Unseen images of 2012, part 3: The morning of Sujitha's wedding day

True, I did post the wedding of Sujitha and Manoj, but in the morning before the wedding began, I did some casual shots of

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Logbook entry: Mumbai - Dubai - LAX - Phoenix: An Arab Jet takes me farther north than I have ever been before, as far north as I will ever go

Yesterday, I wrote I would probably put this post up before the day ended and at about 8:00 PM, I decided to do just that. But I felt overwhelmed by sleepiness, so I decided to take a 15 minute nap first. That nap did not end until nearly midnight.

And, once again, even though I am in a major city in the US, the wireless internet connection that I have here in this hotel is exceedingly slow. I always place my pictures before I write and it took a long time to place these pictures.

Anyway, here I am, in a taxi cab in Mumbai, headed for the airport to board the first of three flights that will end with me getting off the plane in Phoenix.

I have several other potential logbook entries in this India take, as we traveled often and far and I will probably work at least a few of them into the series that I plan to develop after I arrive home. I could have saved this to end the series, but I know where I want the series to end - in India, where Sujitha and I put our feet into a warm river.

Here I am, waiting at the Mumbai airport to board the first of three flights.

And here I am, on the plane, as it lifts off Indian ground and heads west, over the Arabian Sea.

Now, here I am, debarking the Emirates Air jet that has brought me to Dubai.

The next leg of the flight would put us in the air for 16 hours straight. I would watch many movies.

Now we are flying over the Arctic Ocean, maybe 200 miles north of mid-Russia. When I look down, the terrain of broken ice looks very familiar. We are on a great circle path that will take us directly over the North Pole.

Now we are passing over the pole. This is the farthest north I have ever been or ever will be and it is an Arab jet that has brought me here. To fly over the pole - what a huge thrill I felt. I felt excited.

We had been flying due north, but in an instant, without changing directions, were suddenly flying due south. The stewardess did not let this distract her from her work.

My goodness, she was beautiful! Tall, too, Very tall. Way taller than me.

The pole is now far behind us. We are on approach to LAX, the Pacific Ocean before us, the US beneath and behind us.

Now I must go through customs. It made me proud to see this picture, not because he has done everything right, but because it is a picture that one could not have imagined ever being taken in the America that I grew up in. It just could not have happened. Of course, there are many who undoubtedly feel rage about being forced by their government to pass beneath this picture when they return to the US.

Many of them wish those old days, which were not the days they now imagine them to have been, had never left. Many of them imagine that a time when America was a place in which a person of color had absolutely no hope of ever becoming president and maybe of not even sitting with them in the same restaurant, was somehow a more moral, upright, just, place of higher, righteous, values than the America of today. They want to bring those days back. They can't. Those days are gone forever and for good.

Now here I am, on the third leg, the one that will take me to...

...Phoenix. Now here I am, driving away from the Phoenix airport, looking for a hamburger. And here are all these people, in a jet, leaving Phoenix, flying away to who knows where... the entire world, perhaps.

On the day I photographed two cats in Jaipur, the spirit of my dear, sweet, little Pistol-Yero slipped out of his body and left this life behind

The first cat I photographed in Jaipur stopped by this basket and peered at the garland within, such garlands playing sacred roles in Hindu society. What I did not know was that back home, my little Pistol-Yero either had lain down, or soon would, beneath my desk, apparently to take a nap.

During my absence, Caleb and Margie would frequently let both him and Jim into my office. They reported that they missed me badly, as they always do when I go and that my absence had been particularly hard on Pistol. On this day, he had been in my office quite awhile, so Margie opened the door to check on him. She saw him lying beneath my desk, apparently sleeping peacefully, so she closed the door and let him be.

But he was not sleeping peacefully. He was dead. No one knows why he died, but he did. He was not an old cat. He was our youngest cat. I cannot remember for certain what year we got him. 2004?

My little Pistol-Yero!

