Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 2 - and then some more India)

When we leave Auntie Lisa's to return briefly to Auntie Melanie's, Kalib rides with us, holding his teddy St. Bernard.

Up the stairs to Melanie's Duck Downs apartment.

Kalib climbs into a kitty tunnel. He meows and purrs and swishes his tail.

Soon, we are the airport, where he looks upon the stuffed remains of a once wild Kodiak brown bear.

Kalib tries to sneak on with the baggage. Jacob grabs him.

He was with his dad in the bookstore, but then he saw his mother.

His dad kisses him goodbye.

Then the three of them head for security and out of sight.

Poor Jacob! He drives away separately from me but does not get far before Lavina calls him. Kalib does not have his teddy St. Bernard. It was left at Melanie's place. Jacob drives over. Melanie runs out to meet him and gives him the St. Bernard. He rushes it back to the airport. He can see Kalib, Lavina, and Margie on the other side of the security barrier.

A security man comes forward. Jacob gives him the bernard. He takes it back to Kalib. The flight is on.

Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 1)

Very early this morning, Kalib (and his mother Lavina and grandmother Margie, my own dear wife) boarded an Alaska Airlines jet and headed for Phoenix. From there, he and Lavina were going to a workshop in Flagstaff and Margie would meet her sister and head back to her native home, the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Later, Lavina and Kalib will join them. Jacob will go down, too.

Shortly before they boarded the plane, we all met at the home of Kalib's Auntie Melanie in Anchorage.

Kalib found a stool to get under.

Those are Charlie and Melanie's tomato plants behind them. Tomotoes don't work around here if you plant them outside - the growing season is just too short. So they planted them inside.

We were all going to go to Arizona for an Apache Sunrise Dance that Margie's sister was going to be a Godmother for, but a relative of the medicine man died and so it has been put on hold for a year.

Margie had not secured her ticket yet, but I still had mine from last year, when I didn't go because I wound up in the hospital. That ticket had to be used this month or go to waste, so I gave it to Margie.

After giving Kalib a diaper change, his dad tossed him around a bit.

They will be gone for three weeks, but when they come back, I will be on the Arctic Slope until late July. So I will not see them for at least six, maybe seven weeks. I hate to think of all that I am going to miss. He will practically be grown up by then; he will be reciting poetry, and batting a baseball.

I will wonder where the time went and how I missed it all.

Kalib and Diamond.

We all decide to go and check out Lisa's new apartment. Kalib is first to the door.

He walks away from Melanie's Duck Downs apartment toward the car.

He does not get into the car, but onto his dad's shoulders who walks over with Charlie. It is still hard for Margie to walk very far, so we drive. Melanie comes with us because she knows where the new apartment is and we do not.

Immediately after this scene falls behind us, we hear Kalib scream in grief. He did not like to us drive away without him.

Inside Lisa's empty kitchen, Kalib watches Juniper go for the fake mouse. Lisa and Bryce moved because they have not had water in their old apartment for the past month. Their landlord ignored all their pleas to get the problem fixed.

So they moved. Now, the next battle will be to get their $1000 security deposit back.

Before we left, Kalib tipped over a box and out came this cat thermos. Melanie was amazed. The thermos is her's and she has been looking for it for awhile. She was a little chagrined with Lisa. Lisa said that she had planned to return it sometime when Melanie was not home.

Then Melanie would have returned and there it would have been. She would have wondered if she was going crazy.

Meanwhile, out in the crowd...

I hope I get this right. I have a hard times remembering the names of all the people that I meet right here in Alaska, let alone India. But, I believe the young mother who so adoring looks upon her daughter as she sleeps in the arms of Soundarya's grandfather, Natarajan, is Bharathi, also called Baaru.

I could be wrong. If I am, I am certain someone will let me know.

And this, of course, is Jesse, Melanie and Buddy. 

Blessings for Anil.

