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.

Logbook entry: Pune to Mumbai, shot through a taxi window darkly

First, I must apologize - this post is going to be a bit of an eye irritater. I shot it all through a rather foggy, dusty, taxi-window, often backlit as Murthy, Vasanthi and I headed for the Mumbai airport after the wedding so that we could catch the jet to Ahmedabad - once home to Mahatma Gandhi.

Yes, Sujitha and Manoj have now been formally married in the Hindu tradition of Manoj's family and community in and near Pune. I had been to two Hindu weddings in Bangalore - that of my niece, Khena, to Murthy and Vasanti's son Vivek as well as the wedding of Soundarya and Anil, but this was very different.

It was magnificent, to be certain - wild, fun, hot, chaotic and now Manu and Suji can get on with building their lives. Of course, I have had no time to so much as look at a frame or two.. 

I am just going to wait until I return to Alaska to blog the wedding - and all the stories from this trip that are most important to me.

There is just no way I can do justice to them as I travel.

So from here out I am just going to keep doing this - posting random little things here and there, catpured as I move along.

Yesterday, I did not get on the net at all. I am on it now, in an internet cafe, which will be closing soon. So, for that reason, I am not going to take the time to put the photos in order or to give you a travelogue - I will simply state that I shot these through the cab window, in between Pune and Mumbai, and in Mumbai.

We stopped for snacks, but not here.

For a time, we entered into darkness, but soon emerged into the light.

A fellow sojourner.

I don't know for certain, but I'll bet he drives one of these rigs.

Everywhere I look in India, someone is putting up a new building. America, knock off all this ignorant, self-detructive, silliness that now passes for politics within your borders. India is catching up to you and might just pass you by.

Same is true with much of the world.

Mumbai.

Brave fellow.

I, of course, cannot look at a crow without thinking of Soundarya. They may not all have known it, but in Soundarya the crows had a friend.

Make of it what you will.

Mumbai.

There's lots of billboards in India - most of them covered with pretty girls.

Really, what are the odds that in the second or two it would take us to pass by, we would come upon this advertisement, in this setting of massive cement just as a cement mixer rolled past between us?

Sometimes, I am a most fortunate man.

Ok. Internate cafe getting ready to close. Typos be damned. This post is done.

By the way, its cheap to hire a cab for a whole day - as little as $10, plus gas and oil.

Update: I did not know it when I took this picture, but this man is the most famous athlete in India, a cricket player, whose status is no less than that of a Michael Jordon, a Steve Young, Joe Montana, or Mohammed Ali: Sachin Tendulkar.

No time to blog at all, but here is a picture of the bride's feet and toenails: