Dhamu and Chinatambi's son

Dhamu and Chinatambi's son, originally uploaded by Lisa Tripp.

Dhamu ( the young man on the right) was the driver who took me out to the village today. Finding Gallitipett still remains challenging.

Most taxi drivers know how to get to Kunrathur. It is about an hour drive through heavy city traffic to get across town to the west. Once in Kunrathur, one has to stop and ask...do you know Gallitipett? Which way to Gallitipett? Someone will eventually know, and point down one of the roads leading out of town.

As you drive down the part pot-holed paved road and part gouged-out dirt road, you get into more rural areas, and then pass a few houses clustered together. After a ways, there are a few more houses and a industrial building with the sound of metal being pounded. A bit further there is an orphanage out in the middle of nowhere. After thinking we must have missed it, we saw someone in the road, and asked again. This man pointed just up ahead, to the big trees on the left...and there we were again. Back in Galletipet.

Dhamu was a wonderfully delightful friend for the day. He helped with translation of sorts, enjoyed getting to know people in this village and practiced being the photographer and decided which photos to take next (he really seemed to like doing this part, and seemed very good at just playing with the sense of photographing the moment.)

People were very generous and fed us in every house where we went. We again caught up with who was around in 1967 when I was in the village and who were the children of the people I knew. Obviously many people had died or moved away, and also many new people arrived.

This is part of why being in this village seemed important to me at this time. I get to remember once again that life is full of birth and death - everywhere. It is happening here in India and also in Santa Cruz. I know this in my head, but I remember it in my heart when I'm here.

If I haven't said it to you specifically before, Gallitipett was the first place in my life (when I was 21 years old) where I saw babies born and I saw people die. Everything in this village was something shared by the whole village. It was here that I learned a lot about how a village deals with death in a natural and wholistic way. I feel like I have carried this thread through my entire adult life, in my work and in my family...right up to the time being with my family while mommy died.

Today I felt like I was able to say thank you to many of the people who were important to me in the years before, and if not directly to them, then at least to a relative...and if not in Tamil, then in the words from my heart that I could tell they understood.

One more day before I leave India. It seems strange to have this journey be coming to a close, but another chapter awaits.