The good, the bad, and the constructive

One day in Mumbai, three pictures:

I went to the roof of the apartment to have a good look at the surrounding neighborhoods, and there I saw a teenage boy quietly soothing his little brother, I thought it was such a sweet sight.  Throughout my trip in India, I often see older children caring for the younger ones, something we are not use to seeing in the west.

I went inside the neighborhood slum for a look and I saw some improvement projects going on.

I was hanging on to the door of an opposite train just like these guys when I took this shot.  If you look carefully, you'll see in the middle of all that garbage is a guy taking a dump.  A minute after this picture was taken, a little girl somehow made it between the two trains to poop as well.  I was utterly shocked at the state of the train station.  

Jackie

Arriving in Mumbai - Part 2

So like I said in my previous post, I sat on the kitchen floor eating cookies for breakfast while pondering the concept of an Indian family, when my friend Tushar and his cousin's family told us a true story about a girl named Jing Xie from China.

Tushar:  "Two years ago I arrived here very late at night in Mumbai, I got out of the gates and I was waiting for my luggage, and there was this girl also waiting for her bag.  We spoke a little and she told me her name is Jing Xie from some city in China.  Her accent was so thick she was barely comprehensible, but I did understand, mainly because over the years I know so many fresh-off-the-boat Chinese like you [referring to me]"

Me:  "Yeah, whatever."  [I smirked]

Tushar:  "So anyway, this girl, she has got to be the most naive person on earth."

Alok [Tushar's cousin's adult second son]:  "OMG yeah, unbelievably naive."

Tushar:  "Apparently Jing Xie met some Indian boy through the internet, which prompted her to watch two Bollywood movies.  She then concluded that India is a magical place and that she should visit it at once."

Me:  "A bit nuts, but go on..."

Tushar:  "So, Jing Xie arrived with no information about India whatsoever, she was to meet the Indian boy who was then suppose to travel with her.  She didn't know much about the boy either from the looks of it."

[Lots of laughter from my host family when they thought of Jing Xie]

Tushar:  "But the boy never showed.  She paced back and forth, asking everyone at the exit gate if he was the boy, but no one understood her English, which was extremely broken.  I was the only one who gets her.

Then of course she started crying, and if you know Indians...they love a good drama.  Soon fifty people surrounded her, and I was by this time trying to fix the situation.

No one really tried to do anything for her, but they all had their opinions on what should be done to the boy, "Someone should call the boy's parents and tell them what a bad son they have."

I was in fact really tired, but I could not leave her there, so finally I suggested that she should come with me to my cousin's home for the night."

Alok:  "Yes yes.  This was like 3 a.m.  Imagine, we were all asleep and we got a phone call from Tushar saying something about a Chinese girl crying.  We hung up and forgot about it.

[Lots of laughter]

And then Tushar indeed showed up with this Chinese girl at our apartment.  She was dressed in the most bizarre outfit...she was wearing a little schoolgirl uniform."

Tushar:  "Oh no, not before she insisted first she and I must go to the Mumbai police station to let them know she was with me, a total stranger.  All of a sudden she decided to be untrusting.

She was stubborn as hell, she wouldn't believe that I am a nice guy and only trying to help.  Finally we went to the police stand, and she insisted that the police record both our names and her situation.

The policeman said to her, "But Miss, we don't really care where you go."

And then she said in her ridiculously thick accent, "This man [Tushar], can is, or not, a killer."

The policeman was very confused, "Is he trying to kill you?"

She answered, "I not sure."

In the end the policeman thought it best to just write down our names on a piece of paper, immediately after which they threw away in front of our faces.  But she was appeased and she came to the apartment and stayed the night."

Alok:  "The next morning we tried to find her Indian boy from the only phone number she kept.  It turns out this boy actually lived more than 100 km away, he entrusted a friend to pick her up at the airport but that friend bailed.

Of course we got tough on this boy.  We threatened to tell his parents, and in India that is a huge deal."

