Linda Blake - Global Reporter       

This evening I took the Voice of America Bureau's PD170 Camera for a joy-ride.  A long-line of beggars formed just outside a local Hindu Temple. Like a GPS system turned Lego, I positioned my camera before a steaming vat of orange-tinted beans. A golden-cheeked man shouted orders through his thick moustache to a pond of hungry eyes. He then drip dropped distorted lumps of orange into bowls held tightly by pairs of shaky hands... hands after hands after hands... 

Most food-line grazers ignored my presence which is a big testament to the importance of this moment. In any other scenario, I'd have hordes of gyrating children hamming it up before the lens or the occasional tug on my jacket-sleeve ..."Please Madame, Will you take a picture of My Mother/Cousin/Uncle/Me."  Capturing candid moments in India takes skill, cultural understanding, and patience.

Some of the cultural sensitivity I have to take into account has some political legs as well. I ended my lukewarm night of shooting by a stretch of road where a group of beggars gathered. As I attempted to record the chatter, men started throwing papers in my direction and yelling "no." I later realized they were conspiring in Hindi to break the camera as well.  Their explanation for their resentment was quite clear. Media outlets have been shooting their actions in great numbers lately.  As a result, the government is cracking down on beggars now more than ever before. In their eyes, I was just another cog in a government operation that grossly interfered with their livelihood...

I am going to string together some of this test-footage and post it on the site soon. 

Meanwhile, I also went to an expat party this past weekend where I met some wonderful American foreign correspondents. A snap-shot is below. How grateful I am to be around such brilliant, gentle giants as I carve out my way in this chaotic culture...

Expat Party in Jor Bagh, Delhi (L to R): Washington Post's Emily Wax, Voice of America's Steve Herman, Me, Los Angeles Time's Mark Magnier

Here is a serene scene as captured from the back seat of a Silver Ambassador.  A lone rickshaw schleeps along- a rare sampling of solitude in a city of 14 million. 

After a16 hr journey from New York through Brussels, I arrived in Delhi.  I glided past immigration with ease: my eye make-up smeared like a battered Vegas-showgirl's, my Jew-fro on the verge of becoming a ripe dread-lock and the smell of death blazing from my arm pits.   

 *STAMP 
Another blemish marked my plump passport.  Yet, this diplomatic ink-blotch is far from the nomadic pageantry of stamp’s past....  

I left the Indian sub-continent on December of 2007 as a backpacker.  I return in January of 2009 as a foreign correspondent in training.  I carry my universe with me—two bag’s worth. 

Shoving said bags into a Yellow & Black Taxi at the Delhi airport terminal, I proceeded to take a deep breath of India's magnetic midnight air.   My tongue and lungs were, at once, coated by tar.  A 3-legged dog hopped past me. To my right, two men warm their tired bones before a pile of burning garbage.  

As my chortling cab criss-crossed the congested streets, I wondered:  Why have I returned to this strange land filled with simultaneous expressions of love and filth - a place that has terrorized, teased and transfixed me?  Why let the Shakespearian love affair take hold again? I found the answer this evening when browsing through old emails I sent during my first tour in Incredible !ndia...

10/2007 

Dear Mom, 

 
I think I fell in love with India yesterday. And this admission after being bumped, bent, and spun around as the sole foreigner on a 17 hr sleeper train ride....  I, of course, slept cuddling my bag as if the big knap-sack was my coffin.  My snores hummed in tandem with the non-stop train's chugachugachugs.  With each train stop the loud yells of "MASALA CHAI, MASALA CHAI" from slap-happy vendors patrolling the aisles would jolt my eyes open.

When the train stopped at the final station a group of ladies in radiating yellows, reds and greens started to sing and laugh --all holding hands. The women wore their leathered skin with pride and smiled at me with toothless grins.  

Later that evening, I listened to the piercing singing of a moustached man. He darted his all knowing hazel eyes my way, turbaned-out in a ripe colored fruit basket.  Women performed in the foreground. Their heads wiggled ever so slightly as they punched-out a subtle symphony, using only bangles and metal hangings from their bodies.  When they weren’t erupting in creative music-play, their mouths spit fire.  They softly wrapped their lips around sharp knife blades - contorting their bodies like birds in flight.  To see such fragile forms, juggling fire and blades....  well, it opens my heart, Mom.  It mirrors what I am starting to learn in this country: it is possible to be vulnerable and delicate in the face of such destructive forces.  Flirt with fire-engage in a beautiful surrender.

Love,
Linda

Looking back at this declaration of love, I realize I have returned to India to capture this vulnerability. This time I will suck in the surrender and upon exhale reveal how it manifests itself in the political, social and economic fabric that is modern India...    

My first TV assignment kicks-off Monday.  With the global resonance of Slumdog Millionaire (or "poverty porn" as many call it here), I will explore one of the movie's major themes: corruption in India's network of child beggars.  I will look specifically at the controversy over government efforts to ban child begging in a country where social services are limited and good cop/bad cop are often indistinguishable...  I look forward to posting my latest works on this site in addition to regular multimedia--heavy updates.