Colaba district, Bombay. I don’t seem to be able to stop taking pictures of cute kids. I may have a problem.

The Ganges

BURNING THE SKIN IS NOT A CURE

FOR MENTALLY RETARDED PERSONS WITH EPILEPSY.

GET MEDICAL HELP

Timepass in the Calcutta Underground.

Oh shit, surrounded by Sikkimese kids.

Darjeeling.

I'm proud of this one -- not in a patriotic sorta way -- just that it looks like one of those nifty "photojournalism" shots that people get paid a lot of money for. Maybe I'll get some money for it someday.

I’m posting two more shots from Varanasi. Both taken the day after Holi.

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One beat-to-hell Varanasi street dog.

I spent all night trying to get my laptop LCD screen to look decent. That means the Adobe Gamma control panel for 7 hours. I’m shocked. Of course, this is nothing to write home about. I just feel like I need to say it: I’m all alone out here in tweakland. 7 hours.

Varanasi. I think this guy sells stuff to make paan. Or, he could be a regular candy store.

Varanasi. I don’t know…in this context…I think it’s hard to look macho.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop in Tampa Bay. Actually, Eastern Sikkim.

Sneaking up and preying on a bunch of schoolgirls. Colaba, Bombay.

I’m going camping for a couple of days so this is it. Since I’ll be gone I figured I’d put up two pictures today. It’s against the rules and they’re not even that different but each is special in it’s own way I think.

I have two pictures of a guy looking into the sun setting on Chowpatty Beach in Bombay. I don’t know which of them I like better. I think the top one because you can see his shirt and you gotta be able to see an Indian man’s shirt. But then, the bottom one has a classic, no bullshit, punk rock kinda feel. He’s looks a little bored or upset in the top one but in the bottom one it looks like he just farted. Heck. I don’t know.

Hughes Road, Bombay. Merge carefully dad.

I just love Hindu men streetsleeping in the 96 degree Bombay heat

The wall of my room at Mehta Hostpital for Women Care, Bombay.

Don’t know where this is but I think it’s in front of Dave Farsan near Babulnath Chowk. Bombay.

I just watched Gandhi for the first time since 1985. It was very moving and relevant. Gandhi was killed by a Hindu extremist who thought he was giving too much away to the Muslims during the shaping of independent India.

Indians today know almost nothing of Gandhi nor do they care. They learn about his political role and his philosophy is brushed aside as naiveté or extremism. While I was in India, I was very curious about this mass amnesia of the ideas of the father of their country. I lived on his street for a while. It’s something similar to our society still playing the music of the late sixties on the radio all the time but the ideas that went along with it are derided old “hippy daydreams” — naked, dirty failures of the “Age of Aquarius”. They will say, “Gandhi is ours” but he is not theirs any more. I will not let them have him. They just want him, so when it’s convenient, they can flash a cardboard cut-out of him to the world and say, “this is our great father, our ancient culture deserves your respect”. This is the most disingenuous crap I can imagine. I could go on forever about all the conflicting and countercultural ideas that got Gandhi killed but I won’t.

Out the window. Bagdogra. Fly here if you want to go to Sikkim. (Yes, you want to go to Sikkim.)

This is Darjeeling. I’m not sure if this picture makes any sense to people who haven’t been there. I walked through a hotel to get to the back patio so I could take this picture. A kid saw me trying to shoot the same thing from the street and said, “Hey, walk through here. Better view.” Then he tried to sell me a sack of weed. I said, “Why aren’t you in school.”

I never figured out why they knock all the branches off the trees and leave only the tops. What is that? People scrounging for wood but they don’t want to completely strip the tree so they leave the very top?

More of my Darjeeling darling.

These are Tony’s proud parents. Brahmins. Mom’s a school teacher and dad is a school administrator. They were very patient while a took a light reading off of them. I liked these folks a lot. They were much easier to get along with than their son and his friends. Maybe it was because we didn’t share a language. They made me eat by myself. They put the food down on the floor and I ate it while they watched. Then dad went and then Tony and then mom.

