Travels in Gorkhaland and Sikkim Part I

I guess with most trips you feel like you leave in a huff, but this time as I locked my door with the giant padlock and hurried off to find a rickshaw I felt particularly huffed. Maybe I left unprepared; I hadn't planned enough; hadn't packed enough. In fact, the only thing I had any idea about was the wedding, the entire reason for my trip to Calcutta.

My flight is delayed an hour. No, three hours now. I receive a call from the airline saying one hour again. The IndiGo rep. at the counter says its back to three hours…perfect! I can perform my preflight ritual: sitting on the floor of the airport bookstore and frantically writing phone numbers and directions out of their newest edition Lonely Planet into the front cover of To Kill A Mockingbird. At least now I know I have to go to Sudder St. in Calcutta to find 'cheap' bedding.

I fly through the first half of The DaVinci Code in the three hour flight and find myself waiting in line for a prepaid taxi still with my nose in the book. I look up to see a familiar face. For the second time in an Indian airport of a distant city of millions of people I run into the family I am meeting later in the week who are at the airport to pick up someone else. (This happened in Delhi two years ago as well).

The city is covered in an ever-present haze, particularly evident at night, glowing in the streetlights. The taxi driver drops me on what he says is Sudder St, but I soon find out he only got me close. I wander around in the fog asking for a guesthouse no one has heard of. Eventually I figure out I'm not on the right street.

"Two hundred fifty." The room is all right, but I've been told I can get much cheaper. "Full" "Full" "Three hundred thirty." Well, ok. I'll take 250. "Sorry mate, I got the last one." 330 then. "We're full now." 400, full. 500 is the last. Guh, ok 500 rupees. It's after midnight when I settle down into the single room with queen size bed.

I spend the next morning searching for a cheaper room, but the events of the night before repeat themselves. I settle for 350/- and immediately pass out on the bed. I wake by 3pm and hurry to start the errands I had planned to do that day. Taking a shinny metro and then rickety wooden busses. I arrive at the Nepal Consulate. In Wizard of Oz fashion, I little old man peaks through a giant metal door and tells me, "Go away. Come back tomorrow." I am not coming back tomorrow.



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Travels in Gorkhaland and Sikkim Part II

It's cold. After playing guitar around the fire and chess with a guy from Israel named Amos I retire to my room. I haven't showered in a few days so I decide to take advantage of the hot water shower. Once under the steamy jets I didn't want to turn off the water. I could already feel my hair freezing while still showering. I jump into my freezing bed under two wool blankets and two bulky divans. I cannot get warm. I think I slept for an hour total through the night with my feet feeling like ice cubes. I got out of bed with a terrible headache and ate breakfast. Gul, an Israeli, invited me to check out a local monastery with him.

The walk up is intimidating. The monastery sits on top of the next peak over from the town. The road up looks like what you'd find on a Japanese Tapestry, with the path zigzagging up the mountain ahead of us, but we get to the top before we know it. The views are peaceful and incredible, the mountain falling away abruptly from where we sit. Gul and I sit and talk about the stupidity of wars and the possibility of religions living peacefully with each other as we listen to the wind blow through the Tibetan prayer flags.



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Muktangan School

This week I did another photoshoot for ATMA at a school called Muktangan. It is a groundbreaking school that serves as model for other schools to follow in new education theory. I shot all day and almost 800 frames. I was dead tired after the shoot from all the screaming kids. I got home and started to upload the files. Lightroom told me there were only about 350 images on my card, 200 of which were viewable. With a frantic call to Canon and use of the SanDisk File Recovery Software, all was fixed.

I am flying out this afternoon for Calcutta and will be hitting up Darjeeling and possibly Bangladesh or Nepal, not sure which. Will check in soon.






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Rock Climbing Again! In India!

Before I even got to Bombay I started researching the climbing community. I found a climbing wall that is set just off of a school grounds in an area called Goregaon. The community at the wall is very active and dedicated, immediately accepting me and inviting me to join them regularly on their real rock adventures. Three weeks ago I went climbing in the Sanjay Ghandi National Park, which sits inside the limits of Mumbai Municipalities. It is an impressive park with large forests topping several 'mountains' that roll through it.

My friend Vinay invited me out to top rope some climbs with his friend Sharad, another photographer. It was good to be on real rock again, but I was terribly out of shape, having not really trained for climbing in over 5 months.



Photo credit: Sharad Chandra Khiyali
bouldering in Sanjay Ghandi National Park

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Dharavi - Reality Cares

It finally happened. After the shoot getting postponed day after day, we set the schedule for Monday morning. I meet Vinay, my assistant, at the train station, then meet Eva on a bridge by Dharavi, the largest slum in Mumbai and India, and one of the largest in Asia. Spread out over 175 hectares, or 0.67 square miles, nearly 1 million people cram into this relatively small space making it one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world.

I was asked to keep my camera in my bag for the majority of the 'tour' of the slums so that the people don't feel like a spectacle or caged animals. This is frustrating because there is a lot to photograph. When I saw this scene, I could not help but getting out my camera.









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