Kang-Chun Cheng

A young man bathes an elephant in preparation for a Hindu festival in front of Veera Venkateswara Temple in Fort Cochin.

The light softens as the afternoon grows, people enjoy the sun in Jogger’s Park, Mumbai. Across the flashing water, almost too bright to look at, you see mangroves growing by the coast.

My muslim driver brought me to an annual hindu festival, assuming correctly that I would be interested. As we watched the procession, one man told me that they do all this to make noise and impress the gods. Despite the fanfare, offerings, and over-the-top extravagance, “they never listen.”

I agreed to take a tuk tuk tour of the area at a small price. He brought me around to a number of places: a hand-washing operation, the beach (where I ran into another driver who i would coincidentally see two more times). We were in no rush, just stood there looking at the waves for a long time. He showed me some old trees, 500 years old, planted by those bastards, the Portuguese. If i’ve learned anything, it’s that history leaves physical evidence. The Israeli army plants trees to deracinate traces of Palestinian settlements, but these trees were most likely planted with a more peaceful motive. They reminded colonialists of home. It felt good touching the trunks, gnarled with age, knowing that they’ve survived everything so far.

A hand-washing station or dhobi khana (community laundry space) is the only one of its kind in Kerala. It offers laundry services to hotels, government firms, and individuals who prefer to have their things washed by hand. They still rely on traditional, elaborate procedures for washing clothes that has stayed the same for 40 years.

Annual monsoons makes wash work difficult, as there is no sun for drying. Income drops as much as half during the rainy season.

Fisherman casting their nets near Fort Cochin beach. The Chinese fishing nets (cheena vala), in use for the past 500 years, are just down the coast. They were believed to have been brought by the Portuguese from Macau (once a Portuguese colony), others say Chinese explorer Zhang He introduced the nets to Kochi, still others say the nets were set up by traders of Kubla Khan’s court. They are one of the most photographed tourist attractions in the state.

"I miss Obama"

A woman harvests tea leaves on a plantation set in South India’s highlands. Tea bushes grow year round and are harvested on rotation every seventeen days. Pickers make on average 300 rupees (~$4.50) and try to meet the 30kg quota every day. Down in the village, we met her son, who spends his days in the village nursery along with other workers’ children. One of the kids, who was 2 or 3, was holding in muted sobs since he knew his mother would be late in picking him up- her patch of tea leaves was far away that day.

(I) Small fragments of an afternoon. We were walking away, through the astonishingly bright flooded fields, under the heat of the South Indian sun, going against the breeze. I remember now that it was Friday, only because it was Good Friday. He said that he had the weekend off, something that normally doesn’t happen.

(II) He joked about me preparing him a visa, passport, money, an out from this seemingly unconstrained natural prison of circumstances. He was going to church tomorrow- many people are catholic in kerala, the literacy rate is an astounding 99.3%. He has three daughters, all of them with names beginning with L. There was really nothing much to say, and even better, nothing compelling us to make meaningless talk. I looked over at the water, the skin gleaming metallic from petroleum.

Life in the backwaters, where the river is used to wash hair, dishes, chickens, anything you can think of…

Marigolds are frequently strung into mala (garlands) that are commonly used in worship. Besides being beautiful and accessible throughout India, the flowers keep insects at bay from the sacred images they decorate.

A poster of the Hindu goddess Kali, whose symbolic blackness depicts eternal darkness and her ability to both create and destroy. Her earliest appearance is that of a destroyer of evil forces (killing demons mere moments after her creation), and is sometimes depicted as dancing on her husband Shiva’s corpse or drinking her enemy’s blood and eating all his clones.

On the banks, a man washes

river.

The light coming down in

Tying mango leaves in front of temples, a ritual named thoranam, is considered a blessing. Mango trees have great significance in Hindu culture; they are believed to grant wishes and symbolize love and and fertility.

“when they change your river/

We walked side by side through those surreally bright paddy fields, a palpable closeness to nature wavered in the air. But there was distance in every other aspect of things. Immense sadness but also contentment with the purity of the day.

Earlier in the day, I had passed odorous heads of fish

A tea-leaf picker spends some time with her son, who is wearing an aranjanam, a girdle-like ornament worn about the waist as a sign of beauty. Some parents believe it will safeguard against evil spirits, but its primary purpose is to measure the healthy growth of an infant by the increase of the waistline.