Adventures in Bombay, Part 2

So when i last wrote, I was preparing to go on a road trip with Zahir to Lonavla. We left bright and early Saturday morning (his friend Burges picked us up at 7am) and met up with his girlfriend and her parents before heading up the Expressway. The drive was about 2 hours, and around 90 minutes into the drive, we stopped at a food court to grab a quick bite. As we were leaving, we stopped near the entrance, where there were random signs that caught our eye.


So naturally, we had to take one.


So Lonavla was pretty sweet. The weather was awesome. My cousin and his friends thought it was too hot, but to me, it was perfect. We spent much of the afternoon playing basketball outside, although the ball was sorta flat. But it was better than not having a ball at all.


In the evening, Burges and his girlfriend played badminton in the courtyard.


During the day, we ventured into town to buy supplies for the house. Even though Zahir and I were planning to head back to Bombay the next day, the rest of the crew is actually still up there and plan to be there until the 3rd. In fact, Zahir is packing as I write and is heading back up for a few days.
While we were shopping, we stopped for lunch. One of the funnier things I've seen in a long time occurred in the bathroom.

The toilet was fighting back.

In the evening, when it started to cool down, Burges was hellbent on starting a bonfire in the courtyard. The servants in charge of the cottage actually made the process extremely easy. They gave us a bowl and twigs. The flame was crazy, at least for the first few minutes.


The twigs just didn't want to hold the flame. We tried pouring some whiskey on the flame, but that was good for a two-second thrill.



Something I've wanted to do each of the years I've been here is photograph Marine Drive. We use the road everyday, but we've just never had the time to stop at night. So the last two nights, I've had my cousin stop the car along Marine Drive so that I could take photos.
The ring of lights along the long stretch of road is commonly known as the Queen's Necklace, and from elevated locations, looks spectacular. My cousins friend is going to try to get me onto the roof of her building along Marine Drive.
For now, I've photographed Marine Drive from each side. Since i didn't bring a tripod with me, I've had to try to handhold these long exposures. The longest I can do is one second.





I love it here. I know tourists are being warned to not come here, but if you ever have a chance, you should make the trip. It may not be my home, but when I'm here, I feel at home.
Today, I'm going to my dads' family's place to hang out with my cousin Sarah. One of my favorite aunts is coming to visit.
Tomorrow, I'm taking Sarah to Bandra to visit a couple more aunts.

I hope everybody has a safe New Years. Because of the events of last New Years and the terrorist attacks, most of the New Years parties over here have strict curfews of 12:30am. For those not familiar with the events from last year, there were multiple occurrences of molestation of women around Bombay. One occurred at The Gateway of India, and another happened in Juhu. Both were front page news for days.

The next time you hear from me, it will probably be 2009. I'm pretty satisfied with the way 2008 went. I'm sure 2009 will bring more new experiences. Old chapters will finally close and new chapters of my life will hopefully open up.

Take care,
Ali

I probably shouldn't have read that article...

The day before I was to leave Bombay, I read an article on MSNBC.com about the worst airports in the world. I was already upset about leaving my family (and the warm weather), so reading that Shivaji Airport in Bombay and Liberty Airport in Newark rank as two of the worst airports in the world in terms of delays, didn't make me feel much better.

