Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006

The second to last day.

I don’t leave my room until almost 3pm. The school is having a cultural program to celebrate the New Year. When I arrive, girls are busy putting on makeup and costumes. I look for light in the classrooms, which are strewn with articles of clothing and makeup. The fading afternoon sunlight is streaming through the windows, and girls are checking their complexions in the reflections on the windowpanes. Click. So many colors. So beautiful.

This is the India I have always pictured: the bright colors, dance, laughter, celebration. Happy, smiling faces. It is the India I still picture, even though I have seen unfathomable poverty in Vrindavan. Yes, there is pain, there is suffering, there is cold and sickness and abuse. But there is a persistent glimmer of joy.


Monday, Jan. 1, 2007

The beginning of a new year.

How fortunate I am to have begun 2007 in India. I start the new year with a new perspective, based on my experience in Vrindavan over the past month.

I wake early and begin to pack. I feel like I am taking home significantly less than what I came with. Less worry, less stress, less weighing on my heart and mind.

At about 10 I head over to the school. Children eager to receive gifts are already swarming around the main gates.

There is a short award ceremony first for outstanding students. They receive colorful pens and other fun items for their hard work.

Then the schoolchildren line up to receive bookbags, which have been filled with shawls, caps, snacks and toys. They eagerly show off their new treasures.

I wander about, trying to come to terms with the fact that it is really my last day here. Or is it?

****

There is something about Vrindavan.

The driver who brought me from Delhi was right. There was something in his voice that indicated the magic of this place.

I am not a Hare Krishna. I am not religious. I am not even Indian. Yet, oddly, in this little religious haven in the middle of India, I feel strangely at peace.

Maybe it is because people here are right in their faith. They really believe; they are not being forcefed ideas and ideals, as happens so often. People come to Vrindavan from all over the world for religious purposes.

Maybe it is the hospitality that everyone has shown me. Rupa trusted me to do on a photo project on a sensitive but pertinent topic. He welcomed me into his school and his program. Nirguna Mataji took me under her wing and looked after me, like a mother would do. And Prashant, who has been an immensely helpful guide and friend. So much so that he spent two nights in that hospital with me.

Maybe it is the simplicity of this city. It isn’t really a city; it is more of a village with 50,000 people. There are open sewers and trash problems, and animals roam the streets. People walk or ride bikes instead of driving, at least most of the time. The power goes out at some point every day. The air is thick with dust and smoke.

Yet a simple life brings simple pleasures. Children are happy just to be hugged. And receiving a new backpack makes a child’s face light up a room.

Maybe it is the utterly backwardness the city faces. The child marriage, the spousal abuse, the female labor, the widowhood and poverty. It gives me something to explore and to fight. It is a clear issue that I can relate to and challenge.

****

No, I am not really leaving Vrindavan. The city and my experiences there will be with me always, in my photos, in my writings and in my memories. And, of course, in my heart.

It will also be with me in a more physical sense. Starting today, I am sponsoring a child in Sandipani Muni School. Her name is Karizma, which means “miracle.” I hope I can help her get an education and get out of the cyclical poverty of which she already is a part.

It will be with me in all the work that I do back in the U.S. The photos I print, the display I make. All to help the women of Vrindavan.

Soon I pile my bags into a taxi and begin the three-hour drive to Delhi, where I will board my plane home. We drive off into a thick shroud of fog.

Vrindavan. We are like two railroad tracks, always together but never meeting. But we will meet again.

Until then, hare bol.

Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006

Today I try to get back to my usual routine. Working hard, shooting a lot. But my hand stops me. Too much pain and swelling.

So I go to the school in the morning. After tea, Prashant takes me around to shoot and tie up some loose ends in my photo project. What am I missing? It’s time to try to fill in the gaps. Some photos of child marriage.

We go first to an area we visited once before at dusk. There is a teenager, 16, with a baby. She was married when she was 10 and had her baby boy six months ago.

I have a certain photo in mind that I’d like to get. When they are married, Indian women have a red mark they wear in the part of their hair. So how to photograph a teenage mother with this special part? From above. She is slightly weirded out, but I get something close to what I wanted.

I shoot as she cradles her baby, breast feeds him. Then she lifts the boy up to her face and he kisses her. Click.

