Untitled India Project

...

2008-08-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Freedom Foundation houses both adults and children with AIDS. The adults stay short term at the center and receive free medical care. Their faces are partially obscured and their names withheld to maintain their privacy.

Last of Majuli

2008-08-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

So I know I've already posted a ton of photos from Majuli, but here are a couple more. These were taken the night we had dinner with a family in their home. Not sure if you can tell, but thats a fully feathered chicken the woman is pulling out of the pot. Apparently the feathers are easier to pull out if you boil it whole first.

With amazement, I retold this story to my grandparents, who got a real kick out of it. My Grandaddy then told me all the ways he used to kill his chickens, and how they'd boil them to make the feathers come off easier. I felt kind of stupid afterwards for thinking my story would sound foreign and somehow glamorous. Watching this scene unfold felt worlds apart from what I knew; Surrounded by tribal villagers wearing lungis, squatted on the bamboo floor and speaking Assamese in the firelight, I remember Jordan and I looking at each other and asking, "Is this real?" Turns out our worlds are actually a lot closer than I thought.

Majuli, extended

2008-08-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more photos from the time we spent on Majuli island in Assam. Majuli is inhabited mainly by people of the Mishing tribe, who have lived on the island for centuries. The people and their culture are struggling to survive amongst obstacles like the erosion of the island as well as modernization that leaves little room for the preservation of ancient traditions.

The island suffers from severe erosion on all sides due to the Brahmaputra river that surrounds it as well as intense annual flooding during monsoon season. The island, once 1,150 square km, has lost more than 30% of its landmass in the latter half of the twentieth century and is now only 422 square km.

For the past five hundred years, Majuli has been the cultural capitol and stronghold of the Assamese civilization. Their main industry is agriculture, specifically paddy. Paddy fields seemed to cover every free square inch of land on the island and were usually dotted with large straw hats bobbing up and down that serve to protect the harvester from the rain.

Almost every house is a hut with the roof and the floor made of five layers of bamboo. The hut is elevated off the ground for protection during floods and there is a five step ladder that leads up to the house. I thought I was going to fall off into the mud every time I went up or down, while the villagers scaled the ladder as gracefully as birds riding a current. There villagers are proud of their houses; built by hand and strong enough to survive the monsoons, although concrete buildings are becoming more and more popular in the area.

The Assamese people are also highly renowned for their handicrafts like pottery and weaving. As we walked past the bamboo huts women would sit outside and weave using a loom. The end product was breathtaking; intricate and exquisite patterns adorned a variety of fabrics, but we usually saw them weaving cotton and sometimes silk.

It was amazing to see people living this way- waking up with the sun and catching their lunch, which, due to poor river conditions, was made up of tiny fish that I'd use for bait on Lake Travis, then carrying huge loads of paddy on their backs after a long day in the fields, and returning home to boil a chicken in a pot over a fire that is smack dab in the middle of their hut on the floor- no electricity, no modern amenities whatsoever.

For me, it is a place that makes you feel like time has stopped. But for people living on the island, every year brings change. Some change is welcome; schools have been built and leaders encourage parents to make sure their child attends every day, concrete buildings provide welcome refuge from the incessant rains and medical clinics are easily accessible. Other change is less welcome, but there is only so much that can be done. The Indian government has instated programs to protect the island from erosion but studies still show that in fifteen to twenty years Majuli will cease to exist.

It's wonderful to witness a place so full of pride for their culture and their community. As our world becomes more and more homogeneous, Majuli remains a testament to a time long gone, where people live and operate relatively uninfluenced by other civilizations and instead focus on the heritage, folklore and traditions of their land and their ancestors.

Malaria take #2

2008-08-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

A worker sprays a construction site with insecticides. Construction sites are particularly susceptible because water easily pools on the concrete surfaces that are left unattended, forming a perfect breeding ground for malaria carrying mosquitoes. Monsoon season does nothing to help the problem.

A Goa construction site.

Construction worker on site.

The children of construction workers spend their days on the site. Most construction workers in Goa are migrants from nearby states. They and their families live on the site until the construction is finished, putting them at high risk for malaria. When the building is finished, the families and workers move to a new site and start the process over.

