Musings of a Traveling Photographer

The following photos were taken in Jaipur, the capital city of the state of Rajasthan, former home of many maharajas (aka – kings), and one of my favorite cities in India.  To be sure, there were quite a few very interesting places I visited there, but it was mostly the combination of interesting experiences I had that made it particularly memorable.  The story of my bus ride to Jaipur alone deserves its own post, but I think I’ll save that for those of you who want to hear it in person (synopsis – I paid $3 for a 6-hour bus ride from Agra to Jaipur, during which time I solved the puzzle of how to hold my bladder for 3 hours – and then how to get an entire bus to stop and watch while I went on the side of the road.  It’s a story of how things continued to get crazier every time I told myself “it can’t get any crazier than this”).

This will most likely be one of my last posts from India, though I’m considering writing a post about Ghandi and his memorial in New Delhi, and possibly sharing a couple portraits of students I shadowed in Dehradun.  We’ll see.

One of the first places I visited upon arrival in Jaipur was the Monkey Temple.  The temple itself wasn’t anything spectacular, but the view from the path up the mountain was quite beautiful at sunset, and the best part: there were more animals than tourists – quite a change from my time in Delhi and Agra.

The next day I took a trip to the Amber Fort – former palace of Maharaja Jai Singh II, who Jaipur is named after.  The best part about it, other than the elephants that give visitors a ride up to the palace, was that the entire place was open to explore.  I literally spent hours finding new staircases and passages to explore, and the place was so big that I rarely ran into a tourist as I discovered each new path.  I even found the underground escape tunnel, which was lined with bats.

And finally a few photos of Jantar Mantar, the World Heritage recognized observatory created by Jai Singh.  It wasn’t really the most beautiful place for photos, but the enormous astronomical instruments the Maharaja built were quite amazing and extremely advanced.

For anyone who’s wondering, I’m currently in China with my brother Dillon.  We just saw the Terracotta Warriors today, which was quite amazing, and we’re really excited to climb Mount Hua in two days (where the temperature is expected to be below freezing).  Then we’ll finish off our time in Guilin, which apparently looks a lot like the landscape in the movie Avatar.  More photos to come.

A few weeks ago I shared about the first non-profit I worked for in India, Laxman Ram – an organization whose purpose and commitment to mentally handicapped, and hearing impaired children greatly impressed me.  The second organization I visited, the Latika Roy Early Intervention Center (EIC), was equally impressive in those same ways, and is also a very successful example of a groundbreaking, growing, and progressive organization.  The EIC has been around for almost 9 years, and it’s one of the core programs of the larger parent organization, Latika Roy Foundation (www.latikaroy.org), which operates several different programs for children and adults with disability throughout Dehradun.  The foundation was started by an American lady, named Jo Chopra, who moved to India 30 years ago.  She is married to an Indian man, and has three children; the youngest of which, Moy Moy, who was born 12 weeks premature and is disabled as a result, was Jo’s inspiration for starting the Latika Roy Foundation shortly after her adoption in 1989 (You can read more about her on Jo’s blog – jochopra.blogspot.com.  On top of being an amazing woman, Jo is also an excellent writer, and has some touching stories and photos to share about her life and work in India).

The EIC is for children aged 6 mo. to 5 years with multiple disabilities – physical, intellectual, visual, and hearing – but it’s specific function is to help the families of those children learn how to give their child the attention and nurture needed for their specific disability.  Originally, the Latika Roy foundation started with a school for disabled elementary aged children, and they began to realize early on that parents weren’t addressing their child’s disability until around the time they were sending them to the school, at which point it was much more difficult for the children to learn even some of the more fundamental things they should have been taught long ago.  According to Dr. Sebastian, the foundation’s staff physician, it often takes the parents years to even accept that their child has a disability in the first place.  Certainly denial plays a big part, but to compound the problem, they don’t get much help from doctors either.  In fact, it’s not unusual for doctors in India to lie and tell the parents everything is okay with their child, and that the symptoms will go away with time, because they don’t want to be the bearers of bad news.  This obviously confuses parents, and they end up spending most of their time going to various pediatricians looking for a cure, instead of learning how to provide proper care for their disabled child.  Once parents have accepted that their child really is disabled, there simply aren’t many programs that exist in India like the Early Intervention Center.

As Nirmala Rawat, the EIC Project Head and Special Educator, put it, “the school only spends one hour with the kids per day, but the parents are with them 24 hours.”  So, while the educators are teaching the children new skills, it is almost always done in the presence of the parents, because the EIC understands that they’re going to have the biggest impact by equipping parents to properly care for their children at home.

Here a child is taught to say “Namaste,” the standard Hindi greeting in India:

Even something as fundamental as how to blow out a candle can be a difficult, yet important skill for a disabled child to learn:

For some families, an important first step is to help them teach their child to eat solid food, because many of the parents have only previously fed their child by bottle:

Parents are also taught simple games to play with their children to help them improve social, language, and motor skills.