There is another girl in this area who was recently married. She is 14. But I don’t see her today.

Close by, a little girl is washing dishes in the sunlight. Her toddler sister wails behind her. Their mother is at work. The little girl must care for her baby sister while her mother is away.

****

Next we zip over to a house near Prashant’s. Here lives a woman whose husband is addicted to the Indian equivalent of marijuana. He does embroidery for a living and spends most of his money on this stuff.

The leaves need to be boiled. Then they are ground up and made into a little ball that you eat. The leaves can also be smoked, I think.

The woman has to make the drug for her husband every day. Once, when she didn’t do it, he beat her.

She is not boiling or grinding any leaves when we arrive, but I photograph her doing chores about the house. Her husband stands and watches in the background.

****

I try to photograph some widows begging. I don’t get exactly what I want, but we’re out of time, so we go back to the school.
All morning, schoolchildren have been helping make gift bags that will be distributed to needy children the morning of Jan. 1. The bags include shawls, snacks and toys.

Prashant tells me that thousands of children come from all over to receive the gifts. It is absolute chaos. I will be photographing this Monday morning before I leave.

I still have no appetite because of the food poisoning, so I sit in the office for a while and look through my photos. So many. It’s overwhelming. I hope I have my story.

Friday, Dec. 29, 2006

Today I will try to hold my camera again. My hand is still puffy, but I can make a fist. And I shot a little with a smaller camera yesterday. I’m ready to use the Mark 2 today.

I go to the school at about 9am. I am to meet another mataji, Chatalia. She will take me to some rural Indian villages where she teaches skills to women. She, two other women, a driver and I pile into what looks like a Hummer converted into a pick-up truck and bump down the road.

Where we go is unlike anyplace I have ever seen before. There are rolling fields of yellow mustard flowers. And green fields of wheat. The air is fresh and clean. It is quiet. We pass an occasional tractor or scooter. I feel like I am in southern France again.

And the people here are simple. In Vrindavan there is so much noise and muck; here there is the quiet, slow pace of farm life. Women knead cow dung into patties, and children run around in the dust. Puppies and calves sun themselves everywhere.

It’s so strange. The people here are just as poor or poorer than the people in Vrindavan, but there is less sadness. They seem happier to live simply. There are no beggars that I can see. And everyone is so friendly. Almost everyone we pass in the car greets us, and we greet them back.

We drop one woman off at a Food for Life sewing center, where she will help women learn how to sew. Chatalia tells me I can return later to take photos.

We drive on, and suddenly I spot a girl bathing buffalo in a pond. Can we stop, I ask, pointing? I hop out. Cows and buffalo eye me suspiciously as I crouch in the mud on the shore and shoot.

Finally we arrive at a village where Food for Life hosts adult education courses for women. They learn basic reading and health skills. If they are pregnant, Food for Life employees make sure they are getting check-ups and are doing well. I shoot one of the classes they are hosting.

Chatalia tells me we are stopping next at a place for village chapattis. They are about three times as thick as regular chapattis. Would I like some? My mouth tells me yes, but my stomach tells me no. I am being insanely vigilant in my last few days here so I don’t get sick again.

We head back to the school in almost half the time it took us to get to the villages. I want to come back, but I don’t know if I’ll have time.

****

I head back to MVT briefly to upload my photos and rest. What do I need to photograph in my remaining time here? What will I have time to shoot?

There are so many things left undone. My sickness really made me miss a lot. Damn.

I am frustrated. I have come all the way to India and feel like I am leaving before my job is done. I want to spend another month here. Vrindavan has grown on me.

****

I head back to the school again. Classes are just letting out, and children are going home. They are waiting in rickshaws to be pulled away. The lighting is just right.

Yesterday I went out with Prashant and Nirguna mataji to help distribute blankets to needy families, and today I want to help finish the job. But they aren’t going today.

What to do in the waning hours of daylight? I wander up to the roof of the secondary school, which is still under construction. A woman is mixing cement there. Her son has come with her to her job because she can’t leave him at home. This is the case for many women, unless there are siblings to watch the child.

After this is the kitchri. Children and women from the villages flock to the primary school for the evening meal. One little girl leads her blind grandmother in with a stick.