And, they lived up to the hype. Security was nutty in Bombay. The check-in process took at least 45 minutes. Immigration took 20 minutes, and I swear I was behind two guys that were trying to hide something. Don't know what it was, but they kept checking with each other on the reason for their visit to Bombay. I think they settled on "Business."
With the two security checkpoints that we were required to go through to get to our plane, there should be no way that anyone is able to sneak anything on the plane that shouldn't be there...except the bottle of orange juice that I had in my bag that made it all the way to New Jersey before the secutiry screener there said I wasn't allowed to have it in my bag and promptly threw it away. Another funny thing: The lady that went through secutiry before me in New Jersey had her bag searched because the screeners though she had a 12 inch wrench in her bag. When they opened her bag and opened the box in question, they found a 12 inch wrench...a 12 inch chocolate wrench. I guess if they make chocolate cigars, they can make chocolate wrenches.
Anyway, back to Bombay. It took people so long to get through the security process in Bombay, that our flight get off the ground 30 minutes after the schedule departure. That wasn't good news for me considering that I had only a 90 minute stop in New Jersey.
As expected, we landed about 20 minutes late in Jersey, and as we were taxiing to the gate, the captain stopped the plane, turned off the engines and said that we were going to have to be towed into the gate. We were scheduled to land at 5:25am EST, and I didn't get off the plane until about 6:10. By the title I got through Customs, it was 6:25. And I still hadn't claimed my bags and rechecked them. I was hoping that Continental would throw us a bone and hold the 7am flight, but I guess that was asking a bit too much. Who am I kidding. They don't even give Economy class those travel toothpastes (only 1st class gets that) so why should I have expected them to hold a half empty flight made even more empty by the lack of passengers coming from Bombay.
So I got my bags and, at 7:15, went to the Transfer Desk only to find out that they 8:45 flight was booked. So I had to wait until 11:45. And as compensation for missing my flight, I was given a $12 food voucher good at any of the fine eating establishments in the airport, like McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts or Ben and Jerry's, which were about the only things up at 7:30am. Of course the Steak House isn't open when I have house money.

With all of the said, I am home. While I'm happy to be home, and excited to get back to school, I do already miss my family. It's a good feeling to wake up in the morning and see women in the house, especially two women that remind me so much of my mom. I've been back 24 hours and I already miss that.

I didn't have any time over the last few days, so I've got a backlog of photos to post.

On the 17th, I went to Bandra with Mumtaz Aunty, Sarah's mom to see her uncle(my grandmother's brother) and his wife. On the way back to Colaba in the evening, we drove by the Mahim slums. It's amazing that people can live in these conditions. Even more amazing is that across the road from these slums were beautiful condos.



Something That really irritated me(Zahir found my irritation to be amusing) was that in preparation for the 5th annual Mumbai Marathon, city workers were painting crosswalks on the road. Anybody that's been to Bombay, or seen video Bombay for that matter, knows that people cross wherever they need to. You just wait for an opening in the traffic, and cross. If you told people there that they needed to walk to the end of the block and cross there, they'd start laughing...then cross the road. I thought it was just a waste of money and time to paint crosswalks on roads in Bombay.


While Bombay may be one of the quickest developing countries in the world, there is still loads of poverty. The slums are eye-popping. I had to do a double take when I saw those kids playing the trash(bottom photo).



I think the funniest thing I saw was this poor fella sleepin' on the back of a parked ambulance. But when you're tired, you'll sleep just about anywhere. Maybe that's why we have couches in the labs.


I've got sunset photos from my last evening, but I will post them later. Time to go to bed. Back to the business of work and school in morning.

Take it easy,
Ali

I love me some Steak Sizzler - 1/9/2008

Weeks prior to my trip, I couldn't stop thinking about, or for that matter, talking about the Steak Sizzlers at Kobe in Bombay. When Zahir kept telling me that he'd pay me back for all the things I brought him, I told him to just take me to Kobe once or twice. That would more than make up for everything. Well, while we've talked about going to Kobe almost every night I've been here, Zahir's work schedule hasn't allowed him to get home early enough to go.
So when my cousin Zain (from my dad's family) said he wanted to take me out for dinner tonight and mentioned that there was another sizzler place, Yoko Sizzlers, in Fort near all the banks, I knew that was the place we had to go. I ordered the pepper steak. Ya, it's that good. They give a lot of fries and the piece of steak is pretty big, although you can't see it in the photo because there is a mountain of fries. You have to eat a lot of the fries before you can even start on the steak. So by the time you get to the steak, you've already eaten a lot. Eventually, and sadly, I had to sacrifice the fries in order to finish the steak, which I did. Good stuff. Now I Zahir and I have to go to Kobe next week. You can put good money on the fact that I will be skipping breakfast and lunch that day.


