Author Archives: Jeff C

Kerala and Cochin, India

April 13, 2020 by Jeff C | Comments Off

The elaborate theyyams and the fun elephant festival were highlights from the Kerala, India. But even ordinary, day-to-day life there is worth a look.

Kerala is a tropical Indian state that stretches along the coast of the Laccadive Sea (in the Indian Ocean) in southwest India. It’s smaller than West Virginia, with a population almost as big as California. Almost everyone speaks Malayalam as their primary language, but as in most of India, the most common second language is English. Only about half of Keralans are Hindu; a quarter are Muslim and about 18% are Christian. More than half the population works in agriculture and fishing, but the biggest single source of income may be sending millions of educated Keralans to work in other countries and send money back to their families.

A banana merchant in Cochin.
This Cochin produce merchant’s whole operation is about 10 feet wide. He said he took over the business from his dad, whose portrait is hanging on the wall behind him. His own son was working a few feet away.
(Above and below): Chinese fishing nets in the harbor at Cochin. The nets stay mostly horizontally flat under the water until those big levered poles lift it all up. It’s an unusual way to catch fish.
We got a special private Kathakali performance in Cochin. Lots of elaborate face-paint, sort of like the Hindu temple “theyyams” I’d seen a few days earlier, but this is theater, and the theyyams are more like church.
A fish market in rural Kannur.

Pooram Gajmela: An Indian Elephant Walk

April 8, 2020 by Jeff C | Comments Off

There’s a Hindu parable about a group of blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time.  They can touch only a small part of the elephant, so they have a tough time imagining what the larger ‘whole’ of the elephant was like.  My experience with a South India elephant festival was similar.  We didn’t know what to expect, so our arrival and departure timing wasn’t great. We saw only a few hours of an event that would eventually involve dozens of elephants from several nearby temples and villages.  But even this tip-of-the-iceberg experience was a real spectacle.

            A Hindu temple generally honors a specific Hindu deity, and there are LOTS of Hindu deities (more on this later).  Many of these local temples organize annual events and festivals (“poorams”) to honor their deity.  In central Kerala, some of these temple festivals are “gajmela” — elephant festivals. 

At this annual temple festival in Chalissery, delegations from several nearby village or temples converge – each typically bringing a set of 3 elephants, a ‘marching’ band, and dozens (or hundreds) of people.  Imagine a mixture of Mardis Gras, Barnum & Bailey, the State Fair, and a hometown Easter parade.  With pachyderms, of course.  And they’re INDIAN elephants, obviously (the ones with smaller ears). It’s religious-based, but feels like a big party. If that strikes you as odd or irreverent, picture our own Christmas parades (and remember that Mardis Gras and ‘Carnival’ are outgrowths of the observance of Christian Lent).

One curiosity was that the elephants weren’t really the focus of an Elephant festival. They were always lurking around and we all made sure to give them a wide berth, but nobody seemed to pay much attention to the animals themselves. They were all perfectly behaved, too. They seemed unperterbed (and mostly unimpressed) by some very loud craziness. This wasn’t their first elephant rodeo.

            As the pictures reflect, I spent a lot of time with one group that had a huge band with lots of drums, cymbals, big round ‘trumpets’, and oboe-like Shehnais.  This type of Indian music is more about rhythm than about tune or melody.  The trumpet and oboe-shehnai parts were more like chanting than song-playing as we know it.  I think most of the ‘trumpet’ players just played a single note over and over. The rhythms are complex (“weird” might be the technical diagnosis).  Imagine a 15/16 time signature?  Or maybe a repeating cycle of 3/4, then 5/4, then 7/4 measures.  Or… back-to-back triplets and quintuplets?? I’m a decently musical person, and I’d have had trouble consistently clapping along without getting lost.  But obviously it all seemed very normal and natural to them.  I got a quick chance to play one of those trumpets (just an oddly shaped bugle, actually), but didn’t even attempt to mimic their song. Maybe somebody somewhere got some pictures of me joining this trumpet section.

Just like the “theyyam” events I’d seen in the preceding days, the local folks at the elephant festival were enthusiastically open and accommodating to the tiny handful of Americans who’d stumbled into their crowd.  When we first arrived, our local guide showed us a “VIP” section of the viewing area and said we’d be able to come back there. I naively asked if we needed some sort of ticket or pass to get in. He smiled and assured me they’d be able to recognize us. I was again ushered to the front (or middle) of all the drumming and parading — whether I really intended to be there or not.  It’s really striking that these events are absolutely authentic and nothing about them is done for the sake of gawking tourists, yet the people were so completely open and welcoming when we gawking foreigners wandered in.