Currently the Early Intervention Center serves 48 children, but its ultimate goal is not growth.  Rather, they hope to be a model organization for other special educators in Dehradun, and throughout India, who might be inspired to start a similar service.  Even so, at the request and funding of the local government, the Latika Roy Foundation will soon be opening another EIC at the Doon Hospital, where they will be able to provide support even earlier to new parents, with an emphasis on serving poorer families who wouldn’t otherwise have the means to receive the services the EIC offers.

It’s pretty amazing the impact the EIC has had on so many children and their families, and with such an amazing staff and vision, it’s clear they will continue to be the example for their city, India, and people around the world of how to be inclusive of people of all levels of ability!

One of my minor goals on this trip was to travel as light as possible, for three reasons:  (1) I knew I would be walking a lot, and I didn’t want to be slowed down by the weight and size of my bags; (2) I felt like towing around a large bag could potentially make me a target in India and China; (3) less luggage meant less to worry about, less to keep track of, and I didn’t need to worry about baggage claim for any of my 12 flights; and (4) I just wanted to see how little I really needed for such a long trip.  So, I did quite a bit of research, put together a packing list, and checked things off, and finally was able to fit everything into two small bags:  an everyday backpack and a laptop/camera bag, which could pass the airlines’ limits of one carry-on and a personal item.  Anyway, this post is for anyone interested in traveling light on a future trip, or just anyone curious about how I packed so little for my two months of travel.

Special thanks to my brother, Dillon, for recording the video on his Flip Camera, and putting together a quick edit in Final Cut.  Feel free to follow his blog about being an exchange student in Japan at dillbond.blogspot.com.

I find myself drawn to people and portraits, and I found a unique opportunity while in Dehradun to explore an area that I wouldn’t have normally gone, and to see people that I may not have noticed on the streets.  Every day on my way to my first non-profit, Laxman Ram, I passed over a tall bridge in the middle of the city that looked down on a little shanty town built along the the trash supported banks of a dirty drainage stream.  I was curious what was down there, because I seemed to see a lot of activity in the morning, but I wasn’t sure I was daring enough to go down there.  I had already seen enough poverty in the streets above, and to explore a city of shacks beneath the city was a bit intimidating.  That night I told Barbara about what I had seen, and we decided to venture out there the next morning at sunrise to see if we could capture what happens in the morning.  So, before daybreak, we caught a tuk tuk, and headed to the bridge.  We saw a few people walking up the banks, and found the trail down.  Then we had to figure out how to cross the stream to where the houses were, which meant following a lady as she stepped from one trash pile to the next.  My foot sunk into the mud at one point, but I was able to quickly jump to the next pile of trash before my shoe filled with water.  Once we made it across, we realized that we recognized the importance of keep as low a profile as possible, because we clearly didn’t belong down there, and we stuck out like a sore thumb.  Also, we didn’t want people to feel like we were there to exploit their poverty, because we really had no intention to make any sort of money off these photos, we just wanted to get a better picture of who lived there.  Greeting the people with a simple “Namaste” and a smile went a long way.  I could visibly see them let their guard down, and it opened them up enough to allow me to take their photo as they continued with their morning ritual.

If you’ve been following my India trip since the beginning, you may remember the primary purpose of my travels was to build experience working with non-profits, but up to this point I haven’t shared any of that work which I’ve created.  This post is about the first of two non-profits I worked with in Dehradun, Laxman Ram Dahiya Memorial Institute, which is a school for the rehabilitation of mentally handicapped and hearing impaired children.

When I received the assignment, I learned that the school was very small and underfunded, but I really had no idea what that would look like until I arrived.  I was confused when the auto rickshaw dropped me off in front of a roadside fruit stand, until I saw the sign above the gate to my left.  The building behind the gate was small and dilapidated, and quite easily could have been mistaken as “ancient” ruins.

I was greeted by the director and founder of the school, Dr. D. S. Dahiya, who appeared slightly reserved, and even concerned about my arrival.  It didn’t take long for him to reveal that he was worried I might focus too much on the poor condition of the buildings, and miss the quality of the experience the students were receiving.  I assured him that I was there only to help, and that I planned on creating photos that not only communicated the need his school has for increased financial support, but also the excellent work the school is doing to give students the opportunity for an education they wouldn’t otherwise have.  I saw the edge drop from his demeanor, and I spent the next hour learning about the school, his heart for disabled children, and his vision to create other similar schools.  In fact, Dr. Dahiya’s credentials are quite impressive; he’s been involved in social work since age 15, has a B.S. in Mental Retardation Studies, an M.S. in Special Education with an emphasis in Learning Disabilities, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology.  Furthermore, he worked at one of the top private high schools in the nation, Doon School, for five years, and was principal of the prestigious Raphael school for another five years.  He had the education and resume to work just about anywhere he wanted, but no one was really doing what he had a vision to do.  As Dr. Dahiya described, the situation for disabled children in India is still very confusing and complex.  Many parents don’t know how to interact with them, let alone how to do the things that will help them properly develop.  So, he started Laxman Ram 15 years ago with his friend, Dr. Archana, who is still the school’s principal, and the two of them use their personal finances and donate their time to keep the school going.