After Zain and I left Yoko, he took me for a joyride by the Gateway of India. Unfortunately, the Gateway is having some surgery done, so they've fenced the entire area off. But don't tell that to the horses pulling the Victorian carriages. Even though the biggest tourist attraction in the city is closed, they still have to work down there. This horse needed to refuel. Should have bought him a Yoko Sizzler.


One of the funnier things I've seen here (and I've seen some crazy things) happened while we were driving through downtown Colaba. In front of us was one of those horse-drawn carriages, going fairly slowly (maybe the horse was low on fuel?). All of a sudden, these two kids, one boy and one girl, probably no more than 10 years old each run by our slow-moving car. At first, I couldn't figure out where they were running to, but when they got to their destination, I couldn't help but laugh...and take photos.
They had caught up with the carriage, and grabbed onto a bar on the back of the carriage and pulled themselves onto the axle of the carriage.
Yep, they were hitchhiking on the back axle of a horse-drawn carriage.
I wish we could have stayed behind them to see how they got off the carriage.


So I'm looking forward to Friday Night. I'm finally going to get to see my cousin Sana, Zain's sister. She's 31, married and has two kids. She moved out of our big house a few years back, so the last two years when I've come here, I haven't had a chance to meet up with her. But Zain and I made a point of it to set something up with her tonight. She has a six month old baby boy, and anyone that knows me knows that I love kids, so I'm counting the minutes until Friday afternoon.

Alright, it's 1am. Zahir is still at work. I know! He's got a hard deadline which has to be met, so he's supposedly staying at the office until 4am to finish his work. This is what happens when you love you work. I forgot to mention that he left the house at about 11am, oh 14 hours ago. Talk about graveyard shift.

Time to go to sleep.

Take it easy,
Ali

P.S. - Big game for the Warriors tonight against the Blazers. Whoda'thunkit that the Warriors and the Blazers in January would be a big game.

A lil ole threat can't stop me - 1/7/2008

The chance that you guys are following the news in Bombay is slim to none, unless it was something major.
The news of a Buddhist monk being murdered in a town called Chembur, which is somewhere between here (Colaba) and Kharghar, was an incident that set up minor rioting/protesting in some small rural towns on Sunday. Things were lit on fire, but not a whole lot came of the protests.
This afternoon, we got a call from Rahim, saying that there were more riots today in Chembur, and that there may be some activity closer to us. We kept checking every news channel, but nobody was reporting any rioting anywhere. In fact, I've been checking the websites all evening, and still, no one is reporting anything.
Anyway, after Rahim called us to warn about possible riots in Bombay, my first natural instinct was to ask our family friend, Tushar, if he would take me to the major areas that we frequently go to so I could take pictures. And of course, the natural instinct of Shehnaz Aunty was to say 'NO.' She said to me, "What do I say to your dad if something happens to you? Where do I get another Ali?"
So I was under strict orders to stay in the house.
Until about 4pm when we needed to go to a section of town called Opera House to pay for a microwave that my aunt had ordered from the India Consumer Exhibition we had gone to on Sunday.
I guess the police felt like something might happen, so they were out directing traffic. And this was rush hour, so people were everywhere. It wasn't crazy, but it was crowded. After we paid for her microwave, we walked around and got some snacks from the stands on the side of the road. My aunt has always warned me not to take out my camera. She's scared someone will "flick" it. But I took it out while we were waiting for our orders to be made. Some people looked at me for a minute, trying to figure out what I was doing. Then I started taking photos of the guys making our food and they instantly took a liking to me. I started taking photos of this guy making this sweet thing which was covered in honey. They were fascinated by my camera and after I took each photo, I showed them the picture I had just taken. As I was walking away to go take more photos, the guy handed me a free sample. Pretty good stuff, although it was really sweet, even for me. My cousin told me the name of the food, but I forgot what it already. This photo is of the guy throwing the pastry into the honey batter.