Lookit dad. He looks all gruff but he’s not. You can tell by mom’s expression. He was just tired. How’s that for motherfuckin dignity. They didn’t have anything as nice as my leatherman for show-and-tell but godamn it, they had dignity. The walls are blue in Jodhpur.

Odds Carraig, Calcutta.

Oh … Sam. I’ve had the transport pool onto me … You don’t know anything about a personnel transporter gone missing do you?

A “personnel” transporter? They’ve got it wrong. I had a personal transporter. I’ll do the paperwork tomorrow -

Ami Patel. That girl knew how to wear a purple shawl — even when it was gray

David was reading and holding his hand in the air. It was swiveling atop his forearm. His voice dipped and his lungs pushed out exuberant but precise strings of words. We had been swept up, Sherry and me, and we listened to this evening’s 5th hour of someone reading what they had written. But this hour was different from the previous four because the three of us had escaped to David’s house in the Sunset and he was reading from his Toshiba Satellite 2135CSE. I was stoned. Sherry had her shoes off. David had hardened spit clacking in the corners of his mouth.

David had taken a likin’ to us after I read my emails at a writing group. He offered to give us a ride to the indierock show we were going to. It was the wrong night for that show so we drove around and talked feverishly. It was just feverish talk about a bunch of shit. We shut The Philosopher’s Stone down and missed beer ‘o’clock at Safeway and we had to be real quiet when we got to his apartment. There was a guy sleeping in the living room. I was so stupid. I had my video camera with me but I didn’t film the insides of his room. It was just as interesting as the back seat of his car. But I can’t describe that either. I should have shot it while he wailed on about his film-nut hero driving back from a film festival. David went to New York today. Man, that was great. I was so stupid.

Pritha Murdeshwar. Funny, I got the same shot of Brian.

A manipulative little merchant (or junior model) in Darjeeling.

Calcutta Kids

Colaba, Bombay. Seems like I had to go there almost every day. I guess it’s fitting that this festering shithole is the only thing most tourists see of Bombay.

What more to say? It’s the Exhibition Cum Sale.

Skinny little guys like this move most of the goods around Calcutta on their heads. There are thousands of them swarming the street all day and night.

This is where they buried the British in Calcutta.

A boy painting oil lamps. Calcutta. That silver paint that he’s applying with his bare hands is pretty deadly.

Today I wrote a little FAQ about the video capabilities of the Sanyo VPC-SX550MD. I got it in the mail and have been geeking out for the last 15 hours on it. I think it’s time to go to bed though. There’s a good chance I’ll be posting short films up here from now on. But For Now, more pictures of India.

The Calcutta Underground. Rush Hour. Amazing. Nothing like above ground. I’m not sure why it’s not horrendously crowded like everything else in India. Have to check that out.

Holi Cow. This is what you see on your way to the store to buy a handmade paper journal in Varanasi. If you have a QL17 GIII loaded with PJ400 this is what you take a picture of. I think I used F8.

On my last day in Bombay I realized I didn’t have any shots of the thing I looked at the most during my stay. The view from inside a Taxi.

Street Sleeper. Somewhere in India.

Waiting for mom after school. Bombay.

I’d usually post just one picture but I can’t figure out which I like better.

On the opposite bank of the Ganges. Varanasi.

Stickboy with fill flash. Hahaa.

You gotta get up at 4:30 am for this but…heck, you’re in Varanasi. And there’s garbage everywhere else you look.

Sarnath, one bumpy rick ride down the road from Varanasi. This guy was probably a Hindu, but Hindus dig Sarnath too. Why? Sarnath Fully Rips.

Duladeo Temple in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, India. I almost got mugged while I was taking this picture. The only thug to really threaten me the whole time I was in India.