This is a photo of Dr. Dahiya.  He’s laughing after one of his students told him that his parents were annoying, and that he’d like to move in with the Dr.:

I could have done a profile entirely on Dr. Dahiya, because he is a pretty inspiring guy, but he is much too humble, and preferred that my focus be on the kids.  So, here goes…

Students begin their day with Hindu morning prayers, and a series of stretches.

There are only ten students currently attending Laxman Ram, but the school has served close to 150 students since its inception.  There are three small rooms at the school, but only one of them is used as a classroom, and students generally spend the morning outside in the sun until it gets too warm.

The current students range in age from 6 to 22 years old, seven of them being either completely deaf or severely hearing impaired, and the other three having major learning disabilities.  One of the main goals of Laxman Ram is to help prepare them to assimilate into mainstream schools, and to give them the knowledge and tools they need to excel once they get there.  According to Dr. Dahiya, there has been a huge rate of success, and many of his students end up receiving better grades than most their classmates once they transfer.

Unfortunately their computers were broken when I was there, but when they’re up and running, students learn everything from typing to graphic design – training that most mainstream schools don’t offer.  Dr. Dahiya says this also adds value to students in their home; where they were once seen as a burden to their family, because of their handicap, they are now viewed as an asset, because they can do things no one else in the house can.

There is only one instructor at Laxman Ram, Mrs. Sunita, who is clearly passionate about both her job and the students.  She uses a combination of materials and workbooks created by Dr. Dahiya and Dr. Archana – covering topics from mathematics and science to English and Hindi reading and composition, and geography – and also tries to be interactive with the students in order to make learning an enjoyable experience.

Though the studies are thorough and intensive, Mrs. Sunita also gives the students plenty of time to rest and play, something that is not usually valued in the Indian culture.

Another area where Laxman Ram is different from the mainstream is that it tries to give its students very practical skills that they can take with them into the workplace should they need to help support their family finanacially, or if they  decide not to pursue school any further.

When I asked Dr. Dahiya what his vision was for the future of Laxman Ram his eyes lit up.  First he was working on moving the students to a better facility, where they would have more space to play, better equipment, and even land to learn gardening.  Also, they would be able to admit twice as many students.  The new building is only one month away from being finished, and is located in the beautiful surrounding area just outside Dehradun.

Though the current students will be bussed in to the new building, Mr. Dahiya explained that there are now quite a few schools for handicapped children in the city, and that the bigger need was there in the countryside.  Apparently there just isn’t anything there for disabled children, and what ends up happening is that parents literally chain them up at home while they go to work, because they don’t know what else to do with them.  So, Laxman Ram is just the beginning of his response to the bigger issue he sees in and around Dehradun.  Eventually he’d like to start a boarding school in the rural communities that is large enough to take in 100 handicap students, but before he can do that he has a lot of fundraising to do.

Ideally, that’s where my photography comes in.  Dr. Dahiya plans to use these photos, and the many others I gave him, to begin to spread awareness about the the work Laxman Ram is doing, and the vision they have to reach more disabled children in underserved areas.  Dr. Dahiya and his staff are already doing an incredible job, and one can only imagine the immense impact they would have given the proper resources.

I’ll end, for fun, with a photo of the photographer showing the students a slideshow of the images I created.

I decided to start creating a photo set on my first train ride from New Delhi to Dehradun when I noticed how looking out a train window was like watching a quick series of snapshots.  Daily life continued outside the train, but all I could see of it were the split-second moments that flashed in the window as the train passed.

These frames were taken from Delhi to Dehradun, and Delhi to Agra:

As strange as it may sound, I had only one goal today for the city of Agra: to get ONE great photo of the Taj Mahal.

I was awakened at 4:15 a.m. by the sound of crashing thunder, only minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  I had been hopeful for a clear sky to capture the Taj at sunrise, but instead it was pouring down rain. I headed down to the west gate anyway, hopeful that I would be able to get anything.  I was one of the first people in line at the ticket window, and when we were finally let in, two hours later, I made a point to be the first person to the Taj.  I ran through the enormous gate, which could have been a monument in itself, and snapped my first photo of the Taj: a simple, classic shot, just in case I didn’t find anything better:

I spent the next two hours wandering around, and making photos from different perspectives, many long before the crowds had time to make their way down the long path to this colossal monument.  Unfortunately, the rain wasn’t letting up, the number of people was increasing, and my time was running out.  Eventually I walked away from the Taj, and sat on a bench near the gate.  I was out of ideas, and I realized it was time to just rest and soak in the sights and sounds.  Then, moments before I had to leave, I saw exactly the shot I wanted, and it was worth all the work: