The Wind Blowing in my Hair.....

Imagine looking down on a huge ant colony, with the busy freeways of ant life…every ant just trying to get where ever it is they have to go as fast and as direct as they can – sort of a purposeful chaos.  Well, that’s kind of how the roads are in Vrindavan.   And today I was careening down the Vrindavan ant-people-cow-dog-monkey-bullock-camel-horse-car-bicycle-rickshaw-motorcyle-pedestrian Freeway of Chaos perched sidesaddle on motor scooter.

I had my reservations – I am a little cautious (don’t laugh) when it comes to matters of potential bodily harm.  I wasn’t always so cautious, certainly as anybody who knows me will attest, not a cautious teenager or young adult.  But somewhere along the line, seat belts, helmets and designated drivers started to take on a certain urgent appeal as time marched on and responsibilities mounted. 

Apparently, I’ve come full circle!!

From the moment I climbed onto the back of the scooter, wrapped a light grip around my driver friend’s waist, and lean into his back, I wasn’t worried in the least bit about not having a helmet on, or weaving in and out of traffic, dodging sleeping cows, and playing chicken with the oncoming rickshaws.  The constant blaring of horns just added another dimension to an already supersaturated sensory ride.   

When we arrived at our destination, like the end of a rollercoaster ride, I was sorry to have to get off.   But we were out to attend to business after all!  The process of renting a house in Vrindavan, and setting up a vocational/counseling center for the widows requires a lot of running around from landlord to lawyer to Vrindavan to Mathura and back again.  Now, I think all my paperwork and documents have been prepared and sent to California headquarters for input and approval.  Once all the documents are signed and we take possession of the house, it’s on to phase two - setting up a sole proprietorship business to facilitate our White Rainbow Project’s operations in India.  I’m hoping all that running around can be done from the back of a motorcycle!

Family Portrait

People that I see everyday, I ask to take their pictures, I show them the images on the camera view and they are happy.  Then everyday I make the trek across town to the only photo printer place in Vrindavan, hand him a flash drive with the enhanced images.  They are sent out of town for printing.  I pick-up printed photos as I drop off new images.  I carry the  freshly printed 4 x 6 photographs in my shoulder bag as I walk around town.  When ever I come cross people I know that I’ve photographed, I give them their photographs.

Monsoons flood the streets of Vrindavan

This morning's rains brought flooded street to Vrindavan. Mena and I went down to Ranjeet Mundi to pick up printed photographs and drop off more digital images to be printed.  The whole area was flooded so we rolled up our pants/sari and waded into the foot deep fetid water with the rest of the crowd.  After picking up a batch of newly printed photographs, we headed back through the water again towards home.


A young girl was waiting for me on the muddy path leading to my house.  She had heard that I took photographs and gave them to people, so her family sent her out to find me (red hair; sunglasses; camera...I suppose was the description given of me..) to take their family portrait.  I followed her back to her house and ended up taking pictures not only of her and her family, but all the neighbors as well.  

Family Portrait

I think I was more happy than they were!  To be  allowed into their lives and so graciously permitted to capture their beautiful images; I just get blown away by it every time I am invited into their private lives.


In the grand scheme of things, a photograph of one's image is not a big deal, but in the daily details of human life, it can preserve a feeling of existing in a time and space uniquely your own.


Sometimes, it's the only photograph they have of themselves.

Red Monkey

Foreigners are stared at in India, “Somewhere in the five or more millennia of its history, the culture had decided to dispense with the casual, nonchalant glance….eye contact ranged from an ogling gaze to a gawping goggle-eyed glare.  There was nothing malicious in it.  The staring eyes…were innocent, curious, and almost always friendly.”  (SHANTARAM by Gregory David Roberts)

I love the way Greg Roberts sums it up…and he’s so dead-on accurate…!!!

I’m out and about in the city on my own now and I give them plenty to stare at.  First, there is not another redhead anywhere that I have seen since I arrived.  There are all shades of black, dark brown, light brown, blonde and grey, but absolutely no red hair (other than a few smatterings of a coated, unnatural looking henna head).  And, I’m the only one wearing sunglasses!  You’d think in such a sunny country everyone would be wearing shades, but here’s the thing – monkeys!!  The crafty little buggers are very adept at swooping down out of nowhere and swiping the glasses right off your face.  I was having dinner at a gentleman’s house last night, a native and long time resident of Vrindavan, who has had his glasses swiped three times!  Ambushed from behind in a vicious hit and run once, leaving him without a motorcycle helmet as well.  You’d think he’d know better.  Everywhere I go, the concerned citizens tell me to remove my sunglasses – I don’t.

So I am the redhead with sunglasses, and a camera, that’s walks around town photographing kids and colorful doorways.  “Oh, it’s only a matter of time,” they think, as they stare at me in passing, “until those sunglasses are gone.” 

...and reminds me of when I lived in New Delhi years ago, and walking home from school,  there were some neighborhood kids who would try to tease us with racial slurs calling us “lal bundar” …red monkey!  It didn’t bother us, but the phrase has stuck with me to this day, maybe as a prophetic warning…”Hey red!!  Watch out for the monkeys!!”

Let the monkeys take my sunglasses, but don’t mess with my camera…

My Internet Cafe

I'm missing going to the internet cafe.  It was becoming my "hang-out" and as with any hang out,  you start to look forward to seeing the people that you know there - you kinda feel like walking into "Cheers" where everybody knows your name - it was nice to feel connected.  The students from Brigham Young University where always there, and the guys who worked there didn't even need me to check in - I just headed back to the only open station, the only station there not occupied by a computer and monitor, and plugged my MacBook in and just like that, I was connected to the world.  It was at the very end of the cafe and so I had to pass everybody else as I walked through the narrow room.  I always got the biggest kick out of all the holy men, the Hare Krishna group dressed in orange robes; they were always bent over their keyboards checking out their Facebook Timelines; in fact a full 90% of the people in the cafe at any given time are on Facebook!  Ahhhhh, it's so nice to belong!

Necessary Night Cap

Awoke this evening just as the sun was setting.  I lay there trying to kick my brain into gear hoping my body would follow. The first mental challenge I grappled with through the stickiness of halfwake was “do I have enough drinking water to make it through the night and if not, can I get up and going down to market fast enough before it becomes completely dark and unsafe for me to go out?”  The thought of not having clean drinking water was enough to get me up and going.  I am constantly drinking water and it is constantly eeking out of my skin – I just can’t get enough of it, drinking at the expense of food.  Opening the door, checking the hall way - the coast was clear for me to walk around in my culturally revealing shorts and tank top, down to the community kitchen to check my water bottle supply in the frig.  Drat!!!  Down to half a bottle!!  I would have to go out and I would have to go fast.

Vrindavan is the Holy City of Hindus.  Krishna, a major Hindu god, was born in Mathura, the city next door, but he and his best girlfriend Radu, played here in Vrindavan.  There are over 5000 Hindu temples, and it’s a huge Mecca for pilgrims, and Hindu devotees.  The surge in Hindu militants has made it a particularly dangerous place for Christians after dark, or even alone during the day in secluded areas, if you happened to be unlucky enough to run into a group of them bent on causing trouble. 

And today, Vrindavan was filled with twice as many devotees and pilgrims as people poured into the holy city from as far away as Delhi to celebrate “Hariyaly Teej” or the “Greenery Festival” after the first monsoons awakened the dry dusty earth with an explosion of green.  I had walked downtown this afternoon with Sandeep Peters to map out the way to our accountant’s office along the narrow, twisting unmarked pathways of Loi Bazaar – in the heart of Vrindavan.  And while it was siesta break time and the streets relatively quiet, it was obvious the city was preparing for a huge influx of crowds that evening; barriers and police were everywhere, makeshift watering stalls, colorful venders, families sleeping on the roadsides and street side foods more than usual.  Even the locals warned of staying away from the city tonight, when the real festivities begin, under the cooling cloak of darkness.

