Many gigabytes in India to blog about, but no time to blog it

We are on the go, here in Bangalore, Karnataka, India and I had imagined myself putting together quite a post tonight, but it is 12:03 AM and we must get up in 5 hours or so to be ready for the taxi cab that will take us to Mysore tomorrow morning and I haven't had much sleep, anyway, so I am just going to post this excuse for now, and hope I find some blogging time soon.

I have much to catch up on, from a rather fantastic wedding (mighty hot it was and boy, did I sweat!) and then today, which was a fun day. Here, in this self-portrait, you can see me, Buddy and Melanie as we walk through Lalbagh Botanical gardens, where we frolicked with monkeys.

Afterwards, we met up with the bride and groom and the bride's beautiful sister, Sujitha, also known as Barbie, and her still-pretty-new husband, Manoj, went out to eat at an Italian restaurant in downtown Bangalore and immediately after, went to another restaurant and ate again.

I will never really manage to get it all down, but I still hope to do a good summation, soon, so don't give up on me.

Both daughters come to visit, separately

Yesterday, she said she might come out and have breakfast with us this morning, but she arrived a bit before 3:00 PM. I still offered to take her to breakfast, but she was not in the mood for it and neither was I, to be honest.

She found a box that Kalib plays with when he is here and opened it up. "My kitty!" she exclaimed, for she did not know this kitty would be in it. She said it had been a very long time since she had seen the kitty, which was a gift to her from Jacob.

To me, it looks less like a kitty than a tiger. A white tiger. See that creature walking across the floor? That is Chicago. Chicago is a kitty, albeit full-grown for probably a decade now.

Chicago? A decade old? Chicago Kitty?

Where does the time go?

And speaking of tigers, Melanie was not certain whether or not she would come to India with me to attend the wedding of my Muse, the beloved Soundarya Ravichandran.

Today, Melanie announced that she has decided to come. It was the email from Murthy that convinced her.

We leave one month from tomorrow.

It will be fun, except that the nights will be dark there.

I can hardly take a dark night, during that time when the Alaska night is light.

It takes a lot to drag me out of Alaska during the season of light.

For Sandy and her wedding, I will venture forth into the night that is dark.

We waited until 4:00 to go get coffee, to see if Lisa would arrive. But she did not, so we went without her. As the car was warming up, we saw our neighbors from four houses down walk by with their two dogs. 

It was strange to see those two dogs on leash, but there they are.

We went to Mocha Moose, where they still have a sign up that says "Palin Fever." After this past week, none of us were feeling even the slightest bit of affection for our governor - who, for a brief period in history, I actually did admire and adore. This did not stop me from drinking Mocha Moose coffee, which is usually pretty good but today was subpar.

Immediately after I drove us back home, Melanie climbed into her little car and drove away. I don't know why, but her visits always come to this. She drives away and goes home.

Immediately after Melanie left, Lisa showed up, carrying laundry. She cooked us dinner: stir fry chicken and straw mushrooms. It was quite excellent.

After dinner, I took Lisa to Dairy Queen for ice cream. As we neared the Parks Highway, I heard the whistle blow. I was thrilled. I pulled out my pocket camera, put it on the dash, and, grateful for the fact that I had a red light before me and no car behind be, pointed it toward the railroad tracks.

And then the train came rumbling through!

It was thrilling - as it always is.

I never get bored with the train.

I love the train.

I have never ridden on it, but I love it.

Maybe this summer I will ride on it, and blog about it.

And I hope to ride the train in India, this time.

Last time I did not.

Catch 22 upon Catch 22: I could blame the ravens, but actually, it is all my fault

I want to go to bed right now - in fact, I wanted to go to bed an hour ago, but I have fallen behind on this blog and if I don't catch up right now, when will I?

I have a good excuse. I had a little project that had to be postmarked no later than March 1 and it ate up all my time, day and night, and then after I drove to Anchorage late Sunday night, got the postmark, bought a cheese quesedilla, a cheesy-bean burrito and a strawberry mango drink at the Parks Highway Taco Bell all-night drivethrough and then drove home, I was drained and have been ever since.

Taco Bell. That is where the problems started. Not the one on the Parks Highway in Anchorage, but the one here, in Wasilla, Saturday, where I photographed this and the other two ravens seen here. 