After we got our orders from that side of the road, Samira and Tushar wanted to get some indian burgers from the other side of the road. That meant crossing a busy thoroughfare during rush hour. Kinda like frogger. The food they were getting was taking a while to make, so I told Shehnaz Aunty that I wanted to go back to the center divide and take photos of the traffic and chaos. She agreed, but of course, had to tell me to be careful because somebody riding in one of the buses might reach out the window and "flick" my camera.
Crossing the road is basically a timing thing. You've got to leave the center divide at the right time. The cars will not stop for you and they don't slow down. Usually, they miss your back foot by inches. If you slow up at the last second thinking your safe, you could very easily lose a foot.
I saw these girls getting ready to cross while a couple cars were bunched up around a bus. Tried to use the light from the headlights to rim light them.


This evening, Zahir and I wanted to go out and meet some of his friends. When we told Shehnaz Aunty we were leaving, she yelled at us and told that there was rioting going on and they we needed to stay home. Finally, she just let us go, saying that if something happens to us, she's not responsible. Well, to say the least, nothing happened. In fact, it was pretty dead outside. There weren't as many people out as there usually is. We met his friends at Barista, which is their coffee shop here.

For all the fuss about riots and whatnot, it was extremely quiet. Maybe it's the calm before the storm. I'm not sure. I guess we'll find out.

Alright, it's past 2am here. The BCS Title game is starting in a few hours. Debating whether or not to get up and listen to it on the internet. I said I would if LSU and OSU made it to the game, but now I'm thinking sleep might be more important.

Take it easy,
Ali

Streets of Bombay - 1/5/2008

So today, I spent the day with my cousin Zahir. We went to his relatively new office in Shivri, which is about 30 minutes from our house. The building is in a pretty rural area. The drive there takes you through an area that looks like slums. Now, my cousins will tell you that from the outside, these looks like slums, but on the inside, these 'buildings' are pretty well furnished. I guess when you see satellites on top of the roofs, you have to believe them on some level.


One thing you'll notice about this area is that there are a lot of kids. Most of them are unattended to.


Then there are the sights that still fascinate me. I love seeing the horse-drawn Victorian carriages. But seeing the bulls and cows that rule the roads is still one of my favorite things to observe when I come here.


A place I've always wanted to check out, but have never stopped to explore is the Central Library as you exit Colaba. Everytime we pass it in the car, I just stare at the steps. I keep telling myself that I can get some really cool photos using the steps, but every time we go by it, we're usually en route somewhere, so there is never time to stop. But at night, it's a damn cool sight to see it lit up and people treating the steps like a beach, just hanging out with friends.


Today was a fun day in terms of taking photos. I like take photos that give you guys a sense of what Bombay looks like. While it is one of those "up-and-coming cities," Bombay still has a lot of those rural characteristics, and I think they are interesting to see, especially for people that haven't been here. There is a combination of the rural, the modern and the classic. When you go to Churchgate, you are surrounded by all the Victorian buildings that the British built. There are a lot of state-out-the-art malls popping up everywhere. They are even modernizing Bandra, which I never thought would look good. But somehow, I'm impressed with what has become of the rural city. You get to see a lot of different things throughout Bombay. Every few blocks there is something different. Each area has its own characteristics. I enjoy seeing all these different settings and I love being able to bring you guys there, even if it is briefly.

I hope everybody has a good weekend. It's about 1:15am on Sunday, so it's about time to go to bed.

