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.

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006

A more productive day.

It starts early. 9:30am, Prashant picks me up and we head over to one widow’s house. This is the woman with leprosy. She is a widow and cares for two grandchildren. She can barely use her hands and feet. She begs for a living.

Prashant explains that I would like to sit and observe her daily routine for a while.

I crouch and shoot while she uses her nubs of fingers to scrub, rinse and hang her grandchildren’s school uniforms. Prashant has gone to a home nearby to give me space and time. If I need him, all I need to do is call.

She heads up to the roof, where she hangs up the wet clothes and picks up pieces of dried cow dung.

She is looking at me, wondering why I am so interested in her life. Why I care so much.

Prashant comes, and we tell the woman we will be back later in the afternoon, when her grandchildren are home from school. Tomorrow, we agree to follow her to Mathura, where she will beg during the day.

She begins to cry. Prashant immediately tries to comfort her. He cannot tolerate tears. She is embarrassed, he tells me later. Embarrassed that someone is so interested in her and following her all the time.

****

Potato chapattis for lunch. Spicy, but mixed with sweet pickles, they are delicious. And warm milk mixed with a chocolate powder.

Then we head off to another widow ashram. We arrive and have to wait for a while until Prashant’s contacts get there. While we are seated, we are served chai tea, dried pineapple, biscuits and other Indian snacks. There is so much hospitality in this town. Even the poorest families will offer you tea if you enter their homes.

We get permission to photograph inside of the ashram, but only for a brief time. I don’t know why the stay is being cut short, but I rush to shoot anyway. The widows here are chanting. Some are ringing bells. One woman is blowing a conch. I shoot.

We rush to get their names and scramble downstairs. I only have 10 minutes maximum to photograph the women on the first floor of the ashram. What the big rush is, I have no idea.

Later I find out that government officials are coming to inspect the ashram. The ashram’s owner got a call and wanted to get us out of there as quickly as possible.

****
We head back to the widow’s house later. Her grandchildren should be arriving home from school soon.

But she is not there, and the door is locked. She has gone to a relative’s house, a neighbor tells us. We venture over there, and are offered tea. The woman has to grip the teacup in a special way because of her fingers.

Her grandchildren mill about her, and soon all of them head back home. Dinner is being made. The woman’s granddaughter helps sift flour, and then the woman kneads dough for chapattis, the dough sticking in clumps to her finger nubs.

Suddenly, the woman’s granddaughter yells at me from the rooftop. “Sunset.” We head upstairs. The widow continues to work, silhouetted in the red and yellow of the fading sun.

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006

A frustrating day. And only a few good photos to show for it.

Prashant takes me to see the widows leaving the ashram in the morning. They go to ashrams twice a day for several hours to chant and receive alms. They get a few rupees that they spend immediately after they exit.

We wait around in a “doctor’s” office until the widows emerge. This is not the type of doctor you want to treat you, Prashant explains. But we sit in his shop, which overlooks the busy Vrindavan street.

We see a dog licking a water spigot. Not a minute later, a man goes up to the same spigot and fills a water bottle. A woman washes food in it.

Prashant suddenly looks away. I see a little girl squatting to urinate in one of the gutters that run along both sides of the street.

Widows begin to leave the ashram, and I hop about like a monkey with my camera. I shoot from above, below, and level. But the lighting is not right. I shoot anyway, hoping I get something useable.

Then we move on. We visit the huts of several female laborers.

This is frustrating. They refuse to look away from me, they look at the camera, no matter how hard I try to be inconspicuous. Serves me right for bringing such a hefty camera.

Women are cooking for their husbands, who squat in the dirt and watch. Occasionally they chop vegetables and help out. But it is most the wife who works.

I sigh and move on. There is a widow rebuilding her hut. I can’t take the photo because the light isn’t right to shoot. A flash won’t make it look right either.

I see another woman who is cooking for her husband. He squats and smokes a cigarette while she cooks vegetables.

Suddenly I see a woman in a beautiful red sari washing clothes. Around her are mounds of garbage and mud. She stands out amidst the rubbish. I wait until she peers up at me a little. Click.

Prashant can see I am frustrated by the people constantly looking at me, swarming around me, getting in the way of the photos. But it can’t be helped. Of course if someone barges into where you live, you are going to notice and not act naturally. You need to be invisible, he tells me. I need an invisibility cape.

****
Back at the school, class is in session. I pop in to photograph Ratna in her 3rd grade classroom.


The late-afternoon light is perfect. It streams through the grated windows, making pretty patterns on the children’s faces. Ratna focuses intensely on her studies while many of her classmates play and goof around.


Suddenly, a school worker enters. In his hands are bundles of red sweaters. For the children, he explains. Part of their uniforms, which also include blue and white checkered blouses and blue trousers.

Some kids have no clothes besides their uniforms to wear. They show up with holes in their school sweaters and shirts, torn after so much use. This new red sweater is a replacement. Kids will have two, so if one is lost or tattered, they will have another.