Hospitalized malaria patients Rajesh and Rosie at Goa Medical College.

A doctor tests a patient at Goa Medical College.

A Goa resident waits in line to receive a pink card allowing her to be hired by construction agencies that states she has been tested for malaria.

Dr. Pradeep Korganokar (foreground) watches as local Goans file through for regular (and free!) malaria testing at the Urban Health Center in Panjim, Goa.

Pigeons

2008-08-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

I've got tons of malaria audio and photos to edit, but I couldn't bring myself to start on that piece before getting this little short done. It's nothing fancy, but it was fun!

I'm really...

2008-07-31T19:07:00.001-07:00

...gonna miss this.

malaria

2008-07-31T18:09:00.000-07:00

here's some from a quick story on malaria in Goa. the Goan medical system takes extensive steps to prevent the malaria parasite from proliferating amongst the population...like spraying standing water on construction sites with anti-larval chemicals and testing all construction workers daily for malaria. we got to ride along with a crew of doctors to a couple construction sites and then visited a hospital where advanced patients were being treated.

palolem beach

2008-07-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

Goan fishermen, train window

2008-07-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

Goa

2008-07-25T03:38:00.000-07:00

The first three photos were taken at Patnam beach in Goa... same subject, relatively same situation, yet I cant pick... so holla back folks.

And we literally just (thirty seconds ago) realized that our flight leaves in less than 12 hours when we thought we had an whole extra day, so sorry for the sloppy post, but I've got a plane to catch. See you on the other side of the world.

street scene, varanasi, 2008

2008-07-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know why the colors look wrong, but for whatever reason, when I crosspost to Tumblr, the colors look right. But at Tumblr you can't click to enlarge the photo. Gah. Can't someone invent a photoblogging system that works (and isn't owned by Yahoo)?

EDIT: added one more picture. if this were wild art, and we had room for the catchhead, I think I would call it "This situation is entirely unacceptable:"

one from bangalore

2008-07-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

There's something I love about this image. I don't know what this guy's story is; I snapped it, started to walk away, then thought better of it and turned back. But the man was gone.
four more from this neighborhood on my personal blog.

the forty hour train ride...

2008-07-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

... was well worth it, after arriving on the beach in Goa.

The first five are either on the train or out the orange tinted train window. I passed the time shooting out the window at the various stations or standing in between cars to get some fresh air and enjoy the view.

The last four are on the beautiful Palolem beach in south Goa. People are friendly and the beach is almost deserted save a couple of Australian toursits and some local fisherman. Oh... and anyone whos been to India knows that cows are literally everywhere; the beach is no exception.

ceci n'est pas une photo...

2008-07-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

...it's actually 29 of them, strung together into a panorama. Especially since it's not a particularly good week for image manipulations, I want to make sure I point that out from the outset. I don't own a lens that gives me 270 degrees of coverage, so I use this technique out of necessity. Also 'cuz I think it's kinda cool.

This is a picture of the Kempegowda Tower, on the grounds of the Lalbagh Gardens in Bangalore. It's not a shrine or a temple; it's actually one of four guard towers erected in the 1500s by, well, the ancient chieftain Kempe Gowda himself. It was assumed that the towers would mark the boundaries of the town of Bengaluru.

Half a millennium later, you can still see the center of town in the distance (on the right side of the image), but the tower is definitely in town. Much of Bangalore extends out, from the 300+ acre complex known as Electronics City 10 miles south, to the new international airport 25 miles to the north. Beyond that, the work done in Bangalore crosses the world. I read a brief in the Indian Express this week: apparently Mindtree, the Bangalore-born IT company, is opening a branch in Monterrey. That's in Mexico. The facility won't be alone; Infosys, the mega-cap from Maharashtra, set up a software development center there last year.

Could Kempe Gowda have envisioned this, even in his wildest dreams?

I'm not sure if I'm gonna use this picture, but I'm definitely gonna use the metaphor.

—

Anyway, you may have noticed my posting falling off the past couple weeks. Sorry about that. I've been shooting and writing and taking notes, and now that I'm on the way out of the country — this was posted from London and written in the island kingdom of Bahrain — I'll have time to post some more of the stuff I shot. In fact, as long as we're on the topic of these panoramas, here are a couple more.

This one's the Taj from the north bank:

This next one was kind of a disappointment... I was only able to salvage a chunk, and not even all of it. But there's something I like about it:

(ps: yes, these images are — by their nature — an agglomeration of different moments from many different photos. and no, i'm not sure that I like this. My take in the end is that these are not photographs; sound off in the comments if you have any thoughts.)

four from benares

2008-07-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Journey to the mountains

2008-07-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

Agra train station

Numbers two and three- at His Holiness the Dalai Lamas birthday celebration in McLeod Ganj.

Numbers three, four and five- Buddhist monks at the Temple compound where H.H. the Dalai Lama himself lives.

An old Baba passing out sweets at a temple in Vashisht (just outside of Manali).

Kullu River valley.

A Vashisht woman washes clothes at the hottest hot springs I've ever been in.

the last week or three

2008-07-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

we had a really crazy night in Jaipur...

...visited a pigeon fancier...

...and took photos of people taking photos of the Taj.

we got to Dharamsala just in time for The Dalai Lama's 73rd birthday and while at the monastery, I met this truly awesome woman from Tibet named Llang. She had some pretty impressive stories to tell and despite the incredibly shitty things that the Chinese government has done to her and her family, she still has the most amazing outlook on life and humanity...wow. mad props Llang.

and lastly, here's a few of the more sinister individuals that we've met along the way...well their backs at least.

(this man is not to be trusted under any circumstance)

2008-07-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

The first two are at the Taj, but without the Taj in them. The building in the first photo is a mosque that faces the Taj. The last two are in Nawalgarh, a small city outside of Jaipur where we hung out for a couple of days; walked the winding alleyways up and down, rode bikes out to the countryside, got lost and found.

Taj couple; Child with goat sheep; Agra scene

2008-06-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

On the south bank of the Yamuna river in the city of Agra, life revolves around the Taj Mahal and the two to four million tourists that visit it each year. Although there's some tourist activity happening on the opposite bank of the Yamuna, agriculture remains a way of living for many of the people who reside there; I spoke to one 18-year old native of the city who boasted that his family owned three goats, one cow, and several chickens.

It's monsoon season here, and as dark clouds open up, scattering children and goats and goatherds, I'm reminded of a line I read in an India guidebook. The book opined that the Taj tends to overshadow the nearby Agra Fort, which is an attraction worth seeing. The line comes to mind, I think, because the Taj might just overshadow three goats and a family cow as well.

UPDATE: I fixed the post title. Because that animal is decidedly not a goat.

Hello, boat?

2008-06-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

First three are from the centuries old ghats on the Ganges river in Varanasi. The fourth is from our first day here in Jaipur. We were planning to leave Rajasthan today but have decided to stay a bit longer; there is something unabashedly captivating about this place. The last is at the train station in Varanasi... the stations are always a hub of buzzing activity yet I find them increasingly difficult to photograph.

Disconnected.

2008-06-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

Just after arriving on Majouli, the biggest river island in the world.

A woman of the Mishing tribe at night... most of the villagers live in traditional bamboo huts without any amenities (like electricity), so in the evening the village takes on an ominous candlelit glow. (See candle kid in Jordan's previous post; a much better representation of said glow)

A Majouli villager carries rice early in the morning. Paddy fields as far as the eye could see.

A tea estate worker sweeps up the tea that has lost its way in a factory in Jorhat. Tea leaves undergo a long series of cutting, squishing and drying before they are ready to steep.

Sorry for the terrible captions and lack of timely updates but we are really loving the internet hiatus that is apparently inevitable while traveling India. Try it.

catch up

2008-06-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

yeah, what Courtney said times two...here's a few from the last couple weeks, and what a couple weeks they were...wow...sorry for the lack of words, gotta catch a train...more later.

at the ferry to majuli island

loading rice bags on the ferry

making dinner

traditional tribal dancers on majuli

tea estate

malaria clinic doctor

on the bus to shilong

Guwahati Street life

2008-06-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

And we're back! Writing from Shillong, definitely my favorite city that we've visited yet. We've been through some completely insane experiences since we were last in vicinity of a wireless connection while tribal village hopping through the Northeast states. We've dubbed it our Unconventional India trip. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Shot these over a week ago during a "layover" between trains in Guwahati, a city we've all grown to dislike; the streets are packed with touts trying to swindle you. I felt like a bunch of lame wildebeests roaming through a plain full of hungry cheetahs. Regardless, here are some photos.

a plane and a train

2008-06-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

There may be a... well... significant dropoff in the posting for the next couple weeks. We're headed northeast, to a region where our contact warns that even cellphone coverage is highly iffy. So fear not, the blog will be back soon enough. But for now, a plane, and a train, and a bus to Jorhat.