This is how it happened: I had no cash on Saturday when I went through the Wasilla Taco Bell drivethrough. Margie was stretched out across the back seat of the Escape, so pulled out my wallet, slipped my debit card out of that, paid with the debit card, slipped the card back into the wallet and then put the wallet...

Where did I put the wallet? Did I put it on my lap? I don't remember. Perhaps because I was paying too much attention to the ravens. I always pay attention to ravens. They demand it.

Did I put it in the little pouch on the inside of the drivers door?

Just where did I put it? It was black. These ravens are squabbling over and eating something black. Did they take it? Did they eat it?

All I know for certain is that, after we finished dining, I drove up to the outside Taco Bell garbage can. I handed my sack of Taco Bell garbage back to Margie, she put her sack of Taco Bell garbage into it, handed it back to me and then I got out of the car, walked to the garbage can, threw it in, got back in the car and then drove straight at the ravens, thinking that they would fly before I got to them.

But they didn't. They called my bluff and I had to stop and then go around them. It is not because they were stupid and did not understand the danger a Ford Escape could pose to them.

They are smart. They just knew that I was bluffing, and that I would stop. And if by chance I didn't, they had it all calculated down to the micro-second just when they would actually need to hop and flap out of the way.

But they did not want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary, and they knew it wouldn't be. They wanted to call my bluff, to humiliate me, and they did.

Margie wanted to go to Carr's to buy some groceries after that. So I drove her to Carr's. I thought that she meant that she wanted me to go in and buy some groceries, but she meant she wanted us to go in and buy some groceries. It would be the very first time that she had gone into a store since she suffered her injury, January 20.

I drove her as close as I could to the door, got out of the car, opened up the back door, helped her out, made certain she got through the new fallen snow to the walk that leads inside the store, then got back into the car. By then, the lady and the boy above were in front of me, so I took their picture.

I then found a place far from the store to park the car. Being a rough, tough, Alaskan, I did not care at all about the falling snow. I hiked from the car to Carr's as if it was not even snowing at all. As if I was in Phoenix, Arizona.

That's how I did it. I then entered the store and these two boys - I assume the one with a beard is a boy, but who knows, he could be a girl - how could I tell? - offered me a Peanut Butter Cup. First, I took their picture and then I took the Peanut Butter Cup.

That is the kind of thing of thing that you do when you are a serious photographer, which I am. You take your picture before you take your Peanut Butter Cup. It does not matter how badly you want that Peanut Butter Cup, you take the picture first.

If you can't do that, then, hell, you might just as well throw your damn camera in the trash.

I wonder if I threw my wallet in the trash at Taco Bell? I wonder if I had accidently placed it in the Taco Bell sack when I was eating, the one that became my trash bag?

All I know for certain is that when I got to the check-out stand, with Margie hobbling behind, and the checker rang up the $200 plus bill, I reached into my pocket for my wallet, but it was not there.

I went back to the car and searched in and all around it. My wallet was not there. I went to Carr's customer service, to see if someone had turned my wallet in. They had not. I drove back to Taco Bell, to see if someone had turned in my wallet there.

No one had. I asked if the garbage can had been emptied. It had.

The Taco Bell ravens laughed at me.

You don't believe me? You don't believe that a raven can laugh? Then come to Alaska and you will learn otherwise.

So I drove Margie home and checked my online bank account. No activity. Checked my credit cards. No activity. Still, I had to cancel them all. Each and every one.

Worse yet, I had no cash. Worse still, Margie had no cash. Even worse, when I cancelled my cards, I also cancelled her's, because we share accounts.

We do not have a pre-nup, either. Don't need one.

Although she was a little irritated with me, right now.

After that, there was nothing to do but go home and work on the project that I was telling you about. I worked on it all day Saturday for the remainder of the day and then when the day ended, I continued to work on it.

I did not stop until 5:00 AM. I then went to bed, pulled the covers over me and then the cats piled on. I sleep better when cats are piled atop me. Unless they grow mischievous. They grew mischievous.

I got up a bit before 10:00 AM, fixed Margie some oatmeal, fixed me some oatmeal and then got back to work. I did not stop until I was done, and that happened about 8:45 PM. At that time on Sunday, the only open Post Office in the whole state of Alaska is the airport Post Office in Anchorage, so I climbed into the car and drove - without my driver's license, because that was in the lost wallet.

