This is somewhat different than what I usually discuss in my blog posts, but I am so excited that I wanted to share it with you all.  The New York Times is currently running a reader-submitted photo essay called “Documenting the Decade,” which showcases photos and short essays of important moments of the last decade.  My friend and former co-worker Lisa had submitted a photo and when I complimented her on it, she said that she had wanted to submit a photo from our 2003 trip to Hyderabad, India to train teams to do co-sourcing work, but realized that all the best photos she had were ones I’d taken!  Wow – quite a compliment coming from a rather accomplished amateur photographer! 

So, I looked through the many photos taken from five separate trips to India.  I wanted to find one that expressed how the old and new have been comingling and colliding in India since the growth of Western companies and influence over the past ten years.  It was in a group of photos taken in that original three week trip in 2003 that I found it: a Coca-Cola sign juxtaposed against a series of columns and statues of deities at Bhadrakali Temple in Warangal, India:

It was amazing to me, even seven years ago, how this iconic sign of corporate culture could be found anywhere, even in a small, dusty town where locals saw relatively few Westerners.  I was greeted with intense scrutity and curiosity the entire time.  I was the only non-Indian, along with my companion, who rode the claustrophobically crowded “Krishna Local” train from Secunderbad to Warangal just to visit the Thousand-Pillared Temple, which had stood for nearly a millenia, and Bhadrakali Temple, where the photo was taken.  If I were to travel back there, would things look pretty much the same or would there be additional signs of “Westernization” I could hardly anticipate at the time of my first visit? 

India is a very special place for me, as it is (among other things) the place where I experienced the miracle of energy healing for the first time.  I also learned how spiritual practice is an ingrained part of everyday life for the Indian people, and not something relegated to the holidays or a specific day of the week.  These experiences changed me and informed my own spiritual growth and development.  It seems only right to share this photo, seven years after my first visit to this amazing, beautiful and always-surprising country.  Namaste and Happy New Year!