Take it easy,
Ali

Happy New Year - 1/3/2008

I wish I could say that I have some great photos to post, but I haven't been able to get out and shoot a lot of stuff. My family is very protective of me, making it hard to convince them to let me go out and photograph.
I've tried contacting the people running the project to cut down those trees, but they haven't responded. My cousin Zahir said he'd call some journalists he knows, but there's been some family issues that have arisen that have understandably made my requests his last priority.
I would have had one of the more amazing sunset photos, but a certain Aunt would not let my uncle pull the car over so that I could get out for 2 minutes to take the photo.

On the way back from Bandra on Sunday night, there was major, major traffic. We think we have bad traffic, but this takes the cake. It took two hours to get back to my house in Cuffe Parade. It shouldn't take more than an hour on a normal day.
Anyway, the point of this story is that the traffic was so bad that an Ambulance, with its lights flashing and sirens blarring, could not find room to get through. Cars had nowhere to go. They couldn't pull over to let the Ambulance to get to wherever it needed to go. We don't know if they had somebody in the Ambulance or if they were on the way to pick somebody up, but either way, the traffic may have prevented someone from living. Crazy stuff.

So it happened again. A woman was groped and molested on New Years Eve in Bombay. Last year, it was the big story. This year, it happened near Juhu Beach, which is one of the best beaches in the area. It happened as the women and their dates where leaving some 5-star hotel. A big group of men started talking trash to the women, so one of the girls cursed at him, then the group of men pounced on them. Somehow, there were two photographers from the Mumbai Mirror newspaper at the scene and one of them got a shot of one of the guys pulling up the dress of one of the girls.
The photographers took their photos to the police and helped lead to the arrest of several suspects, but now, amazingly, the two girls refuse to file police reports and want the police to leave them alone, meaning that the suspects in custody may be let out without punishment.

Surprisingly, Bombay wasn't very crowded on New Years Eve. Samira believes that around 75% of the people that are usually roaming around went out of town for the weekend.
After our New Years dinner, we went for a drive along Marine Drive, the major road along the water. We missed most of the fireworks while we were trying to get to Marine Drive.
We kept going past this car with these two small girls that were shouting 'Happy New Year,' so I took some photos of them. The funny part was, the girl in the backseat loved the camera, but the girl in the front seat would look at me, say 'Happy New Year' but then cover her face when I was taking photos.

Went to Churchgate today with my aunt and cousin to do some business stuff, shop and eat. Here are a couple picture of the many churches.



That's about it for now. Saw on CNN last night that oil prices are over $100 for the first time. Samira and I were talking about how much people are going to start complaining because gas prices are going to shoot up now. The reports last night already had prices going up 4 rupees per liter here.

Take it easy,
Ali

Eventful Two Days - 12/30/2007

So last year, a major political player in the region was killed (Saddam Hussein). This year, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday.
I didn't know much about Bhutto, and until she came out exile a few months ago, I honestly didn't know idea who she was. And I don't know much about the politics within Pakistan, so I wont act as if I do. But she was a progressive politician trying to spread democracy in a region that may not want change. She was educated in the West and the people that hate Western civilizations feared her winning the elections next week. Since I didn't know much about her, I hadn't really formed an opinion on her. I hadn't decided whether I liked her or not. I don't know how to weigh the corruption accusations. But if she was truly about spreading democracy and equality throughout a region that isn't know for those two things, then she couldn't have been all that bad. I've seen major world leaders die, but this is the first assassination I've witnessed, and it's a fairly scary thing. You never think something like this can happen in an age of high security. And I've had to try and figure out how my family feels about this. They have a lot more knowledge of the politics in the region, so they have defined opinions of who they like and dislike. I still can't tell how they felt about Bhutto, but they do think the Pakistan Govt had something to do with her death rather than al Qaeda. I tend to agree that I don't think al Qaeda had anything to do with it. They will take credit for just about anything.
The photojournalist in me was hoping that there would be some protests or gatherings to mourn Bhutto around Bombay, but I didn't hear of anything. Oh well.