Margie could not drive me, because her leg is in a brace and still cannot be bent. Her arm is in a cast and she could not grip the steering wheel.

So I drove, without my license. I set the cruise control to four miles above the speed limit to make certain that I would not accidently speed and get pulled over without a license.

I drove very cautious and carefully, so as not to attract any undo attention.

I drove past car after car that had gone off the road. Some had flipped over, some were on their side.

The road was dry. It was not icy. All those cars must have slid off the road the day before, when it was snowing. A whole lot of cars must have slide off the road Saturday, for so many to still not be retrieved Sunday night.

Probably, in the past, some of these drivers have laughed at news reports of snow-caused traffic mishaps in Lower 48 cities, especially in cities unaccustomed to snow that suddenly get snow.

Today, we seen such reports come out of Tennessee, and other southern states, like Maine.

I bet these drivers didn't laugh today.

Others did, though. Their time is coming.

As for today, it dawned clear, cold, and beautiful. -20 at our house. For you celsius people, that would be -29 on your scale. But I drove over the hill that is behind me in this picture and on Wasilla Main Street, it was +3. We live in a cold sink, that's why.

The good thing is, I now have so many bars on my cellphone right in my house that I haven't even bothered to count them, as that would require me to put on my reading glasses. But there are a lot of bars. No more dropped calls - thanks to this ugly monstrosity that just got turned on.

Now here is an amazing thing: when we flew out of Salt Lake City on the way home from Washington, DC, there was a guy at the gate next to ours peddling Delta Airlines American Express credit cards. He said if I got one and made just one purchase, why, hell, right there I would get enough free Delta Airlines miles just for doing so that I could fly free on a Delta Airlines roundtrip ticket  anywhere they go.

He said Margie could sign up and we could get two free round-trip tickets. I did not want another credit card, but I did like the idea of those free tickets. So I signed us both up. Margie was too broken up to sign herself up.

Those cards arrived the other day, but I just ignored them. This meant that I did not put them in my wallet. This meant that they did not get lost.

That is how I paid to mail my package from the Anchorage airport Post Office - with that Delta Airlines American Express card.

That is how I bought gas to drive back home from Anchorage - with that card.

And now I can fly anywhere in the US that Delta goes...

So today, driving illegally once again, I drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Palmer, figuring that I could be legal when I drove back.

When I got to the DMV, a sign asked me to please fill out all the relevant forms before my number was called. So I took my number from the number machine, then found the basket for the form that I needed.

It was empty.

Next, I sat in a chair and waited for my number to be called. My number was 241. As you can see, the couple in the picture here had number 237, and I had already been waiting awhile when I took it.

See the two portraits hanging on the wall? The one on the left is of our Governor, Sarah Palin. Ever hear of her?

I doubt it. It seems unlikely.

Anyway, 241 was finally called. I journied to the counter. The guy who helped me was most friendly. He gave me the form that had not been in the basket and patiently waited while I filled it out. He then had me take the eye test, which I passed just fine.

I showed him my passport and he agreed that I am who I said I am.

"That'll be $15.00," he said.

So I whipped out my American Express card.

"I'm sorry," he said, "the DMV does not take American Express."

Come on, Sarah - for hell's sake! 

So I drove illegally from the DMV to the Palmer McDonald's to buy a cup of coffee and some cinnamon nuggets. I chose McDonald's because I figured they would probably take American Express.

I made my order and pulled to the first window. A girl was there to take my money. I had put my American Express Card inside my passport. I absent-mindedly handed her the passport.

She didn't know what to do.

But when she figured it out, McDonald's accepted the card. I pulled up to the next window and this kid handed me my coffee and my cinnamon nuggets.

I drove out of the lot toward the highway and as I did, these two kids jaywalked right across the highway. They were lucky it was me driving. Most drivers would not have realized what was happening until it was too late and would have run right over them, but not me.

The coffee was scalding hot. Way too hot to drink. It would have to cool down. So I decided to take the long drive home, via fishhook road, which would extend the trip from about 15 miles to at least 20. I figured that would give the coffee time to cool down enough for me to drink while I was still driving home.

Plus, it is a more pleasant drive. 

