I will end for now the posts with street photos from my Indian travel, but this is not goodbye, there are more photos to show, some illustrating the family life, some illustrating the wedding I attended. And there may be also a surprise :) Let me wave my hand "see you soon!"
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It was a holiday that day, they were celebrating the goddess of learning, so we went to the school to observe the ceremonies. The village girls were wearing their nicest clothes, to impress the boys, of course, and going to the girl's school:
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Most of the time spent in India I was in the village of Ukhra, which is, I was told, a large village with about 30000 people (wow! how is that not a city?) which had the marketplace by the sides of the main street. A very busy street, impossible to stay half a minute and get the chance for a proper picture, had to be fast!
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The kids were playing near the river, they noticed me, posed a little (in bad light) then ignored me and continued their play (in a better light):
Chilling from play, they took some refreshing coconuts and came again to pose for me, proudly sipping the coconut milk:
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Everybody knows you will find hermits in India and I found this guy:
And his unusual house, near the river beach:
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Those shacks by the railroad are probably one of the poorest houses I saw on my Indian trip and they are located somewhere in the Kolkata city. I also saw something extremely poor in Mumbai, but I didn't get the time to walk in that city, what I saw was only from the plane, during the landing and taking-off.
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This beggar from Kolkata was not content with 5 rupies, so I took one single snap and that was all. The reality is, I had no change on me, even those rupies were borrowed from a friend (not a wise idea to be in India having only 100USD bills in your wallet).
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A short interlude from the Indian travel photography: on my other blog I have a post about yesterday's evening debate "ACTA and the Internet. The end or the beginning of an era?", complete with pictures from the event. You may want to read it.
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Near the city of Durgapur on the Damodar river there is a big barrage to prevent flooding during the rain season. After the barrage, there is a wasteland with some ponds, which supposedly have fish. You can see the barrage wall as the background in the fishermen picture and the wasteland behind their encampment.
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People were preparing traditional Indian food for the big party after the weeding and a lot of food was needed, from my understanding about 800 guests were expected for the party. For my European eye however, it looks a bit... unsafe :) I bet such a food preparing company couldn't resist here open more than 5 minutes before being closed by the health inspectors, but somehow I managed to eat it and have no problems. It may be due to the spice...
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As a kid, I spend a lot of time outside, playing football (soccer) with my friends, as all Romanian kids used to do in the pre-computing era. Going to India I saw (well, this was expected) all the kids playing cricket, a game I saw only in films or books, but I knew is their national game, I don't know the rules but it seems similar with the American baseball (of which rules I don't know either, nor care to learn). So the field at the village border was filled with those kids playing.
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Gange is the biggest river in India and it passes trough the city of Kolkata, so if you go to Kolkata, you very likely will have to cross the river. How? On the bridge or on the boat. Photography is forbidden on their bridges, so I have pictures only from the boat (yes, you can shoot the bridge from the boat). Included here: departure, sailing and landing.
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This bus, seen in Kolkata, made me remember the buses in my country from 80ies , they were close, especially in rural regions, but not that bad
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On the Indian roads I saw many people cycling: some on bicycles, some on tricycles. Some carrying themselves, some carrying goods, some carrying passengers. Some in the village, some in the city, some on the highway. One thing in common: they had pedals :)
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Visiting India, you will inevitably reach at least a temple. In my case, it happened in the morning of the very first day, when we were scouting the location for a later shooting session, so it was brief. I was expected I will return there, but unfortunately it didn't happen.
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After the fishmongers series, let's return to the food industry, this time on a lighter note: fruits sellers, from the streets of both the village of Ukhra and the city of Kolkata.
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