The kids

2008-06-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last week consumed by these children, their stories and their futures. They are dealing with incredibly complicated issues, yet their daily lives seem surprisingly simple. One cold, one fever is enough to let the disease take their lives away, yet they live each day with fervent passion for the next. These kids endure more obstacles in a week than most experience in a lifetime.

This project has forced to me to stop and ask myself, "Why do I want to spend my time, emotional and physical energy documenting the struggles of others? Why do I feel the need to tell these stories? Am I really getting a degree in this?" I've been forced to stop and reexamine my intentions, my purpose over and over again. And I think I've got it.

It could have just as easily been me born into an uncaring family with an incurable disease that would eventually end my life. No one decides what kind of life they are born into. These kids do the absolute best with what they have been born into, and I see no other option but to do the best with what I have been born into; eyes to see and ears to hear the stories of others. Yet, these stories are also my story because we are all human, and this is the story of humanity. The struggle of mankind is universal.

Enough about me. Here's to the kids.

Anitha, sits on the floor of the common room in the children's center as everyone crowds around to talk about their first day at school. Anitha's mother was admitted to the adult ward after her father died. Christopher, a Freedom employee, took a promise from Anitha's mother that her two HIV positive children (the girls, Anitha and Anu were positive, their three brothers were negative) would be taken care of. After their mother died, Freedom Foundation opened its doors to the two year old girls, the first of many children who would call the center their home.

Varsha, 14, gets her hair braided by Mangala Gowri, a caretaker at the center. Varsha struggles with issues of security, often comparing herself, her skin color and her appearance with the other girls. Maduri, a caretaker and Freedom employee who is like a mother to the children, says that she needs a lot of assurance from friends. The friends get frustrated with her desire for assurance, and Varsha blames herself, thinking that she's not "good enough".

Raju, 13, sits on a bed in the boys dormitory at the center. Raju's mother was a beggar, could not take care of him, and put him in a hostel. He switched hostels a few times, then came to Freedom Foundation. The first line Anti-Retroviral (ARV) treatments are no longer working for Raju, so they moved him to the second line medication, which is more than three times the price of the first line ARV treatment. Raju was also incredibly fun and rambunctious and was always jumping onto the backs of the older boys.

Before getting ready for bed, the children get their cuts and scrapes examined by Maduri. Maduri and the other caretakers teach the kids how to avoid situations where they might get cut as well as what to do when it does happen.

Anitha laughs as she cleans herself up after an afternoon spent in the playground at Freedom Foundation. In 2000, Anitha's sister Anu died. After her death, Maduri says it was hard on all of the children, not just Anitha, because they are essentially all family.

Annappa, 14, moans in pain as Mangala puts a cold towel on his head to calm a fever. The next day, Annappa was admitted to the mens ward (next door to the childrens center), where he was put on an IV and his condition watched closely. The third day, he was on his feet again. According to Maduri, Annappa has had the most health problems of all the kids, including recurrent tuberculosis and respiratory infections.

Each child has to take their prescribed medicines twice a day, without fail. The blue medicine is the ARV treatment, the orange and black is a multivitamin, and the white is paracetamol, for fever.

Prassamma, 16, pours water into Raju's mouth to gulp down the medicine.

Counselor Shashidhar K.J. tries to maintain order while passing out school supplies on the evening before the first day of the new term. The air was chaotic as the kids grabbed for notebooks, pencils, markers, erasers and rulers before the supply ran out. In the end, there was plenty for everyone.

Anitha rides on the "bus" to the first day of the new term at school. The center owns an ambulance that doubles as the children's transportation to and from school. The caretakers and staff at Freedom Foundation do their best to make sure that the kids have an equal opportunity to get a good education and prepare for their futures.

