One more from the procession

I just now sat down to start sorting through the next group of Sandy's wedding pictures, when I realized I had ended the procession series with the wrong image. I had meant to end it with this one of Sandy, her roses and an admiring child.

So here it is.

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.

Bhanumati - Mother of the bride presents the wedding in miniature

Before I proceed any further, I want to honor and pay tribute to the mother of the bride, who gave her full love and support all the way through the process. This is she, Bhanumati, "Bhanu." In her hands, she holds the wedding of her daughter in miniature.

The wedding in miniature.

Others gather around to admire.

Bhanu makes certain that the wedding in miniature is as perfect as it can be. 

Tomorrow, I will return to the wedding and India, but for now I must take a break and go bike riding in Wasilla

At the moment, I am frustrated to the extreme. Bike riding is a good thing to do when you are frustrated. I am frustrated because I just spent the past few hours taking a first look at my shoot of Soundarya and Anil's wedding. Now I face the terrible irony that I journeyed all the way to India specifically to photograph their wedding, got a decent enough take of various events that preceded the wedding, plus a pretty good shoot of all the things that we did in India after the wedding, but my shoot of the wedding itself...

Despite the fact that I was in their country, I should never have yielded to the hired photographer and his videographer. I should have made an issue of the fact that I traveled all the way from Alaska to India to do a shoot of love, a shoot of the heart, and I should have insisted that they back off, kill that glaring light and let me do the shoot that I had come to India to do!

Ohhhhhhhh - that monster floodlight!

Ohhhhhhhh - that out-turned palm and push of the hand!

Still, my dear Soundarya and Anil, remember always the deep friendship and love that brought me to India and your wedding. That is what matters now, more than the pictures. They will never be as they would have been, but the friendship will be.

As frustrated with this take as I am, I will still post a wedding series. At the very end, it will take a rather nice turn.

Back to bike riding: I have just loaded pictures that I have taken over the past three days or so as I rode my bike about Wasilla.

In the image above, I am coming down Ward's Road, nearing home, after a short ride of less than five miles.

Even when I bike ride, I am cognizant of any airplane that flies overhead. When I was in India, I decided that I should give myself a goal to replace my crashed airplane by July 14, 2010.

This is an absurd goal, given the fact that it is going to be a genuine struggle just to hang on to what we have until then.

Still, I want to have an airplane again. I need an airplane again. I can hardly stand not having an airplane. Time is running out and I am tired of being bound to the ground, able to fly only in other people's airplanes.

Plus, this blog can never be what I want it to be unless I get an airplane.

This is Alaska, my friends, and you cannot get around this place properly unless you have an airplane.

No, not even flying commercially, unless you are very, very, wealthy.

Consider my last trip north, to the Arctic Slope - to Barrow and Wainwright, just before I went to India.

My airfare for those two relatively small hops cost me about the same as did my airfare to Bangalore and back!

How absurd is that?

I bike down Lucille Street towards Shrock Road, towards the Talkeetna Mountains.

And then yesterday Lavina surprised me when she came into my office to tell me that she and Jacob were going to take Kalib on a bike ride. She asked me if I wanted to come. It would be a short ride - three miles round trip - at a slow pace, but I had never been bike riding with my grandson before, so off I went.

Lavina and Kalib.

Today, towards the end of an eight-mile bike ride, I traveled through Upper Serendipity. How I detest Serendipity! I do not detest the people who live there, nor do I resent them. They are just doing what people do.

But when one knows untrammeled country the way I knew Serendipity before it became Serendipity, and then one is forced to watch helplessly as it becomes what it is today, it is an extremly painful thing. Back then, I would also ride my bike through this area - on narrow trails originally tamped out by moose. I would see no roads, no houses, no pavement; seldom would I see another person.

Now this is what I see.

In a way, though, it is a good exercise for me, considering how much of my life has been spent with Native people, from the Lakota to the Apache to all the Alaska Natives. The loss that I feel in Serendipity is so tiny, by comparison.

And the area now called Serendipity was their loss even before it was mine.

As I came down the Upper Serendipity hill toward Lower Serendipity, I saw a robin standing in the road in front of me.

As I approached, I pointed my pocket camera at it. At the moment it raised its wings, I snapped the shutter. Compared to my DSLR's, the pocket camera is a bit slow to react, but it is easy to carry when I ride a bike.

Just beyond the robin, I turned the pocket camera toward the Talkeetnas. Up there is Hatcher Pass, and Gold Mint Trail. I hope to take the bike up there, before the summer is over, and do some real trail riding. First, I need to get in better shape. Pretty hard to do, given all the traveling I have ahead of me.

Still... maybe by August or September.

Watch this blog and find out.

The wedding - setting the stage, part 4: Bride and Groom

The bride - Soundarya Ravichandran.

The groom - Anil Kumar.

Soundarya shows her henna.

With his dashing good looks, Anil could be a movie star.

Sandy.