So the reason why I haven't posted in a few days is because my cousin didn't pay the internet bill, so the internet was cut for a few days. We finally got it back this morning, but I was out of the house all day.

Friday morning, I woke up fairly early and was about to catch the sun coming up. Brought back memories of waking up with my mom and watching the sun come up. The only difference is that we were watching from my grandmother's house, whereas I was at my aunts house.


Speaking of my grandmother, I visited her for the first time on Friday.

My cousin Samira and I went to see her. And while I love her to death, I can't help but feel frustrated with how stubborn she is. The girl that she has looking after her is about as useless a human being you will find on this planet. All she is good for is lying and taking advantage of my grandmother, and playing all of us for fools. My grandmother has about a half dozen or more medications that are prescribed to her, and she's supposed to be taking most of them daily. When Samira and I opened her medicine box, we found enough medicine for about two months. In the case of some of her medicines, there was enough for three months. I've said it many times, but if I could speak Hindi, I'd have ripped into that girl three years ago. I've told Nani that this girl isn't helping her, but she refuses to get rid of her. Nani hasn't taken her heart medicine in nearly two months, and she hasn't had her calcium pills in nearly as long, yet this girl is checking off on the schedule that Nani is having her pills. The girl isn't too bright because she never got rid of the pills.
But it was really sad to see my grandmother practically crying when Samira and I told her that we were going to have to tell my aunt that she wasn't taking her medicine. It was like one of those scenes when a child breaks something and doesn't want there parents to find out because of the fear of being yelled at. Except this was the mother scared of her child doing the yelling.
There's only so many times I can come here and watch this girl basically whittle away the life of my last remaining grandparent. Each of the last three years, I've told Nani she needs to get rid of this girl, that she is no good. Last year, this girl wasn't feeding her proper meals. Now she's not giving Nani her medicine.
I've always loved going to Bandra and spending time with my grandmother, holding her hand and spending time with her, but when somebody refuses to listen to you about something so serious and refuses to make the requisite changed to improve her life, it makes the visits tough.
But I love her. I don't like to give up on people. And my mom wouldn't be happy if I gave up on her mother.

So I've been looking for stories here that i might be able to photograph and send back to the photo editors for the first issue of the school paper next semester. I was given some ideas but I felt like I hadn't started soon enough, so I figured that finding a hard-hitting topic which required special access would be too difficult (may next year). I decided that I would just come here and find a story in the news and see if something comes of it. Talking with one of next semesters editors, Amanda, she suggested that I try and localize a story here in Bombay to San Francisco. She suggested finding some groups that might be in Bombay but were organized in California.
Anyway, I've been checking the three papers we get at the house and cnn-ibn.com regularly, and I think I found the story I want to pursue. It's not a breaking news story, but it can related back to San Francisco on some level.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Mumbai/1200_trees_face_axe_for_city_projects/articleshow/2654059.cms
Since the internet had been down for the last two days at my cousins house, I haven't been about to do any research into where these trees might be or when the chopping might happen, but I think this story relates back to us because San Francisco was deemed the Greenist city and because of the whole tree squatting protest going on in Berkeley. My cousin said he knows a few journalists and that he will make a few calls for me. Hopefully I can find something before I head home.
Next year, I'll plan better and shoot for the heavy story.

This year, I've been a little more hesitant to take pictures of "mumbaikers." Don't know why exactly. Might be that I was told that while the photos I took last year were good on some level, they weren't photojournalistic photos. But it might also be because I feel bad for the people that I see. Last year, I just shot unconsciously, but this year, while I see things that I want to photograph, I just can't bring myself to press the shutter button.
I was hanging out with Zahir and his friend Ashu and Karl last night and the street lighting was cool. Even after midnight, there were taxis available and one of the drivers was just standing around. I think the photo came out pretty well.