Bride Soundarya makes her entrance

Bride Soundarya, wearing a special, traditional, saree, climbs the stairs toward the hall with Vasanthi at her side.

And look, there to the left: my own daughter, Melanie, looking so beautiful in her new saree.

Before entering the hall, Soundarya stops to pose for pictures. It is hot - searing hot. Steaming hot. Especially if only days before you were driving a snowmachine on the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

But even Bangalore people say it is hot. "It never used to be this hot," they say, "but they have been cutting down too many trees."

As she poses, little boys come running by. In the background, cooks sneak away from their job and come out to take a look at the beautiful bride. Remember, a click on the picture will bring up a larger copy and then you can see those cooks a little better.

After the pictures, she is again joined by Vasanthi as well as her younger sister, Sujitha. The two sisters are very close.

They step to the doorway that opens into the hall.

The bride and her entourage is about to enter.

Into the hall they come. The fans above are not working. They provide no relief from the heat.

Yet Sandy and her entourage all look cool and beautiful. They move forward, toward the stage where groom Anil awaits.

And then they walk right past the eager groom.

Sujitha glances at her own husband, Manu, as they continue on.

When I first met Sandy and Sujitha nearly two years ago, I was told by two different relatives that marriages would soon be arranged for each of them. "Whoever told you that told you wrong," Sandy later said to me in an online chat.

Both chose their husbands themselves.

The procession is complete. Soundarya will soon change into a different saree.

A saree for Melanie (part 2) - traveling and snacking in Bangalore

I pick up where I left off - on the bus, the same one that carried Sanju and Jesse in the last post, but a little further back. That's Vasanthi, of course, smiling at the right, and if you look close, you can also see our buddy, Buddy. See the hand that grips the yellow overhead rail to the right?

That's Buddy's hand. Now, follow the arm downward into the crowd of men and there you will see one eye peering out from behind another arm. That's Buddy's eye.

We would be on this bus for about one hour before we reached our destination.

This was our destination, or at least one of them - a saree shop. The salesman said that this was a most beautiful piece of saree fabric and, while no one had any problem disagreeing with the salesmen, in this care, everyone agreed.

Vasanthi made the purchase.

Elsewhere in another shop, Buddy sits, enthralled by the whole process. I think that it does not matter what nation you are in, what culture you come from, we males tend to pretty much react the same when we go shopping with females, especially when it involves clothing and fabric.

Or just about anything else that females buy - except food, for we males to eat, in a restaurant.

Out on the street, Melanie works her way through the bustling crowd. No matter where we went in India, from the tiniest village to the heart of the biggest city, the place always bustled.

India is a bustling place. India is on the move. Absolutely.  And the place that it is moving to is called the future.

Vasanthi buys bananas to eat. As you will see in a subsequent post when we get to Chennai, India has all kinds of bananas that we never see here in the USA. 

Every banana that we tried was good, but my favorite were the little tiny ones with the thin, delicate, skins.

They are too delicate to be transported far, but, my goodness, are they good!

Especially with Indian coffee.

We go into a refreshment shop, where Vasanthi buys us flavored milk and sweets.

Vasanthi shovels sweets into the eager mouth of Sanju.

The sweets were very sweet - and very good.

We return via an "auto-rickshaw." Buddy, Melanie and I rode together.

The view from the ric.

I see another way to photograph the three of us.

The ric carrying Jesse, Sanju and Vasanthi pulls up alongside us.

Add to these visuals the sounds of the hustle and bustle - a continuous fusillade of horns honking, engines, big and small, revving up and falling back, birds squawking and calling, throw in a high degree of heat and humidty, plus the fumes of two stroke engines wafting through, coupled with the ever present scent of incense and spice.

Traffic in Bangalore is frenetic.

At about 4:00 AM the next morning Melanie dons her saree, accented by gold earrings that Vasanthi loaned to her.

It is May 10, 2009 - the day that Soundarya and Anil will wed.