I hadn't driven far before I grew impatient and decided that I did not want to wait for that coffee to cool down. If the coffee cooled, so would the cinnamon nuggets. I looked at the car's temperature indicator. The exterior air temperature was 10 degrees. That's the thing about this time of year, after the sun comes back. In December and January, if the morning temperature is -20, it might rise to -18 or so, but that's about it.

I looked at the speedometer. It read 55 miles per hour. I did some quick mental calculations and came up with a wind chill factor of -19. I figured that would cool down the coffee real quick, so I rolled down the window and held the cup out into the wind for a couple of miles. The inside of my hand was burning, the outside freezing, but it did the trick.

The coffee was drinkable in short order. The cinnamon nuggets were still warm.

I turned off Fishhook onto Polar Bear. I hadn't gone far when I saw this snow machine, just sitting in the road. 

And a bit later, on Church, I saw this guy. His snowmachine was working just fine.

Which brings me to another dilemma that I face. I might need to do some snowmachining real soon, to do my work which I have fallen so far behind on since I got hurt. Or I might have to hang onto the back of a sled. I have not done either since I shattered my shoulder and got it replaced.

I am much improved now, but I don't think my shoulder is capable of handling a snowmachine on rough terrain - and sea ice is always rough terrain. And neither is my wrist, which got hurt, too, but was completely ignored due to the severity of my shoulder injury. Now, it often bothers me worse than my shoulder. Each night, I lose sleep by the hour to the pain in my wrist, and in my shoulder.

What do I do?

In part, my Muse seems to have solved the problem. I promised her that when she got married, I would come to India to photograph her wedding. I am not a wedding photographer, I do not photograph weddings. But sometimes I make an exception.

For her, I will make such an exception.

Tonight, she informed me that she has set the date for May 3, and said that I must come one week early. That's probably when I would be doing the most heavy snowmachining of all. Now, on the hope that all goes well, I will be India, where it is pretty hard to drive a snowmachine.

You could do it, but it would be mighty hard on the snowmachine.

Oh, good grief! Did I write, "hard on?"

I never intended this to be that kind of blog. I am shocked.

And on a snowmachine! That would be awful. Something might break right off.

I think it is time to get out of this blog and go to bed. I think I am sleep-deprived.

But still, I would like to get on a snowmachine between now and India.

What do I do?

Now, being broke and all, how do I get to India?

My Muse has set her wedding date. I will find a way.

I have never let being broke stop me from traveling.

Now I will click "published," then "saved," and I will go to bed. 

Despite the time listed at the top of this page, it is 4:35 AM. 

Dear Cousin Prakash: I wish that I could have known you better

The gentleman sitting with the boy on his lap is Prakash and the boy is his son, Karthik. Next to them sits Akila, the wife of Prakash. Sadly, she is now a widow and Karthik without a father, as Prakash lost his life just before the New Year began when he was struck by a bus in India. Prakash was 42.

I call him "cousin" in the title to this entry not because of any relationship of blood between us, because there is none, but to honor him and the family connection that first drew us together on the evening of August 22, 2007. That connection was the pre-wedding reception of my niece, Khena, to his nephew, Vivek, held in Bangalore in the south India state of Karnataka. 

Now Vivek is my nephew, too, and, by my way of thinking, that makes his Uncle Prakash my cousin.

I have a project in my head that I long to carry out, and that is to journey back into the places of origin and current habitation of all of my extended family, from the Apache and Navajo Indian Reservations of Arizona, the Mormon heartland of Utah and Southern Idaho, elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains, the coast of California,  the Midwest, Deep South, the East Coast and now India.

My purpose would be to photograph as wide a swath of my family as I can, and to tell what I can of the stories of this large, diverse, family that could not have been imagined by any member of it a little more than one generation ago.

This is from the next day, August 23, 2007, at the wedding. The very beautiful young lady that Prakash holds is niece Vaishnavi, also known as Sonal.

By itself, my ancient, new, family in India is large and diverse and though I met many of them at the wedding, in most cases, these were fleeting encounters. I have been privileged to get to know a few of them a little better. Vivek, of course; his parents, Murthy and Vashanti, who not only put me up for my final days in India, but visited us here in Alaska this past May, after which we all went down to Alta, Utah, to celebrate the second wedding of Vivek and Khena; Nephew Vijay - Vivek's brother - and his wife, Vidya, a friend to all animals and the mother of beautiful baby girl Vaidehi, born this past spring even as her grandparents were visiting us.