There are other Westerners here today. From Spain. They will be here until the 2nd, a large group of them. They are sponsors of children in the school and will help pay for a boy’s surgery in Spain next month. The boy, Ajay, was burned and severely disfigured as a baby when a kerosene lamp fell on his bed.

I head home. Two more days. Not enough time.

Sunday, Dec. 24, 2006-Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006

Christmas Eve starts out well.

I head out with Prashant at about 8am. We are going to photograph female laborers. We get to their homes, where they are preparing for the day. The light is perfect.

We go to one site where a young widow is clearing bricks from a field. This is her job for the day, and she has had to bring her child with her. I situate myself on a wall overlooking the field and shoot down. Click.

Then we head back to the school, where a doctor has come to examine the children. There are 700 children and 100 parents waiting to be examined. Before examinations begin, the children sing, and I see one little girl balancing her younger brother on her lap. When their mothers go out to work, girls are often put in charge of their younger siblings. Click.

Prashant gets tied up, so I head back to MVT. En route, I see another little girl. This one is comforting her crying little brother. The light, again, is perfect. She is sitting near her home, which is one concrete room in a large complex. Click.

I upload my photos and head out for dinner later. So far, I have taken circa 9,800 photos.

****

Something I learned the hard way: Watch what you eat in India.

I spent the past 3 days in the hospital because of something bad that I ate.

It starts out innocently enough on Christmas Eve: Some spicy rice, some lentils, some chapattis and some vegetables. And some Indian peanut brittle for dessert.

Then the stomach pains start at about 2am Christmas morning. Vomit. And what the people here called “loose motion.”

I am not able to keep anything down for the next 12 hours.

Prashant later gives me some homeopathic things: a lemon with salt, two different types of anti-nausea pills, then something that tastes like Pepto Bismol. All come back up within 10 minutes.

I am extremely dehydrated at this point. I can barely walk. I finally tell Prashant just to take me to a reputable doctor. I need water but can’t drink any. I need to get fluids in my body.

We enter a little clinic along the road to Matura. There is a doctor’s office, and then a hospital with several rooms attached to the back. Prashant says this is the best doctor in Vrindavan. I am number 25 to be seen. Then Prashant bribes one of the nurses, and suddenly I am number 4 in line.

I sit on a cold metal stool while the doctor speaks to me in broken English and takes my blood pressure. 90/60. Very low.

I am admitted to the hospital.

A very nice Christmas present indeed.

****

I sit in a cold metal chair. Prashant has asked for a private room for me, but there is an old woman in the room who refuses to leave. So I wait.

I need treatment, though, so they take me to a back room where several other patients lie on beds. I wince as they jam an IV in my right hand. Then there is an intense burning as they inject me with an antibiotic. Then there is cold as they inject me with glucose. I will end up having 6 bottles of glucose over the next couple of days.

They roll me over on my side and inject me with some anti-nausea medicine. Then I am out of it. I let my hand flop to the side of the bed. Flies buzz around me and other patients stare at me quizzically.

I am the only white person in the entire hospital. Where is she from, and why is she so pale?

****
I am taken to another room.

Next to me is a little boy in a bed, and behind me is an old man who sounds like he is about to cough up a lung.

The little boy’s mother coos over him. His father arrives and does the same.

I can’t help but wonder: Would a little girl receive the same treatment? I recall the horror story Rupa told me about the sick little girl whose mother was angry she was cured in the hospital: “You fixed her, now you pay the dowry,” she told Rupa.

Prashant sits at the foot of my bed and plays games on his cell phone. We chat occasionally. I doze on and off.

****

I am finally transferred to the private room. There is a little bathroom that has an actual toilet, not just a hole in the ground.

I am to spend the night. I can probably be released the following afternoon.

Prashant leaves to run errands, but he will be back. In the meantime, I doze and listen to music.

Then the pain starts. My lower back. My kidneys? An intense, throbbing pain that leaves me unable to walk and makes me shiver. I stumble out into the hallway carrying my IV bag and signal for a nurse. “English,” I say, pointing to myself.

Someone comes in and gives me a shot, and I sleep until Prashant gets back.

