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?