MosheR Loc: New York City

Back in early 2005 my wife and I decided to go to India that coming November. The reason we chose this particular time of year was because we learned that there was an amazing festival in the state of Rajasthan during that month which was called The Pushkar Camel Fair. As it happens, my birthday is on November 22nd, and I was to turn 63 while we were on that trip. It would be the first time, in what was then nearly forty years of traveling together, that either one of us would get to celebrate a birthday on one of our little adventures.

The festival more than lived up to the expectations we had for it, and when November 22nd rolled around a couple of weeks later, we found ourselves in the southwestern coastal state of Goa. We had a very pleasant time there, going to the beach, touring the sites, and getting to attend a colorful and beautiful wedding to which we had received a surprise invitation from an uncle of the bride. But that’s another story.

A couple of days later we departed Goa and headed about 400 miles south to the canal riddled tropical jungles of Kerala. We booked a kettuvallam, which is a small bamboo houseboat, and proceeded through those canals past many picturesque little villages whose crowded busy shorelines featured women washing dishes or clothes and men catching small silvery fish. As I sat in the shade under a canopy at the stern of the boat, taking photographs of the passing wonders in the very poor light, one of the kitchen staff came topside and offered me a freshly plucked coconut from which to drink. I’m a person who appreciates little moments and this, to me, certainly seemed to be one of those worth remembering. The whole idea that little Melvin from Brooklyn, who grew up in an extremely impoverished family, was actually here, in the midst of this paradise, at this moment, was very difficult for me to wrap my brain around. I’ve wanted to travel so much since I was a child, but I never believed I would actually have the means to do so. The worst thing about being poor is not the lack of material possessions. It’s the lack of hope. But here I was.

So I asked a nearby deck hand to photograph me, and asked my coconut hero to stand by my side for the picture.

As I knew it was nearly dinner time, I glanced at my watch a few minutes later and noticed that the date was November 26th. Somehow, that date meant something to me, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then it hit me like the proverbial brick. That moment, sitting under the canopy of that kettuvallam, gliding along a canal through the jungles of Kerala in south western India, sipping milk from a freshly picked coconut, four days after my sixty third birthday, happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah. In no way, when I was a chubby little Jewish thirteen year old so long ago, could I have, in my wildest dreams, ever conceived that exactly one half century into the future I would be having the incomparably rare moment that I was now experiencing. But here it was.

I don't know about now, but back in 2005 there was an abundance of Communist symbolism all over Kerala, even deep in its jungles.


A group of several kettuvallam ... I don't know what the plural is. Ours is the third one in, hidden behind the others, with a little white something or other hanging from its bow.


That's our kettuvallam in the front now, just before we boarded it. I don't remember their official title, but I called these guys "duckboys." Yes. They're actually herding ducks.


My wife, who was then sixty two, relaxing on the deck. She never wore makeuup, nor dyed her hair. What you see is what she is.


This is the moment I described in my intro, just before I looked at my watch and realized the personal significance of the date. I'm really glad I have this photo.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

MosheR Loc: New York City

😙

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

MosheR Loc: New York City

🎃

MosheR Loc: New York City

🎃🎃🎃

Tdearing Loc: Rockport, TX

Nice work.

MosheR Loc: New York City

Thanks.

Bubbee Loc: Aventura, Florida

Love them!
Fellow Scorpio...I'm 11/11!...Also Brooklyn born!
And your wife is a real trooper! Lucky fellow!
Great team!

MosheR Loc: New York City

Actually, I'm a Sagittarius, right on the cusp. I assume you know that on November 11th, at 11:00 o'clock, the armistice ending WW I was signed.

Dannj

I love your story more than the pictures. I grew up in Queens and while I don’t think we were poor, there wasn’t money for vacations unless you count Saturday subway trips to Coney Island. But to the point, a few years ago I spent a significant birthday traversing the Great Wall of China with my wife, son and d-i-l. Life is definitely interesting👍

MosheR Loc: New York City

Good for you. Hope you enjoyed it, and can do more of it in the future. Why not post some pics? I've been there several times, but I'm always open to traveling there, even if vicariously, once again.

jederick Loc: Northern Utah

Love your trips and photos...you're a natural entertainer! Much like yourself, I was born into a poor family struggling to stay together. Father was deceased and mother was a schoolteacher raising a family of five kids. Boy did I know and feel the cruel pinch of want!!

MosheR Loc: New York City

I always (ironically) joked that my wife, the child of immigrants, came from a very, very, very poor family. Then when she married me, she married "down."