1 picture/day for the next month

i got locked out of my room, in my apartment (long story). in addition to being a Phd in Comp Science, and a martial arts master, kentaro proved he could pick a lock with my nail file and tweezers.



i took this picture of joseph (a manager here at the lab) sleeping. a few days later, i found the following picture in my camera, right after the picture of joseph. i have no idea who took this next photo, maybe joseph!?!?!





i was so tired of the people i was photographing looking regal with a straight back, refusing to smile, so i told this little girl that the way we take pictures in the USA is to pucker like a fish...

old man

things i love to shoot: women my age, kids, and old men. when we went to the village in pabal, i spent hours just sitting with the old men, in their shops, playing cards (looked just like gin), getting shaved. old men have a quiet humor, and they seem to still enjoy the company of a young woman.

last shoot...

this is the last day of shooting, especially with the domestic worker's union...something about it was kind of sad-

bombay trains

i took the subway in bombay for the first time. i think the most famous train goers are the dubbwallas, the men who pick up hot lunches every morning from dutiful wives and deliver them to the right husbands...millions of lunches into the right hands + bellies...

i would have gotten lost, as there is basically no signage, and my only directions were "get on the slow train to sion, it takes about 25-30 minutes". these are very typical directions in india. in bangalore where i live, ALL directions are given by landmarks...no one has an address!



thankfully, these two men were going to my stop, and i had a great conversation. santanam (on the left) told me this was the first conversation he had ever had with a foreigner...is that possible? that's crazy. at one point, these guys asked me how many countries i had visited, i was like, "over 30..." they were speechless.

january 1, 2006

this is new year's dawn, on chowpatty beach in mumbai. we came here after our all-night festivities..,

new year's...

my dates on new year: radhika and nitin...



dancing girls...

dharavi

apparently this neighborhood is the largest slum in asia...they esitmate that 1 million people live here. although some parts look like a slum (and everyone said what they needed most was a good water supply), it functions like any other city, with loads of shops and businesses. it is funny to think that vancouver, where i grew up, is as big as this slum...

the government here would like to "move" this neighborhood, as its a huge area in the middle of bombay, but the plan now is to move the airport and let most people stay...

rock star life

in general, it seems like people here LOVE to be photographed.often if you are working around with a camera, you get a following of kids and adults, all waiting for their turn...on this day, at one point there were about 50 people following the camera...i kind of felt like a rock star with so many adoring and short fans...

village life...

today we went to a village about 4 hours outside of bombay to shoot a computer kiosk owner for the film. this was definitely one of my favorite days of the trip. the village was in the middle of fields of sugarcane, tomatoes and corn, and it was gorgeous. this picture if of a nomadic family living in the village...

rupa...

so, back in bombay again...i went to see rupa, the woman who sells trinket to visiting tourists at the dhobi ghats (where they wash the laundry of the city). you can see the first story about her on dec 2. this visit, i met her son...she is 22 and has 3 kids. a couple of days later i printed these photos for her, and went back, but it was dark, and she had left already. i will try to deliver the pictures to her today, on my way to the airport...

anit and his dad

this is one of the young men we interviewed, with his father...he wants to be a chemist. his dad has been in working in construction since he was 8 years old.

christmas in tibet in india

the indian government gave tibetans in exile a small piece of land in my state, karnataka. so, in addition to the more famous dharamsala (in northern india at the tibetan border) where the dalai lama lives, there is a mini tibetan province down south. it is amazing, there are several monasteries and nunneries, and a golden temple. this was a perfect place to spend christmas...



one of the biggest surprises here was how many indian tourists had come to celebrate christmas with the monks...it was cool to see indian tourists visiting mini-tibet, feeling foreign in their own country! this is a picture of monks being tourists, they are posing for each other...

billboards

billboards advertising cell phones...check out the skin color and style of these woman...




this is a woman who is a construction worker in my neighborhood...

sexual deficiency and penies thin

this was literally a tent on the side of the road. we were meeting a man who was taking us to an interview...he told us to meet him 'somewhere over the flyover after the baptist hospital'. we ended up here, on a highway outside of the city, waiting for the car...in bangalore it is not uncommon to find the following random things just outside of town: a massive military farm, an 'animation factory' in a modern building, a multinational company headquarters like DELL, and a slum with open sewer. oh, and this ayurveric medicine tent.

da crew

this is me + eli with manimala (one of our interviewees), her mom and grandma...

we take so much media of folks, and this was the first time anyone asked us for a picture...i had taken pictures (hundreds) of these women all day, and as i was showing the pics to them, grandma asked us to take a picture

peep the indian salwar kemiz and frizzy hair...

miss india?

THIS WOMAN BECAME MISS INDIA 2005


THIS WOMAN WILL NEVER BE MISS INDIA

gettin her hair did

RANDOM

OK
SO FOR REAL< I HAVE SO MANY PICTURES>



between eli and i we have taken hundreds of stills. i am way behind on the blog, so i was like, just pick a pic at random and post it. so here it is, the RANDOM PIC.

a girl i never met...going to school.

open sewers

open sewers are still very common, even in a modern tech-centered, foreign investment-heavy city like bangalore, they kink and curve through the entire city-

school daze

these girls are studying for an exam...

OG on the wall...

look close, can you see the pimp in the family portrait?

family life

we traveled to another slum in bangalore with professors from jesuit universities (one in seattle and one in bangalore) who are trying to create a volunteer program where students will provide pro-bono services. in this family the four year old looks after her baby sister all day...

a lot of people who live in the slum, although they are very poor (most make around $1/day), keep their homes very clean and are always generous hosts. this woman on the left belongs to a women's self-help group, where the women each pay money to the communal 'pot' every month, and then they can apply for loans from the 'pot' (a lending circle)...

water

spot the indian

fuck the police

This is the domestic worker's union storming the police station for the SECOND time on a rainy Sunday afternoon. They wanted the police to stop the illegal alcohol being sold in their communities, because a lot of their husbands have become drunks-the police finally did come to the slum, and arrested 3 women, who were selling liquor out of their homes. This was not necessarily the outcome they wanted (they want to target the companies selling the alcohol into the community), but it did show the whole community (and the police, who were intimidated by their numbers) their strength-

hands

i was following the women of stree jagruti domestic worker's union again today. i met this woman on the street while shooting, and like many people in the poorest areas of bangalore, she had never had her photo taken. digital cameras are quite amazing and strange, because i took a picture of her and then we were able to look at it. she was unhappy with the first one, so this picture is the third in a series, and we both agreed this one was the best. i doubt this woman has a mirror among her belongings, and she has likely not seen herself in a long time. she probably felt she looked old. if you look closely, you can see how rough her hands are. she is a street cleaner, and likely a dalit (untouchable). when i was leaving she came over and shook my hand, and thanked me. i have never felt a hand so rough, it felt like a tree trunk, not a human body part.

i have now spent some time with the women of stree jagruti, and these women are poor, they have few rights and they are of a low caste. but the caste system is intense, and so even these women were surprised when i shook the street cleaner's hand-

my birthday...

i like spending my birthday abroad..there is something exciting about being in a new place to celebrate the new year...i have celebrated birthdays in cairo, nairobi, and now, 2 years in a row, INDIA. next year i turn 30...i'd like to do a paris hilton and travel on a jet on my birthday so i can celebrate in many cities and many time zones...

i had a lovely birthday party at a small bar in bangalore with some new friends. but, just so you understand india, i am posting two pictures that were taken on the same day. the first is a family in my neighborhood, squatting on a construction site, and the second is my birthday party. the third picture is me and my new friend archana...