First Pictures from India

Hi! Are you ready for some pictures from India? So we arrived here on the 18th of July, almost a month ago! My first picture of India was Bombay in the middle of the night. It was warm, and the air smelled earthy and damp. We made our home in this hotel room which is in the heart of Bombay on the "queen's necklace", the road that runs along the bay. This picture is from our balcony the next morning. The difference between Bombay and where we are now, Trivandrum, is like the difference between New York and Austin. I went shopping at a boutique in Bombay called fabindia which I wish I had pictures of. It was a big nice store with very nice, sort of more modern and fashionable women's clothing; indian style. I stayed downstairs where they had churidars. All the walls were covered in shelves of every color of fabric imaginable in silks and handloomed cotton. There is one style of top with either short or long sleeves and one style of pants with either loose or tight ankles and one style of shawl. There is endless variation in color, pattern, embroidery and other embelishments. So I picked out three tops, two bottoms and two shawls which can be mix and matched to make about 5 combinations. In trivandrum I got 2 more of each in a plainer more homey, wifey style, so now I can mix and match more like 10 good combinations!

Here is some bamboo scaffolding around a building in Bombay on one of our walks.




And here, on the left, is a street corner in Bombay. You can see how jungly it is here, even in the cities, and you can see that there are more men than women out and about. The picture below shows a police officer parked under a tree. You can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them. Here is a funny story about being a stranger in Bombay. As I have described, there are people out and about doing every kind of thing possible on a small to medium scale. Walking down the street, people beckoned to us to look at their goods or service, some people walked with us, explaining how we needed our shoes shined, or they need the business, some people wanted to meet and talk to us and find out where we were from and what we were doing, some people asked us for food or money, children, women with babies, young men, and fathers. Some people we approached to conduct business, and then waited to see what direction it took. One evening out, on our way to dinner, a young man, maybe 18 or 20, named Ajay (uh-jay), asked us if he could shine our shoes. We didn't want our shoes shined, but he walked with us and asked about us and started a conversation. He was very bright and funny and we felt open for some conversation and intereaction. He told us about where he was from, and that he had moved here and was living with his aunt or something. We ended up walking around and talking to this fellow for about 30 minutes and the conversation was very enjoyable and we felt good. A detail he had dropped early in the conversation was that he often was run off by store owners, since he looked like a beggar with his bag of shoeshine equipment. You had to have a real shoeshine box to look legitimate. So now at the end of our conversation he asks us to buy him a shoeshine box. I'm thinking, this guy is so sweet and he's working so hard in this big city all alone. Just a shoeshine box, according to him, could make all the difference and he could really improve his situation. The shoeshine box is a little expensive, even though it wouldn't be that much to us. So we decide that after dinner we will go with him to buy the box. We want to help him out, but we are really curious about whether we are being swindled. We tell him this, and he agrees, but it is a decent train ride to buy the box, and it is late and we are in no mood to make this ride. So we just give him the money. He says he will stop by our hotel at 9 the next morning to show us the box, but we slept in and didn't go down to check. Then we get to Trivandrum and we read in the guide book (I quote): " A similar trick is the shoeshine boy who claims he's the only kid on the block without a proper box. You buy it, he sells it back and makes more money than a shoeshine boy could make in a month. These are pretty harmless scams that tug at the heartstrings, but no-one likes to feel like they are being tricked." To me, this kind of scam is actually a little fun, like a game, as long as you don't mind losing a little while you learn the rules. This kind of thing hasn't happened in Trivandrum, only some people charging more for things because they know we don't know the prices. This picture is of Deepa, the 12-year-old who did finally shine our shoes and keep us company while we waited for our train to depart Bombay. He was also very bright and positive, and considers himself to be very lucky. Around his neck he wears an amulet given to him by his brother and sister up north. He has an Om tattoo on his hand, and an "M" on his inner arm for his mother who died. Together, he tells us, they say "mom". He lives in a tent and walks for one hour every morning to this train station to shine shoes.

And I will leave you there as we are about to depart Mumbai on the Netravati Express and travel its entire length from origin to terminus in Trivandrum. What a ride!

I am about to shower and get dressed to walk down the block and have dinner with our neighbors. They run the corner store which has essentials like milk, eggs, sugar, and much more, brought in big bags or crates every day from farmers around here, plus all the other stuff like snacks and whatnots. The store is tiny, you don't actually go in, just tell them what you want and they give it, more like a stall. It is attached to their house so someone is usually standing out front by the store, and when they hear us talking usually everyone comes out. Everyone consists of the store owner about age 25, his wife and his parents. They are great. They give people directions to our house and help with little things. I am really just getting to know them. The wife is very giggly and pretty and she tutors 9 students aged 5-10 in their house in the afternoon/evening. Maybe I will learn more about them tonight.