Today, we went back to Kharghar to meet with the owners of one of the apartments that Rahim liked. On the way back, we made another pit stop at Center One and I did some shopping. Picked up a few small gifts.
Tomorrow, I am going with my aunt and uncle to pick up Sarah's mom from the airport. Her flight lands at 11:30. Hopefully we'll go to Bandra and I'll get to meet all my aunts on that side of the family. A couple of them have been calling me here trying to find out when I'm coming to see them.

Alright, well, it's 1:30 on Sunday morning, and I'm tired and I have to be up soon. More later.

Take it easy,
Ali

'Flat Hunting' in Kharghar - 12/26/07

Greetings. I spent Day Two with my aunt and two of my cousins in Kharghar looking for a new apartment for my cousin Rahim. This place is about an hour and half outside of Bombay, and the best way to describe it is a bunch of apartment complexes in the middle of nowhere. It's so out there that there are designated times during the day when there is no electricity. The place that Rahim lives in right now has no power from 10am to noon, and 2pm to 4pm. We were sitting in his bedroom with the fan on full blast when all of a sudden, it stopped. You know you're roughing it when there are specific blackouts every day.
While I know that the goal of a photojournalist is to get up close and personal with the subject and find the bigger story, I honestly think some of the best, or rather, most interesting photos you can take can actually come from a moving car. There are things that you see while riding around that you never see in the States. I wish I had the photos to prove it, but my aunt had the Air Conditioner on in the car and she wouldn't let me roll down the window, so I was limited in the pictures I could take. But I saw a child, no more that 13 years old, steering a bull-drawn carriage and whipping the bull. On the drive home, I saw a guy sleeping the back of a cargo rickshaw. It may not be the idealistic photos that professional photographers want to see, but I think they are just as telling about the country and the culture.
So on the way home, we stopped at one of the new malls, Center One, to eat. I'm still amazed by the amount of the Christmas decorations I've seen. I just wasn't aware that Christmas was such a big deal in a country made up of Hindus and Muslims.

This was the scene inside the mall. They had Christmas trees and presents hanging from the ceiling. Funny thing is, during my both of my Photojournalism classes, we've gone over where you can and can't shoot, in terms of permission. We've been told that we aren't allowed to shoot in malls, and apparently, the rule carries over to India, because after about 10 minutes, I was approached by a police women who told me that I wasn't allowed to take photos in the mall. She wasn't rude, and when I told her I'd put the camera away, she walked away. Chances are if this had happened in the States, they would have tried to get me to delete the photos.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to go to Bandra to see my grandmother. Amazing how when I made my trip at the end of 2005, the main reason was because her health wasn't very good and we weren't sure if she would make it to the summer of 2006, which is when I really wanted to go. Now, it's 2007, going on 2008, and while her short term memory is gone, she's still going strong.

Have a good Wednesday everybody.

Take it easy,
Ali

Greetings from 9,000 miles away - 12/25/07

So I just got to India a few hours ago. The weather is great. 77 degrees at 10:30 when I got out of the airport.
The plane rides were fine. The flight from Newark to Bombay was 14 hours, and to make matters worse, the battery on my ipod ran out about half way through the flight.
While we were boarding the flight in Newark, one of the ladies conducting the boarding process was stunned when everybody rushed the gate rather than waiting for there row to be called. We started talking and she asked me why everybody was in such a rush to board a 14 hour flight. I told her that this is the Indian way. There is no sense of organization. But the real reason everybody was rushing the gate was to make sure they were able to get there bag in the overhead compartments. About a week ago, I thought my flight may have been delayed due to weather. Never did I think my flight would be delayed due to the passengers taking forever to store their bags in the overhead compartment.


Tomorrow, I am going with my aunt to visit my cousin Rahim about 90 minutes away.

I hope everybody is having a good Christmas. I was surprised that there were so many Christmas decorations in Bombay. I'm hoping to go to Bandra in the next few days because I've been told that there is quite an elaborate Christmas setup that I'd like to photograph.

Until next time, take it easy,
Ali