The Return....

National Geographic Daily Dozen - Baby Blues

I was speechless when I saw this blue eyed beggar girl outside a temple near Mysore, I had to get on one knee and propose with my camera.
National Geographic has selected this photo to feature in their daily dozen photos in the 1st week of september. The photos are selected by their photo editor Susan Welchman.
I hope this image inspires gratitude, compassion and action.

Check out the link and feel free to vote if the image moves you to do so.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/your-shot

Pimp my Ride - Indian Style

Start with a healthy dose of machismo, open up a Pandora’s Box of color, add a mushroom trip full of pattern and throw in a drag queens trousseau of accessories.
Apply liberally to the vehicle of your choice and you have pimp my ride Indian Style!
I have started a photo journal of these rides, check them out on www.tash007.smugmug.com under Pimp My Ride – Indian Style

The Shri Mantha Ceremony – A celebration of impending motherhood in south India

It’s remarkable what one finds at a south Indian beauty parlor when all one is looking for is a $2 leg wax, tips included.
I had called earlier in the day and set up an appointment for 2:30pm. Time in India, is either to be conquered through mystical practices of dying to oneself or debated about philosophically but certainly not adhered to in the trivial matters of day to day life.
And so it was that I waited well past the appointed time, in the corner of the saffron walled beauty parlor while the owner attended to her very pregnant customer and a hovering mother. The pregnant lady’s name was Sushma. Her thick long hair was deftly braided by the fussy beautician, and the ends woven into a gold ornament. An elaborate bridal floral composition of jasmine and roses was then carefully attached to the braid enveloping it and making an exclamation of the gold ornament.
Sushma’s mother fondly set the ornament in place while describing its origins. It had been in the family for almost a century, and a few generations, it was worn by the great grandmother at her Shri Mantha ceremony and ensured safe deliveries in difficult times.

Ah, so this isn’t a shotgun wedding after all, I thought. Further inquiry into the Shri Mantha ceremony revealed it to be a tradition amongst southern Indian women to celebrate the first pregnancy and initiate the woman into motherhood. It involves a puja (prayer and offering to a deity) followed by an exclusively female celebratory meal with the young mother in waiting’s friends and relatives. The meal is prepared by friends and family and consists of her favourite foods, especially the ones she had been craving through the pregnancy. Gifts of sari’s, bangles and jewelry are given and the choice of color for the gifts is green. Green is said to be an auspicious color, associated with the heart chakra representing the love which created the child and the unconditional love that will be required when it is born.
This ceremony is conducted in the 8th month of the 1st pregnancy, after which the mother in waiting leaves the home of her husband to take up residence with her mother until the child is born.

Floral India

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not!
I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of
pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am
aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower
in thy service and pluck it while there is time.


Rabindranath Tagore

Flowers weave themselves into the garland of life in India.
From intricate hair adorments of the fragrant mogra to the puja offerings to the dieties in households and roadsides to the mightiest temples around the country.

For pictures of flowers and the way they are sold and used in India see:
www.tash007.smugmug.com
Look under Flora of India

The solo female traveller in India

Solo travel as a single woman in India requires the following armor - a thick skin, full body coverage, dark sunglasses, knowledge of a couple of choice Hindi swear words and the ability to dish out a slap in the face if required (when you are groped – and yes this does occur in tight confined spaces such as buses, or busy shopping centers).
Philosophically it requires one to view the perpetrators as psychologically delinquent mama’s boys instead of intimidating; otherwise it’s easy to feel like not venturing out alone.
In India, bar’s are not for women without a male escort. As recently as last year, a group of women in a straightforward Bangalore pub were dragged out by the “moral police” and beaten up for daring to be single women in a bar.

Simply put, the Indian male sexual psyche, regardless of age, remains profoundly regressive and stuck in the teenage years, a product of sexual repression and a system of morality distilled from a male superiority complex based on an archaic history of society prizing men (traditional breadwinners) over women. (determining the sex of the fetus is illegal in India for fear of high number of aborted female fetuses).
The practice of dedicating devadasi’s (temple “dancers”) in Karnataka to supplement family income amongst the poor is still practiced to this day. Pimps from Bombay’s red light district flock to these ceremonies to recruit pubescent girls to the trade.

What one would consider sexual harassment in the west is the norm and part of everyday life for women in India. A woman wearing anything other than the traditional Indian clothing of salwar kameez or a sari regardless of whether she is Indian or a foreigner will be ogled at lasciviously, curiously and disdainfully when outside the confines of her home. In discussing the matter with locals, even older conservative traditionally dressed women have been “eve teased” as they put it.
“Eve teasing encompasses the gamut of sexual harassment offences such as staring, groping, whistling, masturbating, singing songs etc
The increase in the severity of eve teasing probably began with the influx of unescorted females leaving their homes to answer the call for capable workers in the booming IT, BPO and call center industries in the 1990’s
Sexually repressed men everywhere took this as the perfect opportunity to inflict their teenage mentality on female travelers on buses and trains. As an answer to this social menace, the government created laws calling for the punishment of eve teasing through fines and imprisonment. Cities such as Bombay which have higher numbers of single female travelers have created “female only” trains during peak hours.

What does one do?
On a personal level, the best way to deal with this everyday menace has been to ignore the perpetrator (philosophically viewing them as pathetic and ignorant takes away the feeling of intimidation). Wearing dark sunglasses helps.
When the advances have encroached into my personal space (touching, accidental brushing, singing songs or even at one time masturbating – happened when I was checking out a park in Bombay) I have administered one of three treatments – depending on the set and setting:
- Getting up and walking away (singing)
- A tight slap across the face followed by choice Hindi swearword, or JAO (meaning go) when groped.
- Getting out my camera and telling the perpetrator that I am a reporter from the US and will take a photo of him for the police and US consulate and asked for his name at which point he ran off (probably to his mummy).

Resources such as project Blank noise are an excellent way to vent your frustrations or join the cause; they even have a list of photos of perpetrators, so if you catch your man in action do send it along. Check out http://blog.blanknoise.org/

My abode in Mysore

Found an apartment in Mysore, right next to the Mandala Yogashala (yoga school). It is a Spartan humble and yet character filled affair consisting of 1 bedroom, a small separate kitchen with a single cylinder gas stove and a fridge, a bathroom and toilet all housed under a high vaulted tiled ceiling. Outside is an Indian style washing stone for handwashing laundry and a wall separating the landlord’s house from the 12 or so apartments rented out to yoga student. The landlord’s garden is lusciously serene and has some unique features such as “prayer area” housing the holy tulsi plant, numerous flowering trees and shrubs, tropical fruit trees, and a heady scented jasmine vine creeping about the wall that separates his house from the apartments. I like it here and it feels good to have a pad to call my own for now. The rent is Rs 6000 per month including utilities.
Each morning, his wife plucks flowers from the garden and conducts a puja (prayer to the household deity) and then places a single flower outside each of our windows.