At around 6pm, a woman in a beige sari bursts into the room with a bucket of burning incense. “Hare Bol! Hare Krishna!” she says, spreading the scent about the room. We open the window shortly after she leaves.

Prashant sleeps on a narrow second bed that is also in the room. He tosses and turns, hitting his elbows and knees on the tile wall.

****
The doctor bangs on the door at about 7am. “How are you?” he asks.

If all goes well, I will be released later in the afternoon. The nurses bring in more IV fluids and pills.

The day passes in the same manner, one hour blending into the next from sunup to sundown. The time is only punctured by two doctor’s visits and nurses bringing me more IV fluids.

Prashant steps out again to run errands, and I have the lower back pain and chills once again. “Kidneys!” I say to the nurses, pointing vainly to my lower back. They don’t understand. They give me another injection, and again I sleep, crying. “Bas,” a nurse says, stroking my oily hair. “Enough.”

Prashant returns. He can’t stand to see tears. It’s going to be all right, he says.

Nirguna Mataji arrives later and orders food for me from MVT, some salted pasta, soup and a roll. I am lucky I have only food poisoning. There was a Swiss woman visiting Food For Life. She left two days before I got here because she contracted malaria and pneumonia, and both of her lungs collapsed.

They come to give me more IV fluids. It is also time to change my IV tube to my other hands. My right hand is becoming inflamed. They rip it out of my right hand and stick a new one in my left. My right hand is so inflamed I can’t move it.

A thought crosses my mind: I have four days left in Vrindavan. If I can’t use my right hand, how am I going to hold my camera and finish my photo project?

I am to stay another night. The doctor will return in the morning to discharge me.


****

Halfway through the second night, I vomit again. Twice. Into the dirty red trashcan they keep under my bed.

I think it is because of the strong antibiotic they gave me the night before. I had problems with it when I was younger, my dad tells me.

I am feeling better later in the morning, and by noon, I am discharged. They finally take a urine sample, upon my insistence, to check for a kidney infection. Then I am in the back of the FFLV truck, bouncing down the narrow streets of Vrindavan back to MVT

****

Even now I can barely move my right hand. I can hardly type. The doctor did prescribe me some anti-inflammation cream, though.

I hope I can finish this photo project. I need to be able to use my right hand to do it, though. Nothing I can do about it at the moment.

I’ll wait and see what happens.

Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006

I go to the school for perhaps the second time this week.

I want to discuss my idea for the photo project with Rupa. It is the female issue. For the past two weeks, I have gone around Vrindavan and photographed poor women in various stages of their lives. Young, middle-aged, widowed. All endure hardship. All have lives that are going basically nowhere.

The hardship starts with child marriage. If a girl is married young, she stands little chance of getting an education or having a successful future. She will end up carrying bricks on her head. As she ages, she will wither and become a widow, doomed to beg and live in the same poverty she was born into.

Rupa tells me another horror story. There were two sisters in one of the local villages. Both were married young. One sister gave birth to a baby girl. Her husband was upset. When the baby got sick, he refused to get her treatment. Then the baby’s grandmother offered some medicine that her son had previously taken. The medicine was too much for the baby, and the little girl died. The baby’s mother became hysterical and started fighting with her husband. In retaliation, he and a couple others beat her to death.

So many horror stories here, all involving women, young and old.

I want to raise money and awareness with my photographs. Donate the funds to Food For Life’s “Save Our Girls” fund.

Rupa thinks it’s a good idea. I have made progress. But I still have a way to go. I have one more week.

****

I photograph Pinky and Ratna in class. They both sit by the window in their classrooms. What luck! I use the natural light coming in to highlight them.

I crouch beneath a table in the front of the classroom to shoot. The kids can’t see much of me and pay less attention.

Midmorning, I head back to the secondary school. On the way, I see a pregnant woman in a pink sari. She is carrying a heavy can of water on her head. I shoot from a distance.

Back at the school, Prashant tells me the children will be going to a type of science fair and cultural program at another nearby school.

So I hop on the back of his scooter and we’re off, zooming through clouds of dust and exhaust and bouncing over railroad tracks and gutters.

At this school, the children speak English. We wind our way through a maze of classrooms where students have set up their science project and cultural displays. Prashant is using the SMS’s point-and-shoot camera to photograph our students looking at all of the projects and taking notes. I let him shoot with my camera for a while.