Tushar:  "He is actually a nice boy, just as naive as Jing Xie.  He was really scared when we threatened him, he said he was on his way to our apartment."

Alok:  "It was so ridiculous.  When the boy arrived, our entire family [all seven + Tushar] sat down like a panel and interrogated him as if this was a match making.

We found out where he worked, how many brothers and sisters he had, his past time interests.  We did all this in straight faces...he was quite frightened.

[Lots and lots of laughter]

Then, we came up with the most brilliant plan.  We got his parents' number and we called them, and we made up a story about how we had a daughter and we were interested in matching her with their son.  We talked to his parents quite a bit, as is the tradition in such matters."

Me:  "Wait a minute, what's the point of calling his parents?"

Alok:  "We were not going to release Jing Xie to him just like that right?  What if he is a psycho killer.  He needs to know we mean business and that at any time we could call his parents and tell them the truth."

Me:  "Interesting...by the way, how old is Jing Xie?"

Tushar:  "I found out she was 37, no way to tell from her face though.  The Indian boy was 22."

Alok:  "Finally we let them go off and tour the city, we took Jing Xie around a little too.  She really enjoyed the sights.

We made sure this Indian boy behaved though, we made him call us everyday he was with her to check in, or else we'd call his parents."

Tushar:  "I tell you, this girl left India very happy.  She thought it is a magical place."

[Laughter, laughter, laughter]

I laughed very hard like everyone else in the kitchen, thus marked the first memorable event of my trip.  And as for the rest of it?  well, it was every bit as bizarre and endearing as this story.

Jackie

Arriving in Mumbai - Part 1

The beginning of my journey started in Mumbai.  I arrived very late at night, and after weeks of anticipation, I was pumped full of energy.  My friend Tushar was to meet me at the airport, otherwise I had no idea where I was to go.

Fortunately my friend was there to greet me when I exited the gate, and another one of his friend Omkar also arrived at the same time.  Tushar himself got to Mumbai only a few days before, but he was already all settled in his cousin's home, which was where Omkar and I were to stay as well.

Tushar and I go way back for more than ten years now, we met in the university dorms while he was in med school and I was in my freshman year as an engineering student.   Over the years, he often accused me of having a biased opinion of him:

"You only see a part of me Jackie."  He often says, and his Indian roots was mainly that hidden blind spot he was referring to.  So this trip ought to bridge that gap yeah?

We arrived at his cousin's home; it was a two bedroom apartment, and I was surprised to find his cousins an elderly couple as I had expected someone our age.  It was very late at night, and after appropriate formalities of greeting our hosts, we soon went to bed.

And only after a few hours I opened my eyes to warm yellow sunlight fusing into my room, and when I looked out the window, I saw a long red colored sari flying off the side of a wall.

"I am in India."  I mused.

I stepped over where the boys slept on the living room marbled floor and watched them snore under thin pink mosquitoes nets, and then I tip toed out into the balcony for a looksie.

You know how you've just arrived in a new country and you had imagined this place for a while, and then you see it for the first time and that is the impression that stays with you, well, this is mine:

Autorickshaws spewing black fumes, cows with flowers on their heads pulling a buggy, smoke from garbage piles burning next to the road, men dressed in white cloth walking barefoot to the Jain temple, boys playing cricket, a pink temple at the entrance of a slum next door, a wedding procession blocking the street, men in orange turbans, DDT spraying, women in saris, water puddles, cars honking, little boys in school uniforms...all in one visual frame.

"Doesn't this place make you feel alive?"  Tushar asked me from behind, he then took an exaggerated deep breath, held it in for good measure, and then belt out,

"Yup, the natural and unnatural scents of a whole lotta life."

"You mean all that life over there?"  I pointed to the direction of the slum next door, thus began the first of my series of judgmental outbursts in India.

But Tushar knows me well, he simply ordered me back inside to take a cold bath with a bucket of water, the standard showering method in India.

When I came out the boys were stuffing their sleeping bags away, and Tushar was in the middle of a passionate speech.