Through Cyberspace, we communicate regularly and send pictures back and forth.

Vivek's cousin Ganesh took me on a tour of Bangalore and is also special to my heart. Ganesh has two sisters, Soundarya (Sandy) and Sujitha (Barbie), both of whom will wed next month - Soundarya on Valentine's Day, which is also Margie and my wedding anniversary, and Sujitha the very next day, February 15.

It had long been the plan of both Soundarya and me that I would return to India to photograph her wedding, as we have shared an exceptionally special relationship since we met. I call her "Muse" and many of my days have been brightened by the mere appearance of a "sandyz" mail in my inbox.

I thought that on this second trip to India, I would begin to track down my new family members of south Asia; I would photograph them, both in portrait and candid form, visit with them, and begin to learn their stories.

But there was a communication mixup, and Sandy's wedding wound up being scheduled during the one event taking place here in Alaska this winter that I absolutely cannot miss.

Prakash, his beautiful wife and energetic son were among those I had hoped to photograph and visit.

Now, I do not know when I will return to India. To be honest, given the kind of year 2008 was for me, I lack the financial resources - although for Soundarya and Anil's wedding - and Sujitha's, too - a lack of resources would not have stopped me.

But I will return, because my family in India is exceptionally important to me. When I do, Prakash will not be there. His ashes were set free at his funeral in Chennai, but I will still learn what I can of him, and of Akila and Karthik, who I do hope to photograph.

For now, all I can do is to send my condolences. 

Flashback to India, August, 2007: the girl who Latika brought to mind; two of her street peers

In the previous post, I refered to the movie Slumdog Millionaire and mentioned how, when I saw the character Latika begging on the streets of Mumbai, I thought of a girl whose path had crossed mine in Bangalore. This is not her, although I did meet him on the same day.

When he first showed me the snake and the tiny chess set, I told him, politely, that I did not wish to buy either, or anything else that he was selling. He must have been quite certain that he could change my mind because, over the next couple of hours I roamed here and there and he continually materialized in front of me, smiling, exuding complete confidence that this time I would be either so charmed, impressed, or exasperated that I would buy from him.

When I look at this picture now, I kind of wish that I had bought that snake from him.

I hope he is doing well. Maybe he will be a millionaire one day.

These flying legs do not belong to the girl that I first thought of, either, but they do belong to someone who also survives by making her living on the India street. I was riding in an "auto-rickshaw" with my nephew and niece, Vijay and his wife Vidya, and we were briefly stopped in backed up-traffic. I glanced at the driver's mirror. I saw the reflection of a girl as she wind-milled our way in cartwheels from behind, nimbly navigating the narrow gap between two uneven rows of vehicles, all jam-packed tightly together.

Quickly, I raised my camera and shot, hoping to catch her image as she cart-wheeled by. The first part of her to enter my frame was this - her upturned, bare, foot which barely escaped her long, billowy, pantaloons.

The momentum of her cartwheel pulls her all the way into my frame...

and then she stops, obviously surprised.

This is the girl who Latika made me think of.

And when I saw her up ahead of me, begging like this, getting turned away, I thought of my oldest daughter, Melanie, when she was the same age.

There are strong resemblances between them, both in physique and facial structure.

She went from car to car, begging.

And then she was at our cab. Latika. My own daughter.

I look at this picture that I took as part of my incessant quest to document the world as it unfolds around me and I feel helpless. There is no way for me to know, but I hope that there is not a Fagan, a Maman, waiting to confiscate her earnings, eager to manipulate by other means her profibility in future years.

For the moment, when she stands in front of me, it does not matter. I must give her something. One way or another, even if by chance it means I must also fund to an even greater degree an evil Fagan, her survival depends upon it.

The only thing is, at some point in every day that one roams in India, he must stop giving, for there are too many open hands that reach toward him and he lacks the capacity to drop something, even small, into each of them.

Yet, I cannot tell you how badly I yearn to return to India. Every single day I feel this desire. And it has been a year and four months now. And each day when I look into the mirror, I see more white in my beard than I did before. And now the white even creeps into my hair.

What the hell was God thinking, to create such a magnificent, full, complex, challenging and diverse earth, and to give a human such a short time to get to know it?