I’m at Shanti Ashram. Shanti means peace. An ashram is kind of like a kibbutz in that it’s a place for living in community--sharing chores, meals, etc. Often ashrams center around yoga, but Shanti Ashram is more focused on social-justice and development work. Shanti Asharam is in Coimbatore, in the province of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is southeast of Karnataka where Bangalore is located.

I am going to keep a photo-journal to document the time that I spend here. Each day I will take an exposure to add to the photo-journal. My approach to photography will also be decidedly low-tech. I am going to make a pin-hole camera. The exposures that I’ll make will be on photographic paper, so I’ll have a paper negative. Then, I will scan the negative to make a digital print.

It will probably take a day or two to make the camera. Yesterday I got photo paper and developing chemicals. Today I’ll try to find plastic containers for the chemicals and supplies to build the camera. I thought of a number of different ways to make the camera. Making a nice one out of black cardboard takes a fair bit of work. A wooden one would take more banging around. The only thing is that I don’t have the right tools to make things out of wood. I could find someone to do it except that might take a while to complete.

Given the circumstances, I think that the best thing is to make one out of cardboard. Tonight I’ll try to find an art store to buy cardboard, an X-acto-knife, and a steel ruler Then I will try to find a hardware store o buy sandpaper, superglue, and black electrical tape.

A key question is how to make more than one exposure without opening the camera to change the paper. This is difficult--the camera must be able store exposed and unexposed film, and get them to and from the focus plane without opening the camera. I thought of some possibilities, but they’re all pretty elaborate.

Maybe the best thing to do is just make a light-proof changing bag with dark fabric. Then, I could make a simple mechanism to keep the paper in and get it out. It could work well if I pre-cut the photo paper to size and made one light-proof box for exposed paper, and another one for unexposed paper.

Anyway, while I figure that out, I’ll write about something different.

The train ride here took about seven hours. We left at t 6:30 in the morning, which made the day seem very long. Nothing much happened during the trip, but I came up with a few lines for a future poem:

you are tragically beautiful.

permeated by stillness.
and silence.

you gaze out the window, or nowhere at all;
not smiling or frowning; not entirely absent.

I want to unclothe your tragedy to photograph it.
I want to let your beauty loose on the world.

The train ran us through mountains that were majestic in their cowardice. I imagine they tried to stop just as they were about jump through the earth’s crust. But, they didn’t arrest their jump in time so the top of their heads penetrated the surface. They never rose to Himalayan-heights, but they weren’t able to stay in the motherly comfort of the earth‘s core. But the mountains were majestic because the lumps and ridges, dimples and rocky outcrops, hinted at what was still below the surface.

The mountains were tragically beautiful too.

Passing town after town; station after station. Unloading. Reloading. Mud-huts and concrete temples; shantytowns and apartment buildings. Rice and cows. A pile of bricks makes me realized that the world is large. Huts and apartments are full of people. Each life is full: concerns, joys, disappointments, loves and losses. Relationships, networks, systems, infinite points of view. Every hut, temple, field, and cow; every pile bricks of was born from a person’s sweat. Thousands, millions, billions of people live. Life perpetuates itself. Evil is not the only vicious circle.

People are beautiful, awesomely, tragically beautiful! Sometimes it takes a long-time looking , but the beauty that consumes every human will be found. I believe this.