I click away as students pull the bright new sweaters over their little heads.

Every student gets one, the man says.

****
I head back to MVT early to ponder my photo project. Where am I going with it?

I order lasagna for dinner at MVT. After eating nothing but spicy food for a week and a half, this tastes bland. I smother it in Tabasco sauce and dig in.

I also start to do laundry. There are piles of dirty clothes in my room. Dusty and stained. I wash and wring them out in my bathroom sink. Now, where to let them dry? Inside, in the shower. They will dry slowly there. But if I hang them outside, the monkeys will take them.

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006

It has been a while.

The past few days have been a blur, one blending into the next.

I feel like I am losing focus in the project, moving too fast and photographing too many people. I want to focus more on certain people, certain things. I hope I can do so in the next few days.

I want to focus on the female issue, but it is such a complex issue with so many caveats. There are the female children in the school. There are the girls caring for entire families in shantytowns. There are the female laborers, carrying loads of bramble and sticks upon their heads. There are the widows, both the relatively well-off and the destitute.

And the camera. I stand out by virtue of my skin color, but the camera makes me stand out more. Obviously. So people try to pose for my photos, are intimidates to be photographed with such a long lens. My guides try to tell them, “Act natural.” Nay. They are not used to cameras, they are not used to me.

Today, for the first time during this whole trip, I felt like crying. I am so frustrated. I have so much to do, and my days in Vrindavan are rapidly dwindling. And everyone notices me, everywhere I go there are the same things to photograph, the same types of people trying to pose.

I need to step back and re-evaluate.

****

Saturday I go for the first time to an ashram where many women are chanting. They are predominantly widows, but there are a few married women amongst them seeking alms.

The widows do this twice a day, hundreds of them, in various ashrams all over Vrindavan. They receive some food and some rupees. They receive about 5 or 6 rupees a day, most of which they receive in the ashrams. The rest they will get by begging.

The women in this ashram chant “Hare Krishna” melodiously. Some people are passing out bits of food. They toss pieces of apple and other fruit, and the widows hold out their shawls to catch the treasure. Only a few lucky ones catch. They are desperate.

The women here are happy to be photographed, and the lighting makes certain women glow and puts others in complete shadow. They pull at my pant legs, trying to get me to pay attention to them. So many want individual photos taken.

I head upstairs, where there are more widows. As soon as I enter the room, there is pandemonium. A dozen women rush over to me, yelling things at me in Hindi that I cannot understand. I slink to the back of the room and sit amongst a few elderly women.

As soon as I get up to go, the yelling starts again. Then I realize the women leading the chanting are trying to get me to photograph the picture of Lord Krishna they have in the center of the room. I do so, and they smile appreciatively. Then they pose in front of Krishna and ask to have their photo taken.

After the program is over, the widows exit with tokens. They exchange these for five rupees. A long line forms and snakes around the building. One woman kisses the ground in front of the gruff man passing out the rupees and walks away crying.

****

Sunday.

Today is one of the first rest days I have had in a while. At noon there is a feast for widows at the school. I go to photograph.

(Please forgive my spelling) Chipatis, subji, rice and a kind of tapioca pudding are served on placemats made of leaves. One of the workers for the school hands out ten rupees to each widow.

These feasts occur about twice a month. Widows are supposed to buy tickets, but always some show up who don’t have tickets. The school feeds them anyway.


I see one of the most moving scenes. There is one widow, in her thirties. She is blind and has been so since birth. A brown shawl hangs over her head and the head of her 5-year-old daughter. The blind woman spends her time begging just so she can take care of her daughter. But it is very difficult.

I leave the feast and go to see the birthplace of Lord Krishna. I have never seen a place with more security. I am allowed to walk in only with a bottle of water.

Ages ago, a Muslim king destroyed half of the birthplace to build a mosque. The mosque stands right next to the birthplace. Security is tight so violence does not erupt.

The birthplace is in a prison cell. The stone floor is cold on my bare feet. I am not a religious person, but there is something special about being somewhere where a god was allegedly born. There is something so mysterious and intriguing about it. I stand in awe.

****

Monday.

Today Prashant takes me to another widow ashram. A woman and her family live here, and the widows help them out. But they are mainly here because they have no where else to go.

There is one widow. Perhaps the sweetest old woman I have ever seen. She has so many wrinkles. Her dark eyes peer through thick glasses. As she talks to Prashant and me, she cannot stop shaking. The light is striking her face in just the right way. I shoot. I show her the photo and she smiles. “Hare Krishna.” She touches my arm in appreciation.

At one point in the afternoon, we visit a woman who has eight children. Her husband is a sadhu, or “saint.” This means he leaves and wanders the streets, professing to be holy. He leaves his wife to care for all of the children.

When we are there the woman is making chipatis for her children. I shoot. Notice the absence of the husband.

