Flex Mentallo

To the extent that I could even take photos of religious festivals without giving offense.

If not downright mischievous!

Eventually, people came to be more relaxed.

My other ploy was to return with large prints of photos taken on the previous visit and give them to the subjects.

The results could be spectacular or mundane, but it was fascinating to see the village - and myself in the village - through their eyes.

One solution was to train the children to us the camera, and send them out to infiltrate.

In others, self-consciousness is evident.

I'm sure Duffman will confirm that it is very difficult to take natural photographs of people in India. The instant the camera is seen, children go into wild histrionics; adults come to rigid attention. This girl used to run away the instant the camera came out, and it took several years before she allowed this shot.

Photographing wildlife

Great to hear from you.

My pleasure - thanks for the consistent input. I'm sure it's helpful to other boardies who don't know India that at least two of us have experience of it. Actually, I am finding it harder to post about India than anything else I've done, because it is in my bones. For example, I became so accustomed to the poverty that I scarcely see it. Bill/ciorac's spotlighting of that one picture would not have occurred to me. I "went native" long ago. So far as to feel more at home in India than in the West.

Wha-at? I've been after that book for years but never would've though to look there for one!

Hey Duffman. It is called a boti, and is used widely in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Here is Lucina's mum in her kitchen. She would hold the wooden plank between her feet and use the blade to cut vegetables and other food. Larger versions are used for fish. Sometimes they have a serrated tip for grating coconut. I am not sure about the hook. But she would use a small "machete" for cracking coconuts. Of course, first someone would have to climb a tree! (Not my photo this time.)

I'm with Billy on this one.

Nepalganj, circa 2006

Nepalganj, circa 1985

The concept of buying food in a place like that, inches away from the sewer gutter, off of the ground, is one I could not embrace It is quite astonishing how people in India can be so fastidious regarding personal hygiene and at the same time quite oblivious to the squalor around them. Such is the level of poverty that most would have little choice, so perhaps they become inured to it. Conversely, most of the villagers I have met seem relatively blind to the beauty of their own landscape, and seem confused when I enthuse about it. (They actually wall off acres of land, stick up the odd gazebo or folly, and call them "beauty spots".) This particular market is in a place called Nepalganj. When I first went there 20 years ago it was a beautiful, tranquil village surrounded by canals. (I'm sure I have a drawing of it from that time somewhere so I will root it out and post it.) It is now a horrendous, bare bricked, crowded suburb. Calcutta stretches out its tentacles to swallow up the countryside year by year. Increasingly, village people deprived of a livelihood seek refuge in the cities only to find there are no jobs. This seems to be true of many countries, not just India. Long ago, India was a veritable garden of Eden. The population only began to spiral out of control under the British Raj.Village life is being eroded, inch by inch. Hence Lucina's decision to specialize in agriculture stems from being part of a generation with a more determined mindset - and hopefully - the capacity and the will - to address deep-rooted environmental issues and find abiding solutions.

Serendip is a comic book. It just hasn't any super heroes in it.