4 March, 1999.  Between Jaipur and Agra, India.

Restaurant Oasis on the Road

These long, quiet drives are a nice way to see the country between the frantic hours in the cities. It looks and feels like a national geographic program. It's only after hours upon hours of seeing the people and the huts and the fields and animals and ruins that it begins to soak in that this place is for real.

Camels towing wobbly, weighty carts; women in the bright, flowing fabrics of sari working in the fields; men showering under irrigation hoses; an entire village devoted to stone carving and its rhythm of chipping chisels; people squatting in groups all waiting for something--or are they waiting at all?; trucks, busses, tractors, scooters, even bicycles loaded well past capacity racing down the highway with men hanging off the back and women's billowing sari peeking out from the crowd.

Somewhere along the way--last night or this morning--I gave my camera a short rest. It was probably then that this whole country ceased being a performance for me--something I should try to photograph from the best angle, study, and observe--and all of a sudden India was a reality of which I should be a part.

I think it was at that moment of realization that I heard the rhythm of the chipping chisels in the stone-carving village.

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