Family Pictures
The kids and I went out with the camera to take pictures of our street. The kids (we know their names but I don’t have permission to put them here) across the way who live in the construction site came out as they do whenever we leave our apartment. They joined in the pictures. Then, they motioned that they wanted pictures in front of where they live. So, we followed them to their house. It’s an eight foot by 12 feet room made up of scrap wood, tin and tarp. I took their pictures in front of it. And then all of the kids took turns taking pictures. The older boy took pictures of his brother. Atticus took picture of the two story hole in the ground where the car port and basement would be and Berkeley took pictures, cautiously, of inside the house. I peeked to see what she was doing and saw the inside of their house.
It was spotless.
There were a couple of pans for cooking on a makeshift shelf, some blankets, some combs and some seating. And everything was put away in its place. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but I was moved by the obvious organization of what they had.
The two mothers came over and asked if I could come back and take pictures. We decided somehow on Sunday at 8 am. We went back home and I felt really excited. It seemed like I was finally doing something to be helpful that didn’t require money or hand outs but time and experience with people directly. Smugly, I told Sam of my new plan to take pictures of families who live on construction sites.
Sunday came around and sure enough the women were all getting ready. The kids were dressed in their best and the closether were all clean. The mothers and their sisters had on their cleanest and nicest sarees. The dads came out smiling and one of the dads had a non-working set of ear phones plugged into a phone. And he kept the ear phones in the entire photo shoot. I don’t say this to make fun of him at all - at first I thought it was goofy as I would later feel about the requests for pictures of kids with phones and famlies posed by our apartments rather than the construction site. These families are now urban but they are the hope of their parents and the villages they have left. I think this is the case and it makes me feel amazed and intrigued.
The photo shoot was eventful. And one point I cried because one of the mothers wacked her child, frustrated with non-cooperation. I started walking into the apartment then realized they would have no idea why I suddenly burst into tears and left them. So, I went back and told them in words they couldn’t understand but motions they could. Eventually everyone got it but the mother. So they all turned to her and with raised voices told her some version of why I was upset. Then, they turned and said sorry madam sorry madam. and patted the kid to reassure me of the kid’s wellbeing. Still crying but calmer now, I tried to make it clear that hitting was not ok. I had never seen them be harsh with the children before and never since. The whole time I was going back and forth between cultural relativity and some things just aren’t ok. But I have to admit - still when I think about it, something wasn’t right about how I handled it. Like it was too mother child which isn’t fair to them.
We started over and things eventually were happy again. We took pictures of the kids, of the two families, of the women and of the men. We took them in front of our apartments and a nice wall surrounding a house down the street. I left feeling happy that I had gone back but deflated because my idea to change India with family pictures was probably not going to work.
A week later, I took the pictures back to the families. They seemed thrilled.
seriously in india blog
Sunday, August 26, 2007