"... people here [India] live in harmony, they are not depressed like people in the west.  That is because people in the west are so isolated, no family around, they only think of themselves.  People here look out for each other.  Look at this family for example, my cousin has two sons, and their wives, and their toddler son, everyone living under one roof together...happily.  You should hear how they laugh in this apartment, all this would be unthinkable in the west."

I sat down on the floor to have a listen, my wet hair swooped up and wrapped in a towel.

"...There is a community here, and so people do not need things like they do in the west.  You see way less of the problems like drugs, alienated youths, and depression and such as you do in America."

It must be noted that Tushar is Canadian.

Despite my natural skepticism, at that moment, with the scented air coursing through my lungs, my mind did take on his sweeping generalizations rather favorably.

Breakfast was served on the floor in the kitchen, and immediately I saw tiny cockroaches scurrying across.  I pretended not to notice.

Cookies for breakfast, plus spiced chai with raw milk.

Like I mentioned in other posts, I had been an avid traveler for about a decade, but I had never been on a trip like this.  You have to understand, there was tremendous buildup for my recent embarkment.  I had quit my job for one, then there was the comparatively ambitious itinerary in India, plus the length of my journey...all adds up to bring on a considerable amount of dread in me once I began.  On top of that, there was the usual trepidation of traveling in India:  are the toilets going to be clean?  what happens if little kids steal my stuff?  Oh Slumdog Millionaire really brought up some visuals here.  I know I will get sick, what if I shit my pants in a long train ride with a toilet that is only a hole on the floor and I fall on my ass?

Such thoughts can drive a sane girl nuts.

A little boy of about two, grinning from side to side, and bottomless, came running into the kitchen.

"Good morning little one."  We all did a little cutsie talk.  He basked in the attention for a while, and then he turned around and took a piss.

His grandmother ushered him into the bathroom, and his mother wiped the floor, the marble floors covering the entire apartment now made sense.

"In the west, it is ridiculous how much diapers we throw out.  Here [India], mothers just know when their kid will take a dump."  Tushar remarked.

I too think it is freaking ridiculous the amount of diapers are used in the west, I am just not sure about anyone peeing so close to my chai.

But I was very ready to accept new norms, at least for the duration of my journey.

Jackie

There and back again

Hello all,

So I am back after what feels like a long time in another world.  I just got finished uploading a ton of pictures on Facebook and I am very flattered by all the attention I received from my albums, soon I will share them in this blog.

I am someone who had traveled, I have immersed my body in mud pits in Columbia, I visited science labs in Cambridge University, I had Turkish baths in remote villages in Turkey, I tasted foods all over.  But now I feel like I had not been anywhere before.  There is a world of difference between travel and being on a journey, at least that's the best I can put into words right now.

I thought a lot about how to share my experiences in this blog, but I have decided to write it chronologically, since I think that would be the proper way to document a journey.  I marvel now at the news reports I see on television since I returned a few days ago, the world is demanding change, revolutions flashing right before our eyes.  And yet...it feels just right.  I demanded change too and during those same weeks...I had my revolution.

Jackie   

The sad look of trees

The only time I ever saw my father exact revenge on anyone was over the killing of seven majestic trees.

I live in a place where trees are killed for very little.  I wrote about it in my last post.  I see it everywhere, here and there forests are flattened; McMansions are popping up, each new one uglier than the last.

I went out with my camera today, I didn't set out looking for it, but as it turns out today was all trees...the sad look of trees.

  
Jackie

Lovely things

It is Thanksgiving in United States and I spent the week roaming around town together with my folks.  Here are some of the lovely things we saw.  

  

   

       

 

Jackie

Sugar the Dachshund

Picture taken from site

Sugar is a dog. Sugar is a mother. Sugar was my purpose for one day.