The HIV/AIDS center has received a notice of eviction, stating that they have to be out of the property by the end of September. The city of Bangalore is constantly sprawling, so the area around the center that was once open fields is now littered with new apartments and housing developments. As the horizon becomes obscured, the staff at Freedom Foundation continue to search for a new location that they can make their permanent home for the patients and children. The alternative is unthinkable; the kids would have no where to go but the streets.

2008-06-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

manicure

2008-06-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

maintaining the immaculate opulence of the gardens at the Leela Palace

The Two Markets

2008-06-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

left, City Market, Bangalore, in the shadow of Mysore Road; right, Indigo Nation, about 5 miles east, 100-Foot Road, Indiranagar.

I'm reading Thomas Friedman's award-winning 2005 book "The World is Flat" at the moment. In case you haven't read it, it's his thesis on how the technological and cultural developments of the late 20th and early 21st century have changed global markets fundamentally by — for lack of a more precise term — rendering geography obsolete. Friedman was inspired to write the book after a visit to Bangalore; he saw the call centers, to be sure, but he also saw the outsourcing of everything from income tax preparation to software-writing. When he realized that Bangalore could effectively be "a suburb of Boston," he decided the world was flat.

The flattening of the world has had an immense impact on this city. The community of Indiranagar, in which land used to be given away as a pension to military officers, has become a burgeoning commercial zone. The 100-foot road houses tony shops from international brands; the Dockers store, most memorably, sits next to a ten by twenty foot picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. The nearby Leela Palace Hotel — a five-star hotel with attached three-level shopping mall — gives a great sense of the growing economy here. Looking to another neighborhood, we drive almost every day down Hosur Road, passing by the Koramangala office of MphasiS, the outsourcing firm whose founder reminded Friedman that America will need to invent a new future in order to survive.

"The great challenge of our time," Friedman would later write, "is to absorb [the changes inherent in globalization] in ways that do not overwhelm people or leave them behind."

—

For most of the history of life itself, survival didn't depend on markets, global or local. For most of the history of life, it didn't matter whether the world was flat or not. In primordial pools, there wasn't even a sense of life forms. There was just life. At some point genes settled down and species became clearer; Darwin's rules took over and suddenly organisms gained a purpose: survival. We went from ingesting sunlight to eating plants to eating animals, and somehow we survived.

Nowadays, survival is completely different. For most people, the only thing that remains unchanged from our animal stage is breathing. Eating is still dependent on finding food, but that's largely bought and paid for. Development has sullied sources of water, so it must be purified, and whether it's from a pipe or in a bottle, this too must be purchased. In other words, survival for most people requires finding a niche in a market and earning.

Why bother mentioning all this? Because walking around the same Bangalore that inspired Friedman to say that the world is flat, I see that there's a round world here too. There's a world of traditional markets as well as a world of global ones, and — this is the important part — far more people live in the round world than the flat one.

Friedman sees an accounting firm in Chicago. It outsources tax preparation to Bangalore; this cuts the firm's costs by, say, 80%. But even at 1/5 the price, in Bangalore this may be a job with prestige and high pay. This brings wealth to Chicago and Bangalore — and creates a market here for more stuff, like motorbikes and Dockers pants and washing machines, which creates wealth elsewhere. This is the rose-colored glasses version: innovation creates new markets and more wealth.

But then I see Ravichandran at the dhobi ghat washing the neighborhood's clothes for three rupees a shirt. While we were speaking to him he bought a two-rupee cup of tea from a Sikh man with a thermos. That man — hypothetically — may have purchased the tea from a seller at an open-air market like City Market. These people are getting by too, in the only market they know. But with less work for the dhobi, it's a round-world economy that suddenly seems vulnerable.

Friedman is right: the great challenge of our time is to digest the globalized world in the least painful way for people. The problem is that the globalized world, the flat world, isn't the only world we need to be worried about.

[edit: you can read some of my initial reporting notes in this post at my personal blog.]

driving in bangalore...

2008-06-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

...is not a thing to be taken lightly.