We enter a classroom where students have set up cultural displays. There is a table where a girl demonstrates an Indian marriage. There are handmade crafts all around the room that the students have made as marriage gifts.

While I’m looking at one display, a young girl asks me something. Before I know what is happening, she and her friend are drawing designs on my right hand. They are giving me a henna tattoo, which Indian women get before attending a marriage.

They tell me not to wash my hand for the rest of the day. The paste will take an hour or so to dry. I look helplessly at Prashant. Guess this means I won’t be taking photos for a while, because I can’t use my right hand.

I struggle to get back on the scooter, careful not to smudge the henna on my clothes or Prashant’s.

****

The afternoon is a slow one. I wait for Prashant to teach his after-school tutoring session. Then the evening kitchri occurs, so he is tied up again. While I wait, I see one patch of light in the otherwise shady area. It is highlighting a woman in a green sari, who looks around, waiting for food.

I have to shoot. It is as if the heavens are pointing to her with the light.

Later Prashant and I go to a local village, where several child brides are living. There is a 16-year-old who balances a small boy on her hip. There is a 14-year-old newlywed who is shy to have her photo taken.

Photos of child brides are rare, Prashant says. The families know that if the photos are shown to government officials, they could be arrested. Child marriage is against the law.

The ironic thing is, it still occurs. Why is no one doing anything about it?

Friday, Dec. 22, 2006

The day begins extremely early.

I wake up at 4:30am and by 5am, Prashant and I zipping through a heavy layer of fog on his scooter. I am going to photograph the female laborers who clean the streets early in the morning.

But before this, we hear chanting and stop. Some widows have gathered at a building and are chanting for chapattis in the morning cold. I am wearing a heavy jacket, pants, gloves and thick socks; they are wearing thin saris and shawls and go barefoot. I don’t know how they can tolerate the cold.

The chanting ends, and they each receive two chapattis for their work. Other widows who did not make it into the building’s courtyard to chant wait at a gate; they too receive chapattis.

Prashant and I make our way to a tea shop. It is too dark to photograph workers yet; we must wait until the sun is about to rise and the light is creeping into the sky. We sip tea from clay cups and wait.

****

Another school worker meets us; he guides us to some areas where the female laborers will appear.

The area is dangerous. Prashant says even he would not want to walk through it alone. We walk close together through the uneven roads, avoiding piles of animal dung and loose bricks.

The first woman I photograph is sweeping the road. It is still incredibly dark, so it is hard to get a clear photo. But the colors of the pre-dawn are just gorgeous.

Next we encounter more women who will sweep and pick up garbage from along the sides of the streets. They are happy to have their photos taken, happy to have their hard work recognized.

One woman in a bright pink sari sweeps trash amidst the early morning traffic. She dodges rickshaws, Tempos and pedestrians. Fog swirls around her.

Then I see a little girl with a white bag sifting through street trash. She is gathering any potentially valuable waste to sell. She gives the money to her family.

I follow her into an area of the street that looks like a dumping ground. There is trash everywhere. I almost step on two dead puppies that are mixed in with the rubbish. She stares at me, curious. She is 8 years old.

There is another woman, a widow. She sweeps more trash. I shoot. Then she crouches beside the pile of trash she has gathered. Someone lights it on fire. She warms her hands.

****

Now Prashant and I go looking for more widows and more women to photograph. We encounter one widow who lives with and supports all of her sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Then we journey to the home of another widow. She is 35 and has three children. Her home is nothing more than a room surrounded by mud walls. Light seeps in through numerous holes.

There is an open area in front of the room. This is covered only by a tarp and random pieces of cloth. The woman’s husband made it with a metal sheet, but after he died, it was not replaced. There is one bed in this semi-covered area; it’s held together by ropes.

When it rains, water floods the enclosed room, forcing the family to seek refuge under the tarp. They all huddle on the single bed. If it is nighttime, they don’t sleep.

I photograph the woman cooking in her shack. I want to photograph the tarp “roof” somehow. Then I have an idea: stand on the roof of the mud room. I climb up carefully. The mud roof is weak in spots, and I tread carefully. I take a few shots and scramble down the ladder, fearing the roof will collapse.