The walk down to the city and back put me in a good mind for my own siesta, and so I crashed and woke up just as the sun was going down, thinking of water.  I made it safely down to the market and back with plenty of water for the night, but wishing I was brave enough to join the chaotic throngs of festival goers in the heart of Vrindavan.

An American in the Making

An American in the Making

Yesterday, Mena and Ganga left for Ganga’s house, a “three shared auto’s distant way”!  or  “60 rupees away”, is honestly how they described the going!  Sounds reasonable when you figure in order to get to my house, you “go to the temple such-and-such, hang a left down the dirt path, last house on the right.”  Mena said she’d bring me back some eggs; you can’t buy eggs in the vegetarian Vrindavan, and you can’t cook them in the landlord Brahmin’s house, either, so she’s bringing them back hard boiled.  (And I was really hoping for fried…oh well..).  Arti also went back to Orrisa to visit family – that’s a two day train trip.  People are always coming or going in India; the trains, buses, rickshaws and roads are constantly filled to capacity with motion like an ant colony on the move.

So it’s just Johena and I holding down the fort.  Johena is not your typical Indian girl by any means.  First of all, she’s biding her time with me in Vrindavan while she waits for her American immigration visa so she can go to Arkansas to be with her husband that she met on Facebook.  The beautiful thin 19 year old Punjabi has three tattoos; Christ in a cross on her right shoulder, a bible verse across her back and a little floral design on her inside left wrist.  Her long raven hair falls below her waist.  When we go out together, she always attracts attention, stares, whistles and wolf calls; the street beggars make a beeline to her and won’t let up.  This is all so funny because as a foreigner, all this dubiously honorable attention is usually bestowed upon us!!  She’s wearing the tight jeans and little blouses and quietly, softly even demurely, telling them all to kindly bug off in the best of Hindi.

Girls in the 'Hood, Part 2

Girls in the ‘Hood, part 2

We all, (the girls, that is) sort of entered into a mutual cooking agreement, taking turns cooking an evening meal, usually something simple like vegetables and rice, or naan (yummy pan fried bread almost like a pancake, but not sweet) and vegetables.  (Side note here: Vrindavan is a vegetarian city, not an ounce of meat nor fish anywhere to be found, and that includes eggs, though I’m told if we go the right place, we can buy some eggs.)  More often than not, we are cooking in semi-darkness as the electricity is out and the only light source is from a generator driven bulb in the hallway.  We sit together outside on an open-air balcony taking our evening meal as the night turns to total darkness.  We are serenaded by the never-ending cacophony of auto horns, buffalo bellowing and blaring Hindu temple music.  This evening meal is also part of my Hindi class, and they talk to me in Hindi and point out things in Hindi; we all get a good laugh at my attempts at new words, especially when I say something I don’t mean to say, or really mess up the pronunciations.

Last night, I walked by the closed kitchen door and knocked….the door cracked open and Johena reached out and pulled me into the tiny (5 x 8 ft) crowded kitchen where Mena and Ganga were preparing the evening meal and closed the door quickly behind me.  The closed space was heavy with the pungent smell of sautéing onions.  They all broke out in fits of giggles when they saw the  “ah –ha!” look dawn on my face – Brahmins cannot cook or eat onions or garlic and the smell can’t even be in their house.  So anytime they want to cook with the forbidden vegetables, they must do so on the sly so the Brahmin landlords below don’t come to find out. 

Our evening meal on the balcony was followed by a special treat of sweets – “soon papri” a fantastic concoction that had the taste and texture of really good homemade fudge without the chocolate – and extra butter!!   We were celebrating because Johena’s Indian passport had finally arrived!!  Her next step…American immigration visa.  She thinks she’ll get it by the end of the month!  Oh! to be young, and in love!

Girls in the 'Hood

Girls in the ‘Hood

I live in a rented room on the second floor of a private home.  It’s common in India for families to build homes with a floor that has rooms to rent, as it helps bring in extra income for the family.  There are seven rooms to rent on this floor; two community bathrooms and a community kitchen.   A large community balcony leads down the hallway with the rooms on either side.  My  12 x 12 room has a private bathroom, as do about five of the other rooms.  The house is owned by a Brahman family, the elite caste in India,  and is the last house on the end of a muddy dirt path with no name, no address, just before a large empty field, on the outskirts of Vrindavan.