Someone I know wisely observed how we often trade our time for money or experiences. This got me thinking and realizing that outside of making a living, I seriously got bored of all the shopping (the gratification is always too brief), sight seeing (which rarely leaves an impression on me) and TV watching. I thought I would take a chance and try something else entirely different for a change. So on one Saturday, I looked up a local Petsmart event for an adoption drive and signed up as a volunteer handler. I picked a dog event because I didn't have the heart to see cats suffer inside tiny cages all cured up and scared. I thought I had a better chance to come back in one piece with dogs.

So this is how it works. Foster parents and drivers bring homeless dogs from shelters and foster homes to the event, and volunteer handlers like myself would show them to potential adoption families. The strategy is to stand outside by the curb of the pet store giant and accost pedestrians for a chance to charm them. Each handler gets a dog and a bio sheet and then that was it, we go out there and hope for the best pretty much.

I stood in line among half a dozen or so volunteers and we waited to be matched with our dog. Big energetic pit bull mixes showed up one after another, but because I had no experience with dogs, they didn't think I could handle them. So I waited and waited, and just when I was beginning to think I was wasting my time because there was no more dogs to be had, one lady showed up with a Dachshund in the crook of her arm.

"This is Sugar. I need someone to take her, I have another dog to show." The driver lady said.

I personally do not love Dachshunds, I had my heart set on a bigger dog and so I hesitated in claiming Sugar, but I was next in line.

"She needs someone to hold her, she likes to be held." The driver lady added.

"Do you mind holding her for the day?" A very smily blond girl at the volunteer desk asked me. "She should be a breeze."

"Oh yeah, she is easy." The driver lady agreed.

So I stepped forward and took the dog into my arms. She had a surprisingly firm body, like she was entirely made of muscles. I briefly introduced myself to Sugar, she didn't seem to care and looked in the direction of the road.

"We'll be fine." I said to both the driver lady and the smily blond. They assured me Sugar was easy again, all I had to do was to keep holding her and they handed me her bio sheet.

With Sugar sitting awkwardly in my arm, I looked for a space to sit by the curb and found one between two pit bull mixes. Their handlers looked friendly enough and I squeezed myself between them.

"Oh what's this fellow's name? He is new. I had not seen him before." The handler to my right asked me. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties.

"Her name is Sugar. Let's see..." I was scanning through her bio sheet to get a good read on my new friend.

Sugar's blurry picture was at the top right corner of a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet. She was four years old it says, or so believed. Her personality profile was the usual: friendly, calm, good with kids, good with cats, loves cuddles, doesn't bark very much... But as I read on, something stood out in her history section.

"Looks like she was rescued from the puppy mills, she likely had dozens of puppies it says." I loudly declared.

The young man's face scrunched into a grimace, his pit bull mix did not look pleased hearing it either. Sugar however was not giving a damn, she looked like she had passed it all.

"Some people deserve to die." The young man says simply.

Right then the driver lady stopped by to check on us, and I asked her about Sugar's puppy mill background. "Oh yes, she escaped death over and over again this one. First she survived the puppy mill hell, then she was almost put down at the local shelter in South Carolina."

The next part she lowered her voice as if to avoid being heard by potential families. "She is not even toilet trained, she was likely locked inside a tiny wired cage her whole life. And the part about her not barking, I think it is because she was debarked."

"Debarked?" I asked. Then the young man told me it is a common practice in puppy mills, they jam a metal rod down the dog's throat to damage her vocal cords so she cannot bark.

"Some people deserve to die." This time it was from me.

Now, however horrible their pasts, the dogs all seemed to be in a jolly mood. All except my Sugar. She was perfectly calm in my arm, but she was listless, and voiceless. So I played the happy puppy part for her, I did my megawatt dimpled smile every time someone walked by. But no interest.

Some folks stopped and say cute things to the dogs, but most hurried inside the store like they wanted to avoid something awful. The dogs did their very best.  They looked forlornly at anyone who paid them the slightest attention and they were on their best behavior. I don't know much about dogs but I had expected more aggression between them. I mean, if this was a fight for life situation for us humans, we would likely claw our competitors' eyes out. I thought the dogs were very neighborly, I would even say they had a sense of solidarity.

