Mr Jain's daughters

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 08:16:09 -0700

In 1972 I stayed in the Jain Hotel in Khajuraho, India. This is what I wrote at the time:

“We moved into a small hotel run by a Jain family. It was perfectly adequate – clean, secure, nice clean lavatory and shower, beds infested with bed bugs. The family lived in a rudimentary wicker hut behind the hotel in complete simplicity, cooking on a wood fire set in a hole in the earth floor, washing from a single brass tap outside, sleeping on simple string beds. The father was very friendly and polite. There were ventilator holes in the hotel reception front wall through which horrible brown wasp-like insects would come at night. He had placed small neon light tubes and tins on the edge of the ventilators exactly so that when an insect hit the tube it fell into the tin and the tin was too narrow for it to take off. In the morning he would liberate the insects taking great care not to hurt them. He had three daughters of between, say, seven and eleven. They adored us, watching and giggling at everything we did. We called them “The Supremes”. Simple though their life was, a lot of attention was given to their education, and they had wonderful personalities.”

I photographed the girls. 37 years later, again in Khajuraho I found the now much bigger Jain Hotel. It was now run by the son (Mr Jain had died 6 years previously) who had been a baby when I was there. I downloaded the picture into his computer. He was so surprised he didn’t know what to do, so we excused ourselves and moved on.

Next day I was near the hotel and he rushed out, saying his mother wanted to meet us. I was ushered into a very rudimentary living area at the back of the hotel. The old mother was asleep on a cot. I was asked to sit and eat little milk sweets. His wife stationed their 11 year old son next to me to translate questions and answers. I loved they way she playfully interrogated me, as nice as her previous generation. She told me the three girls had gone to university and were now married to successful business men. One girl had done law and ended up something high in politics but I couldn’t work out what that was. Eventually the old woman woke up, but couldn’t cope, so went back to sleep. But after a bit she woke up properly, sat up and looked at me. They reminded her who I was, and she took the photograph from under her pillow, and sat there smiling at it. I had forgotten her, but recognised her now – she had been beautiful (Jain women tend to be for some reason - maybe it's all that contemplation leads a man to select a beautiful woman who in turn produces beautiful daughters). I was greatly moved by it all, a perfect circle completed.

Watching

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:28:26 -0700

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Picture

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:58:51 -0700

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Cooks

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sat, 26 May 2007 23:18:05 -0700

brightasafig posted a photo:

They cook for a restaurant in Sorrento, Italy, where English tourists eat listening to The House of the Rising Sun, In Dublin's Fair City and Yesterday played (i.e the notes struck in the correct sequence) on the mandolin!

Street sellers

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:03:54 -0700

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Market conversation

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 21:44:15 -0700

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Guarded

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:36:49 -0700

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Abdulah felt it necessary to arm himself like this to escort me only 100m from the main road to see an archaeological dig.

mIMG_3234a

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:04:38 -0700

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Kerala fish seller

nobody@flickr.com (brightasafig) — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:57:34 -0800

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Uploads from brightasafig, tagged bodylanguage

Mr Jain's daughters

Watching

Picture

Cooks

Street sellers

Market conversation

Guarded

mIMG_3234a

Kerala fish seller