I had ridden out of town to on a bike to shoot these isolated temples. Now that I think about it, the guy was kinda funny. He was like, “I’m a very bad man. I’m a very baaad man.” and this little kid beside him goes, “Yes, he just get out of prison.” I acted as bored as possible and he just stood there staring at me. I had about 4000 dollars worth of camera equipment. I was like, “Hey, get out of my way, I’m trying to take a picture.” but he wouldn’t move. “Give your money. Give me Rupees.” was all he said.

I shot my pictures and started to leave and he started grabbing my arm and I was shooing him away and I started to get scared. I got on my bike but he grabbed the handlebars and said, “You buy keychain.” I said no because I don’t buy stuff off bad men and then he started to get desperate, like he was going to cry, fiending like a junky. The keychain was a little metal contraption that depicted some erotic temple carving. You twiddle the handles and people moved like puppets and a guy slides his little brass dick into the back end of a cocksucker. I haggled him down to 30 Rupees for 2 and rode away.

Those Khajuraho hawkers were some of the saddest motherfuckers I’ve ever seen — like mugwumps from Naked Lunch. A tourist season that lasts 4 months and they need to sell enough postcards to live on for a whole year. They can’t farm or get a job. Turning Khajuraho into a “World Heritage Site” has turned the economy inside out. Flying a bunch of fat white people in every day has rotted their society to the core. Towards the end of the season (and my visit was during a particularly slow season) they get so desperate that they could probably squeeze a couple Rupees out of a lifelong Bombay beggar. Bletch. The temples are cool though.

Varanasi. She’s like, “What the fuck?” I’m just takin’ pictures.

unburdened
and relaxed

Brahma Ghat on the Ganges. Sari tossin’ dhobis.

i love to watch them floating

on their backs

Calcutta. The “New Market” Mid-day nappers.

if someone offers you some suger

you should eat it

This kid was right behind the Frooti salesman. I’d just climbed all over the waterfall with him and he was all wet.

no dancing

Sikkim. By the side of the road. There was a nice waterfall nearby. Kids playing and, thank god, Frooti. I was thirsty and sicker than a dog.

loomed so large on the horizon

people thought my windows

were stars

This here’s a monk kid. Sleeping. Sikkim. India. Sunshine. Top of a Mountain. No one around. You know. Just an average spring day in the Himalaya.

I think I’m going to change my life. I’ve got up and sat in front of my computer in my underwear too many days in a row. I need some play excuse. Some fake diversion. Computer is not interesting as it used to be. I’m getting sick of photoshop. Maybe I’ll finish off that Ghat movie.

This is Sarnath. The place where Buddha. Yes THE Buddha told everyone about the Eighfold Path. Or was it the Four Noble Truths? Eh, don’t matter I suppose. This is the only religious spot I’ve ever been to that actually made me feel all “spiritual”. That big stupa was actually built up in the 6th century, 800 years after the man sat and delivered. I’ve included 2 red-robed monks for visual reference.

I could swear I took this in Calcutta but I was there quite a few days after Holi. Anyhow, this guy’s still covered in toxic dye. A fallen technicolor angel.

Calcutta motherfucker! Sitting on the train platform. Watchin’ this girl dressed in a western dress. She doesn’t look very comfortable. Judging from the way she looks, she’s probably a tough villager girl who never has to wear humiliating clothes like this. I’m 90% sure she’s on her way to a wedding — the most common reason for train travel in India it seems.

Varanasi, on my way down to Brahma Ghat. Red Monkey Man.

I’m not out of Cuba shots. Just got tired of them for a while.

Calcutta. Paan stains on the wall.

Ok, These are photos of India. I haven’t been there in a while but I’m just getting around to “printing” these. Which means, scanning and photo-correcting and jpeging them into web files. In that sense, they’re no different from the Cuba and England and SF photos I’ve been posting here. It’s just that they’re over a year old. This is the only place they exist however, since they’re not included with my writings about India.

Like you care.