The widow has no consistent job; she does odd jobs around Vrindavan whenever she gets the chance.

Normally, even poor families will make you tea when you visit their homes. But this woman doesn’t. “She has nothing to offer,” Prashant tells me.

****

The most moving part of my day and week occurs this afternoon.

Prashant and I visit the home of yet another widow. She is 21 years old. She is my age, but she could pass for much younger. Her skin is soft, her eyes are like a teenagers. She has a sweet personality. Her face still hasn’t lost its childish glow.

This girl married when she was 17. She had one daughter. Then her husband ran away with her sister.

A rumor reached her that her husband had died in an accident. But only a rumor. No verification. So she still hopes he will return. She hasn’t completely erased the red mark on her forehead, which distinguishes a married Indian woman. But it is smaller than it used to be.

Prashant asks her if she would consider remarriage. Nay. She wants her husband back. She wants the jerk to come back.

Indian women believe their husband is a god, Prashant tells me. So love is blind.

The girl’s 3-year-old daughter gazes intently at me while her mother works in the background. I shoot.

Then I ask if I can get a photo of them together. Such a young mother, already a victim of widowhood. And a young daughter doomed to repeat the cycle of poverty and despair that churns so quickly here.

Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006

Perhaps the most frustrating day thus far.

Prashant picks me up at 8:30am to follow the widow with leprosy into Mathura, about 20 minutes away by motorcycle.

We arrive at her home, and she is happy to see us. She will be riding in a vehicle called a “Tempo” into Mathura.

These vehicles are a real sight. They are three-wheeled taxis, basically. They are painted yellow and green and belch black smoke into the air from their exhaust pipes. People cram into them, sometimes sitting on each other’s laps or hanging out of the open doors.

The widow with leprosy climbs in and sits on someone’s lap for the ride.

All is well. Prashant and I follow the Tempo and eventually pass it. Number 9014. Then I stop to take a photo of her Tempo as it passes. She sees me. When we catch up to the vehicle again, she is gone.

Prashant asks the driver where he dropped her off. Earlier, at the temple stop, he says. We retrace our path to the stop and search for her for an hour or so.

She is nowhere to be seen. But then, you couldn’t spot this fragile little woman in the massive crowds of Mathura anyway.

Defeated, we wander around for a little bit and head back. But not before stopping at a Nepalese market, where I buy a soft black scarf. My first purchase since coming here.

The woman must have lost us on purpose, Prashant says. Maybe she was embarrassed.

****

We head back to another widow’s house. This woman lives with several kids in a home that consists of a tarp and clothes strung across some wooden beams.

But she is not there.

Now what to do? We pass by Prashant’s house. I both see and smell my next photo opportunity. A man is cleaning out the sewers. He uses a rake and pulls up scoop after scoop of sludge from the open sewers, which run along all of the streets. The muck sits in big black piles in the afternoon sun.

I crouch to shoot, but the lighting is bad. I move, and the man moves. I can’t catch him. Another wasted moment.

****
We do manage to go to one widow’s home. She is cooking chapattis outside. They have potatoes and greens inside. Good for the body during the winter season, Prashant says.

She lives with her son’s family. This son has broken ribs and walks with a cane. He lifts his shirt so I can photograph the bandage.

She is relatively well off. She has a roof over her head. Others do not. But the one thing that gets me about this place is the flies. They are everywhere. They cling to my hands and my camera and to the widow’s face and shawl. They swarm about the food and buzz eagerly about the dough.

****

We make it to Pinky’s house, but today is a festival in Vrindavan, so the family is gone. Pinky’s mother is blind, and her father has a form of cancer. She is another female child growing up in a difficult situation.

They return, but later than I hope. The daylight is rapidly fading. I take a few shots and leave. Hope for a more productive day tomorrow.

Tomorrow will begin early. 5am. Female laborers get up this early to clean the gutters and sweep garbage out of the streets.

****

On another note: DEET apparently doesn’t keep away the mosquitoes here. I woke up this morning with 20 bites on my hands. I will be trying something else tonight.

And here is my vain attempt to photograph an Indian monkey. Clearly I am not a wildlife photographer....yet.