One family group (easily 100 people in those bright blue shirts) was in an especially festive mood.  As I was trying to get across their parading route, they stopped me to introduce themselves, shake hands, and ask me to pose with them for selfies.  They were so amused by that, I started getting high-fives and hugs (This was all pre-Covid scare).  Then suddenly I was hoisted to the shoulders of several of the teenagers and carried briefly down the parade route.  The only folks not 100% friendly were the police that showed up at that moment to shoo us all along because we were holding up the parade.

These folks were SUPER friendly. I’m not sure WHY they decided to put me on their shoulders, but it was all good fun. They were even more amused than I was! (Photo credit to Dr. Didima Mon. On a trip like this, it’s always good to have a professional on hand to hand us the Immodium and Pepto.)
The Wall of Death! – at the carnival next to the parade and temple grounds. Two things you should know: The walls are completely vertical (ignore the wide-angle lens distortion in the pictures. And note that there is nobody driving that car.
Some people were crazy enough to stick their hands through those rails, holding dollar bills (okay rupees) that the cyclists would grab as they went by.
No, I can’t explain this. Voodoo? Notice that the guy in pink at left is holding a chicken.

Theyyam Season in Kerala, India: Vishnumoorthy and friends.

April 1, 2020 by Jeff C | Comments Off

The first of a series from Southern and Western India.

             My first night in a Malabar Coast beachside cabin ended early — with a 2:45 a.m. alarm and a short 3:00 a.m. hike to the nearest highway to catch our van.  A nearby town was having a pre-dawn “theyyam” – an event that’s both a religious ritual and a performance artform, done mostly in the Kerala state of southwest India.  This theyyam celebrated Vishnumoorthy, who (as best I can understand) is something of a deified disciple of the Hindu god, Lord Vishnu. 

            Two things were happening when we arrived:  A handful of men were stoking a big bonfire, and another group (all wearing white skirt-like “mundus“) were tending to a young man portraying Vishnumoorthy in an elaborate headdress and orange make-up.  The young Vishnumoorthy was eventually covered in dozens of layers of palm leaves and rigged with twisted ropes attached at his waist.  Not long after the (super-loud) drumming started, Vishnumoothy sprang into action.  He gestured frantically in what seemed to be a hurried attempt to bless everyone around him.  Then his posse of handlers ushered him toward the fire.

            We knew enough to expect that Vishnumoorthy would be thrown (ceremoniously and hopefully safely) into the fire, so I got my camera ready for the big moment.  Sure enough, his handlers flung and shoved him face-down onto the pyre, then promptly dragged him out (still face-down) by those ropes attached to his waist.  (By now the bonfire was mostly a large pile of red-hot coals.)  Just as I was tempted to think, “Wow, how many times in your life do you see something like that!?!”, they threw him in there again.  Then again.  And again. . .  I later read that the ritual requires them to throw him in (and drag him out) 104 times.  So that’s what they did – stopping several times in the middle to make sure he was okay and let him dance around the fire .  (104 is a lot of times to be thrown face-down into a fire, fyi.)

Vishnumoorthy’s handlers getting him ready. Notice the fire in the background.

 

 

 

Photo quality was poor for the fast action around the fire in the darkness, but hopefully you can see how it all worked. All 100+ times.

 

 

            I wound up going to three different theyyams that week – one at sunset and two before dawn.  They were each at different Hindu temple sites in villages near Kannur, India.  The sunset event celebrated the Hindu “patron saint” of blacksmiths (and somehow involved a snake temple but happily no actual snakes).  It had only a few dozen onlookers around and loudest drumming I have ever endured.  The third event was huge, with at least 1000 people up long before dawn celebrating 5 different demi-gods (including Vishnumoorthy, Gulikan, and others I couldn’t identify).  Dozens of young boys and girls were dressed up and paraded around; I think the idea was that these deities were blessing the kids. 

