took this picture first, but I wanted to introduce "Bart" right away, even if you can not see his face, but only his pants, shoes and socks.

So the pictures are out of order.

I don't care. Life is often out of order.

Varmit walks to Dan. I never did see Jesse James. As you can see, Varmit is wearing his fur, just the way a cat ought to. 

I walked on and soon, up ahead aways, saw something furry that looked dead and mangled, like maybe it had been run over by several cars. I wondered if it was a dog or a cat, but when I got close, I saw that it was a bit of moose fur.

So what was this chunk of moose fur doing here? How had the moose been killed? When? It is way out of season. Did someone poach the moose? Did some dogs kill a calf? Did the moose die of natural causes and then get torn up by dogs?

Was it shot legally in moose season, and then maybe this piece of fur got frozen somewhere, or was stored somewhere and now it is here?

Did I know this moose?

Did I photograph it when it was alive?

I didn't know. I will never know. And neither will you.

Unless it was poached, and you are the poacher and you happen to also be a reader of my blog.

Arrest yourself then, you damn poacher! Turn yourself in!

These dogs were dressed in their fur, just like dogs ought to be.

I have been a little frustrated about my India take, because I simply have not had any time to delve into it and edit it and, for two weeks time, I have a lot of material. A lot. I could blog India regularly all summer long.

And I still have two ceremonies from Sandy's wedding day yet to edit and post!

No time!

So today, just to keep the idea of India alive, I picked a folder at random, dropped at random into a point near the middle, drug about 10 images to my editing program and then checked to see what popped up, so that I could post it.

And this little bus popped up. It was so small that it almost should not be called a bus, but it was too big to be a van. So I call it a bus.

And this beautiful lady was sitting right there, towards the back.

A little bit in front of her was this young girl.

And then there was this man in a turbin, and a young boy.

And this is the place that they had come to visit. It is called Aihole, and it is a magnificent series of ruins of temples and other buldings constructed in the sixth through eighth centuries. These are school children who had come on a field trip to observe some of their own heritage first hand.

Hopefully, before the summer ends, I will be able blog it better.

And here is a little bit of America and India blended together; of my family and Soundarya’s family, united as one family in the ultimate way: 

Ada Lakshmi Iyer, the baby that I told you about last night, in the hands of her father, Vivek, my nephew-in-law, but I just call him Nephew.

My sister, Mary Ann, Ada Lakshmi's gramma, took the picture. She did not send me one with my niece Khena, her daughter and Ada's mom.

Had Vivek and Khena never came together, none of this would have ever happened. I would not even know Soundarya existed and I certainly would not have photographed her wedding. I would probably never even have stepped into India, not even once, over my entire life.

Unbearable thought. Just unbearable.

Thank you, Khena and Vivek, for bringing us all together.

And congratulations!

That's a lot of hair on your beautiful daughter!

Time to eat cake

This was where it got very frustrating for me. Remember those two chairs that I asked you to take note of in the previous post? They were about to come into action, kind of like thrones for the bride and groom, but you will see no pictures of this event in this blog at all.

This is because all kinds of people insisted that I go eat dinner. I did not want to go eat. I wanted to stay and shoot. I did not want to miss anything. But I began to feel that by not eating I was being rude. So, finally, I capitulated and went out into the adjoining room, sat down, and ate.

To a degree, I can understand their concern in thinking that it was time for me to stop and take a break, to sit down and eat - as many others were already doing. In this regard, an Indian wedding is much more informal than a western wedding. People wander in and out at will, carry on conversations and break away to go eat.

But back to their concern. If you could have seen me, you would have been concerned, too. I told you how hot it was. Steaming hot. Even the people there said it was hot. Hotter than it was supposed to be. And I was sweating. I sweated and sweated. I soaked my shirt. My hair was plastered to my head.

