📷 An Eye for Life: My Week Online 🇮🇳 #5

India has given us Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Ayurveda, shampoo, chess, chai, yoga - which is practiced the world over - and so much more. It’s the home of complex systems which have been written about before. By better writers than I. How dabbawalas in Mumbai deliver boxed lunches called dabbas by hand and by bicycle, every day all around the city - without the assistance of modern technology, making them the envy of corporate-owned services across the globe. The laundry, flower and pre-dawn newspaper delivery systems are similarly remarkable.

India also has cities that showcase how many shades of indigo can exist. So many! There are flaxen step wells. Plum-colored saris with gold embroidery. Emerald forests of trees in Sikkim and swaying palms in Goa. So many shades of salmon or sienna on fort walls, facades and bare earth. Thick strands of tangerine-tinted marigolds…

Yet for every one image I’ve seen or taken like that, I close my eyes and see a dozen that are beautiful faces. 😁 The man in a Mumbai market who gave me a fragrant rose for no other reason than to be kind, the guide who took me to his local chai stand that tourists don’t usually visit, the female hot air balloon pilot safely navigating us over misty rivers at dawn, the enterprising young owner of an ancient family guest home, the GM of a resort who took the time to help us learn about Chaat and Pakora, the chic owner of a boutique in Panaji where I bought a necklace and a gold ring, the man in the blue shirt [below, middle] who asked me to take his photo and tell people that India loves visitors, the woman who created the embroidered pillow that I move with me from room to room - a reminder of the duality of life and of two places I love. ❤️

Welcoming, giving people. Who practice Atithi Devo Bhava or Guests are equivalent to God. Whose faces I see as I read headlines like:

So, I check in with those who are now friends… and they are not. They are not even close to ok. I weep as I read the replies, and later stories like this by Nivi Jaswal who makes an incredible point about us needing to have compassion with issues such as cremation in India.

Fixing the complex problems associated with COVID-19 in India may be incredibly difficult. It’s hard to even wrap my head around from my very privileged position in a country where the vaccine is free and so many people have gotten it or are acting like this is already all over. But I believe my friends who, this is affecting and. have communicated how bad it is. I also believe there are some small ways we can make a difference.

I was made aware that May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month and I’m thinking about how I can support that by trying to pay better attention to what friends like Erica share. May is also designated as a month to raise awareness for Mental Health. Tuesday was #MayThe4thBeWithYou Day. I loved this and this plus this list which was new to me this week:

Did you hear about the Belgian farmer who accidentally moved the French border? This made me miss living in New York just a little:

This made me chuckle because as a photographer I knew it was distortion caused by a wide angle lens in a tiny room [unwise but the photographer may not have had a choice]; the internet… just did. not. get it. - till photographers like Pete Souza helped out. And if you’re wondering what lenses are good for portraits, here’s a solid overview.

And from this account, I found out that May 5 was National Day of Awareness for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls who are 5x more likely to experience violence. I hope this Day of Awareness, symbolized by a red dress, becomes more widely known. Here in California, murders of Indigenous women are 7 times less likely to be solved. 💔 [source: Sovereign Bodies Institute]

I acknowledge where I live as the home of Tongva people and I am trying to learn more about them. Understand where you are by checking Native Land, using this guide or learning how to take action.

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