Frankly I didn't expect any of it to work. I had good conversations with the other handlers, we were thrilled to be doing something good, but we steered clear from discussing the dogs' futures. The afternoon wore on and nothing. People passed by but neither the pit bulls or Sugar had any luck, and the handlers were growing a bit despondent. The dogs themselves had more hope, or wisdom, the pit bulls licked their handlers in perfect intervals, but my Sugar was spiritless. She didn't seem to care what happens to her.

A young attractive couple appeared looking around and they had a dog with them, a little black one not much bigger than Sugar. I seized the opportunity. I put her on the ground and led her to them. Sugar perked up and she sniffed the butt of the couple's dog.

"Oh she is pretty." The lady said.

I smiled mega huge, "Oh yes, she is so beautiful and calm. A lovely dog you can take anywhere under your arm."

"Yes and it seems she likes Ken." The lady said.

"Is that your dog's name? he is adorable." Sugar was trying to be nice to Ken, but Ken wouldn't have any.

"Oh Ken, be good now. She looks so much like you, she is the same color. She looks awesome with you doesn't she?" The lady asked Ken.

The driver lady came by and the two women talked. And I thought it was promising because at the end of their conversation the couple assured us they would come back before the event closes to get Sugar. Then they walked away with Ken still giving my dog the cold shoulder. Little mutt!

"That's a good sign." I said smilingly, feeling relieved. But the driver lady didn't look as pleased.

"Some people just want everything matchy matchy." She said with her eyes rolling. I suppose she understands dogs better than me, but then I realized it wasn't so, she reads people better than me, and she didn't like this family for Sugar. I went back to my space by the curb with her tucked in my arm again, not sure if I should be glad or not. The other handlers congratulated me, they said it was a good sign.

I should say that I was less anxious after the couple, or maybe I just didn't have the tenacity to grieve over someone else's life for a sustained period. When the event was drawing to a close and I saw no sign of the couple returning, I sort of resigned myself to an enlightened sense of failure, I adopted Sugar's devil-may-care air.

Twenty minutes before the event closes a woman showed up with three little girls and a little black dog.

"Oh my, look a long haired Dachshund! Wow look at that face, those eyes, she is a beauty!" The woman exclaimed. The girls petted Sugar.

"Casper, look how gorgeous she is." The woman said to her dog. Casper the dog went up to Sugar and licked her in the face. I swear I almost swooned from joy.

"Oh Casper is from this same adoption event, we got him a year ago in this same place." The woman explained to me while looking serenely at her happy family.

"You have a beautiful family, are the girls sisters?" I asked

"Oh they are triplets, not identical though." She said, then she asked her girls "You girls want a girl dog right? You will fight over where this dog sleeps won't you?"

So this was how Sugar found her new family with three little girls and a black dog name Casper. The woman was not fazed when we told her Sugar was a puppy mill mommy and she needed to be toilet trained.

"I am a doctor, I have handled much worst. Casper was not easy either but look at him now. Sugar will be spoiled for the rest of her life." was the woman's answer.

The girls were eager to buy something pink for Sugar, I offered to watch her until they were done with their shopping.

When all were settled, and we had a happy ending, and the other dogs went where destiny led them; I realized I hadn't bothered to get to know Sugar this entire day. I was so eager to find her a home and playing God with her future I forgot what an experience this was for the both of us. I was grateful I was given this little extra time, and I looked her in the eyes and I talked to her. I told her I was sorry for her life in the puppy mill, I was sorry for her lost babies, I said her life would change and I wished her the best. I thanked her for letting me be a part of her life, even if it was only for a little while. I spoke slowly and repeated the same sentences over and over, and in the end, for the first time, she looked at me and nuzzled up to my face. We said our goodbyes.

The woman and the girls came back with a pink collar with fake diamonds on it and a cart load of doggy things. Sugar looked smashing in her new attire.

