Food. Hopeful.

India Footage

There is still much swirling around my head and heart around this experience. I've been given the gift of unpacking it with some friends lately and I'm amazed at how fresh it still is. I've spent much of the past couple of weeks going through the footage and starting to put it on an editing timeline for the project and am posting these to show an entirely different perspective than what I captured with my camera phone. These are still frames I've grabbed from the video footage. Quite telling. 

Pics: the first two are from a Ganges worship ceremony in Varanasi. Each night a ceremony is held to worship 'Mother Ganges.' Powerful imagery and sounds (you'll have to see the final film project). I love the color surrounding the man selling produce. The last two are taken from a slum neighborhood in Calcutta-in our short time there we experienced joy that is usually hidden from the world and generosity that was convicting. 

India Images

Since I've struggled lately revealing the process going on inside with a meager couple of offerings, I'll just post some pics I have been meaning to share. The priority of the trip was getting video footage, so the still shots I'm posting are, in a way, the leftover or second-thought effort at just trying to capture as much of India's imagery I could to file for later digesting. On day 7 I found it difficult to keep my eyes open. My experience cup had filled to overflowing and I could barely contain what I had already taken in.

I've been back for almost a month and sense I'm in a dangerous place with this part of who I now am. Time for me so quickly pushes back real life to memory. I had to self-talk to myself daily while there that...I am in Calcutta, I am in Varanasi, I am in Delhi and Agra. Otherwise I wouldn't have believed it myself. Now I'm home and I have to tell myself the same thing. I was in Calcutta...the eyes that met mine, the conversations I had, the interviews, new friendships, the little girl smelling her hands after I shook them-still standing on the corner...all real. Too fast. This wasn't a trip, it wasn't a tour. It was a gift entrusted to me-a peek behind the curtain of creation and a picture of how it's doing. Each and every experience like this should be treated with care and humility.

(Truth of the day:) We have so much and that's not always a good thing.

(pics) A video camera is a great way to start a party in India. I was told to expect the unexpected here. Anything and everything that can possibly fit on a vehicle of some sort will. We saw 5 people on a motorcycle on the trip from Delhi to Agra. These pics are all from Calcutta and show a common picture of idol worship on the Ganges; a mighty Ganges that has been terribly polluted and precious people caught in a caste system (an Indian friend took this with my phone) with no way up or out. Yet.

Pakistan

Not often you see a candid pic of this hands-off country. The border
between India and Pakistan is lit like a Lite Brite. Trust me, this is
really Pakistan. Taken with iPhone from plane.