My sweat dripped into my eyes and stung them, causing my lids to swell a bit. Ganesh and others repeatedly brought me water and lemon juice and, with no exaggeration, I am quite certain that my consumption of these liquids reached into the gallons. And not once did I have to visit the restroom.

I sweated it all away as fast I drank it.

So I can understand the concern, but what they did not know about me is that when I shoot pictures, physical comfort becomes inconsequential. All that matters is that I follow through and do the job I set out to do. Anyone who doubts this just needs to look at my larger body of Alaska work.

If I concerned myself first with comfort, and gave in to discomfort, huge amounts of this work would not exist.

And I have been much, much, much more uncomfortable in the cold than I was in this heat, and for much, much, longer periods of time.

But I hate to be rude. And I began to feel very rude by saying "no," each time someone tried to get me to set aside my camera and go eat.

So I thought I would eat quick, and get back to it.

But the food just kept coming and coming and coming, long after I was filled. And it felt rude to get up and walk away from it.

At times, such as above, I could see a bit of the ceremony from where I sat at the table. So I shot and ate.

Finally, Murthy told me that it was okay to leave my banana leaf, even though the servers kept piling food upon it. "The food will not go to waste," he said. "It will be eaten by the cows, the monkeys, the street dogs..." by all the varied animals that one sees all over in Bangalore, anywhere in India that I have been, walking around with the people, seemingly possessed of as much right as any person.

So, my belly stuffed beyond comfort with food that can only be described as "exquisite," I left my banana leaf behind and returned to the wedding. This was what I found happening when I reentered.

And then there were more blessings, that the bride and groom might live in abundance...

..including blessings from Bhanumati, mother of the bride...

...and the Priest, Sri. Nagesh Bhatt. And yes, when Hindus accept blessings, they do humble themselves.

The bride's parents receive blessings.

Finally, the bride and groom were free to have dinner themselves. By now, most of the guests had eaten. Soundarya took my arm. "I want you to come and eat with us," she said. I was already stuffed, yet I entered the dining room with them, sat down beside her and began to eat again - and to take a few pictures from that position.

And then they did something very familiar to anyone who has attended a standard American wedding: they fed each other cake. And don't be worried that the photographer standing in the background is not going to photograph the cake exchange.

He will stop them, and have them pose like they are eating cake. Here they are, posing.

And then they get back to eating cake for real.

So the wedding ceremony is over... well, sort of... before the night ends, rituals must be performed at the homes of the parents.

I return to the wedding

For those who are following the wedding, especially my relatives and friends in India, I apologize for having left it so long. I kept not having the time that I felt I needed to get back to it. But I am back now, and will finish this very evening, before I go to bed.

I left the wedding after Anil had tied the knot that bound the sacred necklace to the body and soul of the woman who was now his wife, to the applause and cheering of those in attendence.

There was still much more to come, however.

And so we continue...

Soon comes a ceremony in which the brother of the bride, Ganesh, repeatedly hands his sister a large scoop of rice, after which she and the groom stand and together pour it into the fire, further symbolizing the bond between themselves and their families. The bride and groom then circle the wedding platform. This happens a total of seven times.

Here is Ganesh, transferring the rice.

The bride and groom drop the rice into the fire.

The bride and groom circle the wedding platform. Please take note of the two chairs at right, now occupied by Anil's brother and his wife.

In the US, everybody knows about the exchange of rings that go on the fingers of the bride and groom, thus telling everyone that they are married. In India, the groom also places a marriage ring upon the second toes of both feet.

Feet seldom disappear into shoes the way they do here, so this ring will almost always be visible when Sandy is in a public place.

And then he dips her toes into rice, formed into the shape of an elephant, which rests atop a banana leaf.

Afterwards, there is a reception. Well-wishers line up to offer their congratulations.

Anil is congratulated by some of his friends.

Everybody wants to get their picture taken with the bride and groom. For the most part, I leave this task to the local photographer.

You might think that the ceremonies are all over now, but they aren't.