            A combination of two things made my “theyyam” experiences special.  First, they were 100% authentic.  These were local ceremonies and our little group of photographers were the only ‘foreigners’ around.  This was not in any way designed for tourists (especially that 4:30 a.m. start).  At the same time, the people there couldn’t have been more welcoming and accommodating.  I knew that these were religious rituals so I initially tried to be discrete, respectful, and out of the way.  But the locals wouldn’t hear of it – I was consistently urged (often ushered) right to the front.  Not only did they have zero objections to our intrusions, they were proud to show off their customs and culture.  So as the pictures reflect,* I was right in the middle the action – except the part where they threw that guy in the fire.

This guy ‘became’ the blacksmith deity celebrated at the sunset theyyam shown in the next two pictures.


 

Late afternoon preparations, pouring lamp oil into each little dish. Thousands burned all at once to light up the two tiny temple buildings during the theyyam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Here’s a photographers’ note:  If I have a consistent photographic ‘style,’ it’s that I often use a very wide angle lens, and/or I shoot from a low (squatting?) or high angle.  It dawns on me that maybe I enjoy these pictures because the perspective – and the location of the camera – is more obvious.  And what’s often obvious is that the camera (and thus the camera man) is very close to what’s going on.  It’s implicit in the image that I’m squatting ( or tip-toeing) 2 feet from the subject – not shooting a telephoto zoom from across the street somewhere.  I’m peaking over someone’s shoulder or shooting under someone’s elbow or eye-to-eye with a kid.  Or – all too often – about to be trampled.   (See below).

This is the last picture I took just before the blacksmith god more or less ran right over me. I was unscathed; he was unfazed. By all accounts, I came up smiling.

The Road to Morocco

November 3, 2019 by Jeff C | Comments Off

I promised myself I wouldn’t let a full year go by before finally sorting through (and sharing) my photos from a 2018 trip to Morocco.   

 

 

If you’re reading this, you probably know that I love to travel to new, unusual places.  And you probably know that I enjoy almost all those trips and generally come home telling mostly-positive stories even about places that have plenty of oddities and problems.  (See, for example, my reports from Cuba and Iran and Myanmar and Colombia and Guatemala . . . .).  I’m pretty open-minded (or at least non-judmental) about cultures very different from my own.  But there was something ‘off’ about Morocco.  Although the small group of folks I traveled with were unbeatable, and though the trip was expertly planned and the accommodations as swank as I could ever have hoped, I wouldn’t count Morocco among my favorite destinations.

I expected (naively, I suppose) Morocco might be similar to Iran — where I’d had a truly great trip in 2017.  It wasn’t.  I think the counterintuitive problem is that, unlike Iran, Morocco has long been an established and popular tourist destination for Americans and Europeans.  (Bob Hope and Bing Crosby sang “Off on the road to Morocco” and Humphrey Bogart did his play-it-again-Sam in Casablanca in 1942, though both were actually filmed in the American Southwest.).  In Iran, people were just excited to see and meet American visitors intrepid enough to trapse their cities and deserts.  In Morocco, they learned long ago that “visitors” are “tourists,” and tourists are revenue sources.

My pictures from photography trips usually include lots of images of local people.  But you won’t see many people here.  Almost everyone I photographed (or tried to photograph) asked for money in one way or another.  That’s something I try to avoid:  to me, it can ruin the authenticity of both the experience and the photograph.  Others just shooed me away entirely — which I actually prefer.  Some would actively invite you to take their picture — only to expect payment when you did.  It was hard to know what you were getting into. 

It’s fine when people don’t want to be photographed — I completely respect that.   And there’s nothing inherently wrong with them doing it only if they get paid.  I’m just not usually interested.

I was fascinated at how quickly so many locals morphed from entrepreneur to beggar to extortionist.  Their initial approach was to try sell you something you clearly did not want (kids trying to hand you an obviously worthless trinket or adults giving unrequested, intrusive ‘guide’ services).  When that failed to generate a cash response, they’d often keep their hand out and just ask for money.  When that failed, they often did not give up:  uncomfortable persistent harassment was not uncommon. 

 

 

My whole complaint about visiting Morocco is the lack of a feeling of authenticity.  The country’s biggest mosque — The Al Hassan II in Casablanca — was built in 1993.  Up close, it looked more like a Las Vegas mock-up than a real or historic or sacred site.  Morocco sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert, so twice we paid local guides to get us deep into the desert, but both times wound up on well-trodden sand within sight of highways and hotels.  And those pictures below of the camels in the desert?  Of course they’re a set-up.  A guide dons the traditional robe as part of the gig, and knows just where to lead the herd at sunset for the best photo opportunities.  Fun to do and see, but not as real, authentic cultural experience.  It’s just hard to be anything but a touristy tourist in Morocco.

