Kerala, India

http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/kerala/

Kerala, India

                                            All image rights reserved by David R. Biren

Summer of 1991 

Camera; Nikon F2 using a 24mm f2.8 Nikkor lense

Kerala, India is interesting and not like other parts of India.
Summer can be brutally hot. We booked a "private" cabin on an A.C. train car.
Private meant we shared it with another couple.
A.C. meant there were a couple ceiling fans, one broken. Generally in India and elsewhere A.C. means Air Conditioning....we tried not to think about the heat while watching camel caravans from our cabin, drinking the available soft drinks as bottled water was not available. Thumbs Up is an imitation of something...maybe Coke. Limca is not too bad, relatively. All had too much sugar.

My wife, now ex but still "attached" to me over a couple thousand miles was/is a psychiatrist looking for a guru back then...which is why we spent a month in India....where Guru's abound.

One of the guru's we wished to visit was Mata Amritanandamayi Devi  http://withoutbaggage.com/essays/india-amritapuri-ashram/
from above link;
" Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, one of India’s few female gurus. Known as “Amma” (which means “mother”), she doesn’t prescribe any specific religious doctrine — unless, of course, you consider hugging to be a religion. Amma strives to better the world with unending, unconditional love, dispensed to her followers through marathon, 22-hour hugging sessions. “My religion is love. An unbroken stream of love flows from Amma to all beings in the universe,” she tells followers. “This is Amma’s inborn nature… To lovingly caress people, to console and wipe their tears until the end of this mortal frame — this is Amma’s wish.” "

The photo above shows the means to complete one part of the journey to see Mata Amritanandamayi Devi who was not at her ashram. No matter....we enjoyed the ashram and when we were almost finishing up our trip we met Mata Amritanandamayi Devi in London, before we took the Queen Elizabeth II back to the states .....during three category 5(?) storms, which was an adventure in itself.
Nice having one's own personal doc on such trips....she had the meds which staved off the seasickness.

In the photo the standing woman is paying for her crossing with one egg in her outstretched hand, and one egg still in her other hand.