Freedom Foundation

2008-06-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

I've started working on a project at an NGO called Freedom Foundation. They help out in a variety of ways at centers throughout India, but I've been hanging out, meeting and talking with people at their HIV/AIDS center.

This woman, Ramalakshamamma, is a patient in the ICU women's ward at Freedom Foundation. The story I'm working on is focused on the eleven orphaned children that have lived their entire lives at the center, but I've found some time to spend with the adults as well.

The children are incredible; I can't fathom the lives they've been forced to live with since birth. Yet they seem to be some of the happiest kids I've met. They are so thankful for a second chance at life, for a place to live filled with love and understanding, without judgement.... I'm stopping before I get on a rant... more on the kids later.

The Palace at Mysore

2008-06-04T03:36:00.000-07:00

The Amba Vilas is the most well-known palace in Mysore, and a very popular destination for tourists traveling in South India.

Anyone who's worked with me as an editor will probably understand the concept a photo deathmatch, so, here we go. One of these images must die; there can only be one:

— or —

Kitchen, Kerala 2008

2008-06-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

2008-06-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Snake Boys

2008-06-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

Lingarajapuram

2008-05-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Dhobi Ghat (cont'd)

2008-05-30T04:47:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted to my personal blog)

On Monday we went to the dhobi ghat on Lazar Road. A dhobi ghat is a place where washermen, known as dhobi wallas, wash other people's clothes by hand. Ravichandran, one of the dhobi we spoke to, said that he picks up clothes from the surrounding neighborhood, charging three rupees to wash a shirt or pants, a little more for a blanket or a bed sheet.

In Mumbai, one of the dhobi ghats has hundreds of washing stations, and the fact that it stretches out under a large bridge has made it a bit of a popular tourist stop; visitors often ask the auto drivers to take them to it like an overlook. According to Frommers, “At the very least, it’s a great photo opportunity, though most locals think it rather amusing that their everyday work arouses such curiosity.”

The dhobi ghat on Lazar Road is much smaller, perhaps two dozen stations, not all of them even occupied. It's situated near the train tracks, in a neighborhood full of one-way roads that seem to point outward. It's a fascinating tradition and it's visually (and aurally) interesting. But there's something below the surface of this, something the tourists don't realize as they shoot video off of overpasses: the dhobi wallas are a dying breed.

We spoke to one dhobi walla whose interview we didn't use in the slideshow piece. Now that there are washing machines, he said, people don't give them clothes anymore. People do the small clothes in the washing machine, and mainly give the dhobi blankets, rugs and bigger clothes — the end result being less work.

The impact of this is quietly huge. In Koramangala, a neighborhood that is now a major software hub and Bangalore's self-described "Most Happening Place," a dhobi ghat that existed just a few years ago is now gone. I'm writing this post at a Coffee Day in Koramangala; the mood is chatty, the air, conditioned. Outside the plate-glass windows, the Bangalore Development Authority has erected a commercial park.

These developments are great for the economy; looking outside, the first floor of the BDA complex houses storefronts, their names written in English and Kannada; "Maruthi Stationers," "Vijayanand Travels." Above that there are two floors of offices; none look vacant. I see a man with a plastic shopping bag; an older man, sharply dressed, with cellphone and an attaché; two younger men now with plastic name badges hanging from belt loops. There's bustle here, and bustle is good for business.

But across town, there's Ravichandran. Despite his occasionally broken English, something he said at the end of our interview hints at a growing dillema:

"I want [a] nice job," he said. "But no, I don't know which one. I can't work..." he trailed off. "[This is the] only job I know."

Ravichandran learned the business of the dhobi ghat from his father in the seventies, and in a job that passes from fathers to sons, it's not difficult to imagine that chain going back a century. It's a chain that may be broken in this generation; for his part, Ravichandran never married and has no children — no son to teach to wash the clothes, and fewer clothes to teach a son to wash.

This post was written by me and co-reported with Ranjana Thomas, who stunned me by conducting interviews in English, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada.

The Dhobi Ghat

2008-05-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

In Bangalore, as in many cities across India, dhobi wallas wash garments and pound them dry as they have done for centuries. As the city has grown and modernized, there has been less and less work for the dhobi. The dhobi ghat in the neighborhood of Koramangala closed down in recent years. This dhobi ghat, on Lazar Road, is relatively small. But the dhobi wallas here go on with their work, day after day; for some, it is the only job they know.

2008-05-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

It is just past 6 in the morning and the sky is overcast with light clouds. We walk in through a white iron gate into a yard of bright green grass, wooden poles, hanging clothes lines, and several rows of rectangular grey stone water basins. Towards the back of the yard is a large well, 15ft. wide, pumping water into two large square holes. From here, pale blue and yellow tubes feed water into the stone basins that line the yard. The sun has not yet fully risen but the men here seem to have been hard at work for quite some time already---scrubbing, dunking, rinsing, folding, hanging.

Two small dogs immediately begin barking at the strangers they do not recognize. If this is some reflection of the workers sentiments towards us, there is no indication in their reaction to our arrival. Their random glances between rinses remind me that our presence is an oddity, but it almost seems as if we are going unnoticed…or at least ignored. Here there is an air of professionalism.

“Nimah photo theghi boudha?” Courtney asks, ‘Your photo take can I?’ and receives a side-to-side nod of the head. This means yes.

Once the dogs stop barking, the many sounds of the washing place reach an incredible audibility. Set against an otherwise quiet early morning, a constant flow of water into the stone basins sounds more like a slow moving stream than a running water faucet. A scrub brush scratches soap over a bright blue shirt and a slap! slap!slap! follows a distinct tempo as a dhobi beats a yellow towel against the flat stone. Deep blue buckets produce a hollow thumping sound when drops of water first fall into them and every now and then the few garments hanging from the lines can be heard flapping amongst a slow and infrequent breeze. At another tempo, splashes of excess water beads follow the circular pattern of a dhobi’s blanket swing before smacking into the ground while his heavy breathing resembles that of a weight lifter struggling to finish the last of his reps at the gym. Their movements fluid and methodical, the dhobis work in silence leaving me to close my eyes and listen.

I listen and listen until a woman comes through and interrupts with the first native voice I have heard since entering the yard. There is no way to know what she is saying, but her partner in the conversation appears annoyed. I laugh at the thought that perhaps it is a lover’s quarrel then get up and walk to other side of the yard. There is more to see.

Two cows, one black and one brown with white spots are tied to the trees; five sheep lay in their midst still asleep. The sun rises higher; shadows become more pronounced and more piles of clothes line the aisle outside the columns of basins as more men arrive. The majority of the clotheslines remain unused so far, but it is easy to imagine the scene when the washing is finished. It is easy to recognize a technique and a routine in their labor. Organized and thorough, they work fast but not hurriedly. One dhobi drapes a set of trousers over a metal pipe to drip dry---each one folded exactly like the other. He stops to smile and pose in front of them before getting back to work. Another offers tea. “No thanks, I’ll be leaving you to your work soon.”

I sit for a bit longer—seeing, hearing, and thinking. So this is what’s happening in Lingarajapuram, India when on the other side of the world I’ve just finished eating dinner. Yes, I’ll be leaving soon and I shall hope to remember the sights and sounds of this morning.

kiddies

2008-05-29T00:26:00.001-07:00

The children here are all so beautiful. I will try to refrain from posting too many adorable kid pics. This little girl was the dirtiest and the cutest little thing I've ever met though, so she's an exception.

snaps

2008-05-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

The first photo is from a quick project we did on Dhobi Wallas, men that wash (and in this dudes case, iron) clothes for a living. The sights and sounds were absolutely incredible. I won't give too much away; we've got a sweet multimedia thing in the works.

commercial pets

2008-05-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

2008-05-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

2008-05-27T05:21:00.000-07:00

lunchtime

2008-05-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

that's a chicken they're peeling...
also, see here for a more poetic take

We are connected!

2008-05-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Finally. We have internet in our flat. India is absolutely amazing and continues to blow my mind more and more each day. Here's my loose chronicling of the last weekends trip to Chickmagalur, where we stayed at Preethams estate (thanks again, Preetham!), picked wild avocados, went looking for bison in the middle of the night, saw monkeys jumping from giant palm trees, and drank the best coffee of our lives. It was the absolute best way to nurse jetlag.

More photos, words, etc., to come from all of us!

-Courtney