The “snake charmers” I saw all over Marrakech’s market square on my first evening in the country proved to be something of an omen for the rest of the trip.  The snakes are de-fanged, so it’s all rather faked anyway.  They’re not “charming” for the sake charming; they’re there as a tourist draw.  If anyone comes even close to raising a camera in their direction, a couple of those “charmers” would aggressively rush over with their hands out, preventing any photos until and unless you ‘tip’ them.  And the nasal-sounding ‘flute’ playing is terrible.  I just skipped it and went looking for a diet coke.

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Another odd feature:  Flags.  As we drove through the countryside, there were Moroccan flags everywhere.  Tiny villages would  have 100s of flags installed along the roadside.  Flags were sometimes every 100 yards or so on completely unpopulated stretches of highway.  Imagine the most flag-obsessed town in America on the Fourth of July:  this was pretty much every town, every day.  But these were government-installed displays and they felt very different.  Maybe it was the ugly all-red flags (with a green ‘pentagram’ star), or maybe it was knowing that Morocco is governed by a sometimes heavy-handed king, but this had no feel of authentic patriotism.  It felt more like a monarchical government reminding you that it was everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Croatian Sailing and Slovenian Cycling

April 20, 2019 by Jeff C | Comments Off

This wasn’t a ‘serious’ photo expedition like some of my trips.  This one was about sailing, biking and general sightseeing with a handful of friends, old and new.  Just a few thoughts and a few pretty pictures to share . . . .

Lake Bled, Slovenia was a highlight of the trip.

Sunset over the Adriatic Sea, from a hotel balcony in Rovinj, Croatia.

I always tended to think of Croatia and Slovenia as a lot more exotic and far away than European destinations like Italy or Austria or Greece.  But it turns out that the foreign-sounding capital city of Ljubljana, Slovenia is just a couple of hours’ drive from either Venice, Italy or southern Austria.  And the Croatian coast is just a hundred miles across the Adriatic from the east side of the “boot” of Italy.  That geographic proximity gives a pretty good hint of what you’ll see when you’re sightseeing: pretty coastlines, tree-covered mountains, hillside vineyards, Mediterranean islands, and towns that are a couple of thousand years old.

Somehow the people of both countries (very similar to each other but with different languages) seemed familiar.  Few would stand out in any American town, and I could imagine myself blending in almost entirely (lots of people with blue-green light eyes and Mediterranean skin).   Though tourism is definitely getting more popular here, it’s new and small enough that the people are happy to see and welcome visitors.

I spent one week on a sailboat off the Croatian Coast near Split, and the next on a bicycle going in and out of Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia.  Both were great trips with the good company of mostly new friends and my long-time colleague and law firm partner Grant Harvey.  Grant and I worked together then retired from the same Houston law firm, and he rides bikes, flies airplanes, and enjoys travel photography, so we’ve always got lots to talk about.  And we occasionally agree on something political!  Occasionally.

Split, Croatia, is a major cruise and boating port

 

 

 

This was a little gravel landing strip on the island of Hvar, Croatia. (No, I did not fly there! and yes, I resisted the strong temptation to steal that sign.)

Grant Harvey, my very good friend for the last 25 years or so. Grant organized this trip, so I’m in his debt. This is him on our chartered sailboat, somewhere between Split and Hvar Croatia.

 

Rovinj, from the sea, on a ferry back from Pula.

A quaint old lounge area at a hotel in Bled, Slovenia.

The biking went in and out of Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia. Croatia is a member of the EU, but somehow I still needed my passport even for a bike ride.

 

 

Sailboats off the Croatian Coast, near Split. Croatia is an extremely popular sailing destination. Even in the ‘off’ season when I was there, I could sometimes see 100s of other sailboats at sea.

The gallery here includes a shot of an old Russian submarine “garage” and hideout – a reminder of my Cold War youth and of times when we had a different view of this part of the world.  That horse in the bad selfie with me is one of the Lipizzaner stallions at their home in Lipica, Slovenia.  Almost all of them are white; the handful of black ones are genetic celebrities.  The ancient Roman looking stuff is ancient Roman stuff: at the fourth-century “palace” of Roman emperor Diocletian, and (with me) the colosseum at Pula.  That odd statue in the last image is a truffle, in the Istrian truffle region of Slovenia.