"Pink bling, you weren't kidding!" I joked. The woman laughed and she puts Sugar in the shopping cart, then everybody seemed to be talking all at once, a family figuring out their new life together. I waved my goodbyes unnoticed and left with my husband.

Jackie

Borrowed Eyes

Photograph by Diego Ortiz Mugica

I stand in front of an image and I stare. It is black and white and I wonder why no color. But as I wonder I begin to fall in love. I am being transported to a destination unknown. I know little of the origin. I only know it is earth because of the moon. The rest looks alien. But once my feeling is known I start to think. This is not the earth I reason. It is but a vision through a pair of eyes. Eyes not my own. It is an image conjured.

Someone behind me says it is from his eyes. He says he is the artist. His eyes are borrowed he says. Someone dies and gives them to him. When he dies he gives them to someone else. He talks of passion. He talks of the years before the image. He talks of having no money. He talks of being in the dark room. He talks of his wife. Most of all he talks of Argentina his home. He insists I am seeing Argentina through his borrowed eyes. He insists I go there someday because I love the image.

I am in this alien land. He insists it is Argentina. I stay there to convince myself it is true. But I think the artist is wrong. I think he underestimates his borrowed eyes. I think he doesn't understand their power. He doesn't realize they are bigger than Argentina. Because I won't see the image standing in his homeland. Because I don't have his borrowed eyes.

Jackie

I saw this print in an exhibit in Foto Week 2010, Washington DC at the Embassy of Argentina. The picture was taken by Diego Ortiz Mugica of the National Parks of Argentina. Do check out his other images, they are breathtaking.

Moving Forward

Picture taken from site

The bend off a major roadway started off uneventfully, the rolling hills and splendid trees are not yet in view. My Harry and I are comfortably silent in the car, the radio playing a well-known tune at a soothing decibel. We've entered a single lane side road, and my Harry slowed our pace, an instinctive reaction brought on by lurking police vehicles all around the world. An elegant country house passes by rather inconspicuously despite standing in its lonesome in the middle of a vast grass field. Far away in a distance the hills are densely covered in trees and together they look like giant heads of cauliflowers, except in color. It is autumn, a season of contradictions I heard it once said, because it is both a time of plenty and decay.

More houses pass by in midst of many more vast fields when I notice we are moving alongside an uninterrupted stone fence marking some unknown territories, or perhaps to keep invisible cattle in. I look ahead to see where it ends and find that it doesn't, it stretches on with the road. I wonder where the stones came from, they are flat and jagged individually but somehow stacked perfectly together as if they were always meant to be placed this way.

Suddenly, a couple of trees standing side by side appear next to the road, their figures big and absurd. I lean my forehead against the window to take a good look and I notice their leaves have completely fallen as if the trees feel more imposing in their nakedness, bulging in their trunks, fierce branches jabbing every which way. Together they grow more menacing as we approach, determined to frighten people any way they can. I reckon perhaps their larger than life persona had spared them from the axe, or they have simply gone deranged from being the only survivors after many untold tragedies to their kind.

The sun shines from the back and our view lit up by a warm spread of light, and here and there emerged sparkles of gold. Reds and yellows and oranges intensified. The houses too are illuminated but they barely cast any shadows, or the glowing fields around them would not permit any. Yet the picture is all wrong, because the backdrop is not a clear sky blue, but instead an uneven dirty white and grey. The clouds are sinking, and they give the appearance of being draped in layers, like a velvety theater curtain impenetrable by the brightest lamps. I have read that the smallest baby cloud weighs more than a hundred elephants.

"These clouds weigh millions of elephants." I say, at once realizing it is an unintelligible remark, but my Harry answers knowingly, "That looks about right."

Another familiar song is on the radio, and the sunlight fades, and the colors again settle into a less contradictory palette. The world steadily rolls by, but it is no use. I am disappointed by the loss of a sudden brilliance, and a train of thought is forever halted. I feel my mind closing in, and again I am aware of my Harry's presence, the melody of a song, and the prospects of our destination.

Jackie

Love the Fall in Small Town America

Jackie