I am the only Westerner currently living here.  The front room is occupied by two men who I only see early in the morning when they come out to hang their wash over the rails of the balcony to dry.

Johena is sharing my room with me now.   A young lithe girl from Punjab.  She has been a translator for White Rainbow Project in the past as her English is quite good.  She was introduced to an American guy on Facebook,  they spent a lot of time chatting,  and decided to get married.  So the guy from Arkansas comes over to India and marries Johena – sweet little love story.  Now she is waiting for her Indian passport and American immigration visa. 

Across the hall is Mena, who at one time lived in one of the widows’ shelters on the outskirts of Vrindavan.  She was befriended by an American woman and is now supported by her as a companion and friend.  Mena recently brought in a friend from her homeland of Orissa, a state on the mid-east coast of India.  And recently our group was joined Ganga, also a friend of Mena’s.  Throughout the day, we often have any number of Mena’s friends dropping in and chatting……..

Time Turns to the Mundane

July 13, 2012

Asha left yesterday evening on the train back to New Delhi.  We had accomplished all we had set out to do in the last nine days.  Now, it is a sit-back-and-wait while the process unfolds.

So I woke up early and decided it was time to do some laundry.  Fairly simple intuitive process: fill the bucket with laundry detergent and water, throw in dirty clothes, step in and stomp around.  Now, I’m not really sure how the locals do it, but to me, it was kind of akin to stomping grapes.  Every once in a while, I put in a good twist just to simulate the action of a top load washing machine.  Rinse until water runs fairly clean, wring out and hang to dry.  When hanging to dry, it’s important to keep in mind that “Victoria’s Secret” can’t be share with the world, so I had to string a  separate line in the bathroom for “Victoria”  (Besides not want them to be seen, I didin’t want them to be pinched – sometimes the most expensive piece of clothing I have on is the smallest…).  The rest of washed clothing is hauled up to the roof top and hung out in the hot, humid air to dry – hopefully a process that will be completed before the afternoon monsoon rains hit. 

I would love to be uploading photos in this blog and else where, but at this point, the internet café where I have to go to get any internet connection of any kind at all, doesn’t handle uploading photos very well.  It just doesn’t do it.  

Mission (in the process of) Accomplished

Since my arrival in India on July 4 – nine days ago – I have been able to set in motion the objectives I was sent here to do, all with the help and support of my good friend Asha James.  One of the objectives was to try to work her into a managerial position here in India for the White Rainbow Project, which I am so happy to say, she has accepted!

Together, she and I were able to secure local sourcing of fabrics and manufacturing for our various lines of White Rainbow Collection.

We worked with an accountant to initiate the establishment of an Indian based company counter part to the White Rainbow Project   Right now the proposals are all in the hands of White Rainbow Project’s headquarters in California.  I’m waiting to hear from them on which direction we will take: NGO (Non-governmental Organization) several types, all akin to USA tax exempt 501(3)c, or a Private Limited corporation.  Once the decision is made, I will be here to handle the flurry of paper work that will fly back and forth.  Until then, I can relax from that task for a little bit.

We also were able to locate what I think is the perfect house/vocational center, and are in the initial process of renting that building.  I wish I could upload pictures of the house, it is going to be perfect for our needs: one front office; 4 large bedrooms with attached baths, a large kitchen, huge foyer and balconies around the front.  It also has a 20 x 20 ft. finished basement and huge finished  (white marble tile) roof top; fully walled and gated front entrance, brand new building, all on the main road in Vrindavan and right next to a large government widow’s ashram.  Since we a foreign company looking to rent, well, there’s just a ton of paperwork and bureaucracy that has to be attended to before we can take over the rent.  Headquarters in California have the initial proposal and I am now waiting for paperwork from them to get the ball rolling.