Finally, we visit a widow who is clearing wood. She has several children. Her husband died and she has moved in with another man, simply so she can have a place to live.

She is trekking out into the “jungle” to gather more wood. Prashant and I follow. There are thorns everywhere, and strands of them stick to your shoes. Luckily they do not penetrate the soles of my shoes.

She gathers the wood and carries it on her head. As we are heading back, we see girls from the school doing the same thing. Loads of bramble, balanced on their heads. I shoot.

Friday, Dec. 15, 2006

I finish showering in the morning and find a note under my door. It is from Nirguna Mataji. “Please come to my apartment when you get the chance.”

I head over. She asks how everything has been going, if I am satisfied with my new room, what sort of photo opportunities I have been getting.

As we are speaking, I hear a rustling in her curtains. I have almost forgotten. She has a pet chipmunk. It climbs all over her front curtains and the lamp in the front window of her apartment, where it finds warmth. It came to her as a baby, when it had no fur and its eyes were still closed. She hopes to release it into the wild sometime soon.

We walk around the area near MVT. She shows me where a local bakery is, should I wish to get breakfast some mornings. As we are heading back, she tells me she wants to get some biscuits for the dogs that live in front of MVT. The typical lifespan of a dog in Vrindavan is four years.

There is one female dog in particular who has recently had puppies, her ribs are protruding through her fur. Another dog nearby has mange and is missing most of the fur on its back.

She buys the biscuits and puts them on the ground for the dogs. Prashant was right about the monkeys. No sooner have the biscuits hit the dirt than two primates swing down from their perch upon the MVT gate and start stuffing the biscuits in their mouths, two, three at a time. Nirguna Mataji grabs my monopod and starts swinging it at them. The scene is almost comical. They back off.

A nearby cow also takes interest in the food on the ground and moves in that direction. There are so many hungry animals here.

****

At noon, Prashant tells me that we can go to another ashram. A couple of men he knows will take us there. We zip off on his scooter down one of the bumpiest unpaved roads in Vrindavan. I inhale a lot of dust and hang on.

There are many widows here. But this place is nice. It is clean and smells of newly made incense. The widows are chanting, playing instruments and praying when we arrive. They are puzzled by my presence but continue. I have told Prashant to tell them that I want natural photos, so to ignore me if at all possible.

There is one widow here who is more than 100 years old. She walks on all fours, buttocks up in the air. Her skin is missing pigment in some areas. Somehow she ascends the stairs to her sleeping quarters, where I see her walking like this.

The light here is nice. I go inside the widows’ sleeping quarters. There beds are lined up in two rows, and each woman has about two feet of space on either side of the bed to call her own. There are various decorations around the beds, as well.

One woman here is sewing, another is sleeping, another is stringing beads. The natural light streams through the open door and highlights several of the widows in the room, and I sit and photograph them for about 30 minutes. There is one widow leaning through a window; another is perched on her bed. All stand out because of the light.

Soon Prashant tells me they are waiting for me to leave so they can eat lunch. I finish up, and we head downstairs. But they ask us to stay to eat.

We sit and are served a spicy dish, fried bread and a sweet mixture of rice, raisins and milk. One of the men there is surprised that I like this type of food. “Yes, I do,” I reply, smiling. But I hiccup. This is the only giveaway that I don’t eat Indian food on a regular basis.

****

There are evening classes at the school today. Prashant and I go up to the roof of the primary school, where kids are practicing karate. There is a belt inspection coming up. They are doing flips and throwing punches. The late-afternoon sun makes everyone’s faces glow, and it is a perfect time to shoot.

Prashant tells me that SMS kids are well known for their martial arts skills. A couple of the girls are gold medalists. A tough area produces tough kids.

****

Prashant takes me to the home of one of the girls I will be doing extended work on, Ratna. Her father has tuberculosis and sits feebly in the house, spitting occasionally. Her mother is gone. She cares for several siblings.

Prashant tells me that once, during rainy season, water flooded the family’s home and all of their belongings were floating. He had to help bail water out with a bucket. The stench was something he cannot describe.

When we arrive, Ratna is carrying a huge bowl of cow dung on her head. She and her sister take it up to the roof of her house and start kneading it into pies to dry and burn for fuel. I ascend to the roof ever so carefully to photograph.

I will come back here at different times to shoot and try to get an idea of how this family works. The sun is setting, and the light is not going to last much longer. Prashant has somewhere to take me.

****

We go to an area that overlooks the riverbank. I cannot do the beauty justice in my description. The sun is setting over the water, producing a myriad of pastel colors. A boat passes by, silhouetted in the fading light. I take a couple of photos, then sit to enjoy the peace here.

Below, people are lighting candles and sending them down the river in little floating cups. Prashant tells me each candle represents a wish.

****

A final note for today: I think I am getting used to the spicy food here. I can’t eat a pizza at MVT without sprinkling some hot pepper sauce on top.