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June 6, 2005

Coconut Water, Roadside Refreshment

Nothing is more refreshing after a day in the Indian sunshine than a freshly sliced open coconut water. Ubiquitously found in many tropical places around the globe, the coconut water man pushing his bicycle heavy with bunches of sweet fruits is a welcome sight for a person with a dry throat. At only 5 rupees (about US$0.10), sterile and delicious, it really cannot be beat!

My favorite part of the entire process is when you finish drinking the juice the man hacks the nut apart for you, cutting and separating a sliver of the husk for you to scoop out the jelly-like insides. It's like a banquet served in courses, each portion of be savored individually.

Certainly if you go out and take enough pictures you will experience what I call, "the cliffhanger moment." It's that moment when press the shutter release and the mirror flips up and cuts you off from the rest of the world. The bottom falls out of your stomach, your heart quickens, and your brain glows warmly because you know your timing was right. It is a mixture of self-affirmation and dead fear that something was set incorrectly not only to cheat you out of the shot but from having seen it and experienced whatever it was before you with your own eyes.

In the olden days, you'd have to either laboriously process film and paper in a darkroom or laboriously anticipate prints from the local lab in order to see if that moment of glandular excitement was worth all the hub-bub. Now-a-days it is as easy as looking at your camera back. Reward or pain on an on-demand basis. Ah the joys of the digital age!

I remember clearly snapping this shot and thinking as the shutter was firing, "oh man it would be great if this turns out!" A fraction of a second later those little bits of coconut husk and good portion of coconut water covered me and my camera. It may have cooled me down a bit but I was elated when I checked the focus on the shot and saw that everything came out as well as it did.

Posted by jordanh at June 6, 2005 12:19 AM

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