They had us right where they wanted us.  Marty, Akshay and I had just come from an ATM machine so we couldn’t use the ol’ standby of “we don’t have any cash”.  I’m sure that was in their playbooks.  A good tactic, and we’re certainly suckers for kids.  We didn’t want to just give them money as a lot of times they just take it to someone else.  We figured they’d like some food so we took them into one of the coffee shops and got them some donuts.  Their eyes got pretty wide when we went in.

The shopkeeper tried to kick them out as he knew they were just begging, but we told him to let them stay and they picked out some big donuts.  Here’s a shot of Marty in the shop with the kids.

Don’t exactly remember where this photo was taken in Mumbai, but I recalled seeing the interesting architectural structure I thought was a swimming pool, but still not sure, but certainly photoworthy. It kinda reminds me of the game Q-bert with all the angles. I’m getting old apparently…

You wouldn’t think that the construction industry would buy off on these types of setups, but when you get down to it, they seemed to have the hang of it. No shoes, no workboots, no hard hats, no nets. Nothing but climbing around on the bamboo support structures building. Hard to believe, but it gets the job done in India.

Caught this one in Goa, India in 2003 – These pigeons swooped down right as the guy on the right woke up and his friend started feeding them. I really liked Goa and recall befriending a guy named Ashok. I remember it well because I felt bad that he had artistic talent (or so he claimed), and was stuck working the bar scene to serve us drinks on the beach.

I remember telling him I’d gladly take the photo with him and send him a digital copy to be drawn for me and sent back to the USA. I followed through on my side of the bargain, but I’ve yet to see any response back from him. Maybe I got the wrong email address… Either way, a good story completely unrelated to this photo.