Since I have a little free time, I’ve had the chance to do some laundry, catch-up on my expense reports, study some Hindi, visit the internet cafe and go shopping at the local vegetable markets.

Daily Life

My hotel looses power about three or four times  day, leaving me to type at night in the dark by the light of my battery charged MacBook screen.  Can't upload, of course, because the internet is down.

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Yesterday, we took the Delhi metro into the heart of the city.  The Delhi metro is amazing - comparable to the London Underground, except twice the volume of people at any given hour, or so it seems.  It certainly wasn't around the last two times I was in India, and I'm sure it has done much to propel India towards the fasting growing middle class in the world.  It was clean, efficient and high security was everywhere - it is assumed to be a major target for terrorist.

I felt like a bee in a massive beehive, with floors of underground layers and people swarming everywhere with a total sense of direction and purpose.  It was a wonderful adventure, and to step into the clean, air conditioned, "Women Only" coach was a welcomed reprieve from the hot oppressive heat blanketing the New Delhi area.

It is a good place to observe people, and my biggest observation is how much they have taken on western clothing.  At least half if not more of the population riding the metro was dressed no different from anybody on the subways in New York or London.  Young women in t-shirts and jeans is not uncommon.  The rest in more or less "traditional" clothing, with pants, tunic and scarf being most prevalent, with just a smattering of saris here and there!!  Men were even more apt to be in western clothing with very little traditional garb.  Cellphones and iPods are ubiquitous!

Getting Connected

Do you know anyone who does NOT have a cellphone?  They are everywhere, and 30% of the world's cellphone users are in China and India.  But they don't all walk into spacious AT&T or T-Moble stores to get connected.
Today, Asha James and I went to the local mobile store to get a SIM card for my cellphone (Not using my iPhone here for anything but text messaging and photos - international roaming charges are prohibitive).  This little mobile kiosk is how most people in India get their connections.
That's Asha James shuffling through the red packets of SIM cards looking for  good number - Indian's like to pick out their cell phone numbers, something easy to remember or auspicious for them.  In order to register for a SIM card you must prove your identification and leave a passport type photo with the application.  India has had it's share of terrorist problems; here's a run down of this year's activities alone!  Terrorist groups would use cellphones for communication and throw away the SIM cards so they could not be traced.  This is just one way that India is fighting a very serious problem.
And actually, I do know one person who does not have a cellphone...my second oldest brother, David.

Namaste!

Travel day finally arrives.  China Eastern from LAX to Shanghai was delayed "one or two" hours.  At one point, I left the gate to get some stuff from the newsstand right next to the gate. When I got back to the gate, nobody was there,  and the staff at the check-in were British Air, going to London!!  I couldn't believe they that could load a plane and take off that fast!  Checking the departure board, there was no notice of the flight.  And it became apparent I wasn't alone looking for the lost flight!   A second check on the departure board finally shows that the gate was moved to the other end of the terminal and departure time set for 3pm.  Eventually we all found the plane in time to take off for Shanghai - filled to capacity with mostly Chinese, a few Indians and one red head!!  Two notes on China Eastern - 1) the seats were awful, crammed and ergonomically crunching, 2) I don't think safety is a big issue; you either know the safety rules of flying, and follow them or not.  On the other hand, flight attendants led the whole plane on a nice little calisthenics/stretching routine during our descent into Shanghai.  No orange chicken on the menu.
After about 21 hours in flight time, which oddly enough, passed pretty quickly and very uneventfully, I landed in New Delhi at 1:30am July 4th.   Customs was quick and easy; the airport new and enormous, was busy for such an early hour.
Outside all the airport formalities I was met by Asha James and her husband, who so graciously come to pick me up! We traveled by their car for about one hour, through such a different, yet oddly familiar India - roads and buildings all built up and looking very new.  But the driving is hectic and crazy and even in the darkness, I could see people sleeping on the meridian between the chaotic and noisy traffic.
It's already 5am and I need to be up in 6 hours to meet with Asha James to plan our itinerary.  I am so looking forward to seeing New Delhi by daylight!