How am I now going to be able to bear the return to my house, to step back into my office? It will feel so empty. How will it be, to sit at my chair, in front of my computer, where he would so often join me - most often to insert himself into the space between my keyboard and my monitor, making it very difficult for me to view my monitor?

Most often, I just let him get away with it. I knew he did it because he wanted to be in close proximity to me. I knew it made him feel happy, important, and loved to sit there, so, I would let him sit there and I would do my best to peer around him at whatever it was I was working on.

My little Pistol-Yero!

So sweet, so loving! It took time, because I know he was abused as a kitten. When we brought him home, on the surface he appeared mean and tough, but that was all a facade. He just did not want to be abused anymore. 

And when he finally figured out that he would never be abused in our house, when he came to know for certain that no matter what happened, no matter what he did - even if he peed on the rug - he would not get hit or punched or kicked across the room, he put the mean and vicious facade aside. He let the love pour out. He let the love pour in. His sweet purr surpressed his frightened, snarling, growl.

Every night when I would be home, he would curl up right beside my head and there he would purr until he fell asleep. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would place my hand upon him. He would purr some more.

And now he is gone. This is my final day in India. Tonight, I board a jet that will take me to Dubai, then on to Los Angeles, Phoenix, then, two days later, home to Wasilla, where he is now being kept outside in a box, frozen, in a place Margie assures me no dog nor raven can get to him.

More than three feet of snow covers the frozen ground.

It won't be easy, but we will come together as a family. We will shovel a plot from the snow, we will pierce the hard, rocky, frozen earth; we will dig a grave. We will bury him - our dear, sweet, beloved, little Pistol-Yero - of the fragile, tender heart.

As we entered Jaipur a camel crossed the road

OK. I'm way too tired to write much about this day, or to edit pictures at all and so I just chose this frame from the last series of five images that I shot today - this gentlemen and his camel, crossing the road. We have just entered Jaipur. He is not waving at me. He is signaling to our driver that he is crossing the road no matter what and so the driver should stop.

Meanwhile, the driver is seeking a way not to stop, but to just keep driving, to see if he can avoid a disastrous accident by an inch or two - something he has done at least 200 times on this drive, usually not with camels though, but big trucks. And our driver is 83. 

It took a long time to get here, thanks to traffic that backed up again and again. You see a sign and it says "Jaipur - 65 kilometers" or so and so you think you will be there in 45 minutes or so, because the highway is very good, but then two-and-half hours later you see another sign and it says, "Jaipur - 31 Kilometers" or so. Plus, we stopped at gigantic Chittorgarh Fort of the middle ages to roam about its magnificent walls and through its temples, royal quarters and ruins of various sorts.

But I've got to go to bed.

Can hardly keep my eyes open.

So this is it for today.

Murthy haggles with the auto-ric driver

We were scheduled to board the bus from Ahmadebad to Udaipur at 11:30 PM, so we had this auto-ric driver transport us from the hotel to the bus stop at 10:30 PM. The fare was 300 rupees, which Murthy paid. This did not make the driver happy. At this late hour, he argued, the 150 percent rule kicks in, which would make it 450 rupees.

No, Murthy told him, he knew for a fact that in Ahmadebad, the 150 percent rule did not kick in until after 11:00 PM. 

This caused the driver to put on a wronged face.

After a sufficient pout, the driver sprung back to life, arguing for the 150 percent fare.

"No! No! No!" Murthy argued.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" the driver demanded.

"Twenty more rupees then," the driver sought a grand compromise. "Just 20 more rupees!"

Murthy agreed. He paid him 20 more rupees.

Our bus did not arrive until 1:00 AM. We boarded and then had to sit in stifling heat for what felt like another hour as we listened to the sound of wrenches and hammers as some kind of repair was made.

Once we got going and air started moving through the bus, it was okay, the seat surprisingly comfortable, good for napping. I had an incredible, realistic, dream that I wish could have been real, but it was just a dream.

We arrived in Udaipur shortly after sunrise, so everything is good.