In front of the lens

A photographer from the U.S. has been here, documenting the work that the JDC is doing with endless photos and interviews, and I have been assigned to help. In between my regular schedule of classes, I have been running around Bombay, following the meals-on-wheels program and talking with the recipients as they receive their dabbas ( a multi-layered stacked lunchbox consisting of chapatti bread, rice, a vegetable and a curry dish); waking up early to go to Shacharit services at a synagogue; visiting the cash assistees in their homes, and finally traveling out to the lush village of Alibag where many on the welfare program currently live, and where many of the prominent individuals in the community once lived.

I think the photographers' constant clicking and ease (with two large cameras pointing outwards at all times, on crowded trains or bouncing rikshaw rides!) inspired me, to open my eyes as well and focus in on the details and life around me, though it may be hard. A small lizard almost disappeared into the wall at one of the houses we visited outside Thane, and the faint lines of where the floodwaters had reached a few weeks earlier were still visible only a foot down from the ceiling. Some of our visits were to elderly people, who have nothing left and are desperate to keep us there talking to them, a severely deformed man who lay on a blanket blessed me for coming to visit, as his caretakers son offered me a thums-up soda. Its been an intense experience, helping me see what is going on behind the scenes here, outside of the clean community center and the synagogues. I have learned more about individual people here in this community this last week, somehow it became easier to ask questions about peoples' lives when the camera is present.

at night I watch the news , and witness what has been going on back home thru others' videocamera lenses. TV stations here are all covering the the devastation of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. These unbelievable images of houses going underwater and families stuck on the roof are chilling, reminding me of those stranded here on the tops of the red BEST busses, forming human chains to cross streets that were covered in water. I couldn't believe the damage of the Monsoon here in Bombay, but in this city it almost seems that anything is possible. With the States, I think at times as Americans we ( perhaps foolishly) feel that we are safe from such things as Tsunamis and massive natural disasters, and so I am at loss for words with the disaster that is going on the states right now, the shoot-to-kill policy for looting, the horrifying lack of food and water, the deathtoll perhaps reaching into the thousands...Thousands.

I cant believe my capacity to make comparisons, but I guess that as an American living here in India it is only natural that I veiw the Monsoon here with thru an American lense and note the hurricane back home with Indian-tinted vision. Many of the occurences in the States echo with what happened here in response to the floods- the electric cut-outs, the lack of water and food, or rice and milk. The government criticized for not doing enough, not acting fast enough. Here people began throwing rocks at trains because they ran so infrequently, and a new ban on plastic bags ( a supposed culprit of drain-clogging) has been instated. But was there looting in the streets? Have gas prices here been as greatly affected? Are the stories of good samaritans just not being covered by the international news networks? Has anything been done here to prevent such a thing from happening again...

The lonely helicopter flying over the levys in Louisina, dropping a solitary sand bag into the waters does give me hope.

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