I traveled to Malaysia in January 2008 with the writer Sugi Ganeshananthan to explore the large Tamil community there. Since Malaysia features some of the most remarkable Hindu structures outside the subcontinent, we were eager to see the famous Batu Caves, site of the Thaipusam festival, which draws people from all over the world. Sugi and I explored the caves in the afternoon, but I wanted to wait around until dark so that the spotlights would illuminate the new enormous statue of Lord Murugan and I could photograph.
So we waited and waited. Sugi bought Ganesha statues in the gift shop. We had snacks and cool drinks in the canteen. Then the skies opened up -- monsoon season. An enormous volume of water fell hard from the sky for hours while we stayed in the canteen, which was just a covered pavilion. After a while, the place closed and we had to leave, which meant a mad dash from structure to structure and through the shin-deep water that had collected in the plaza to get to the temple on the left, which was open for prayers.
One of the guys at the canteen gave me a piece of cardboard covered in plastic, the kind of thing that will hold four six-packs. So I held it over my head and we dashed across.
Finally the spotlights came on, so I took that cardboard and the camera, rolled up my pants, and waded barefoot (shoes off in the temple) into the plaza. Initially I had been upset about the rain, but when I got to the middle, I saw that the water had created a reflecting pool -- the scene was really beautiful. I shot dozens of frames as the sky darkened. I rarely take photographs without people in them, so my favorite (the one at the top) shows a woman with an umbrella walking across the plaza on the left side of the frame. The tiny figure shows the human scale of the scene, the enormous statue of Murugan (140 feet) and the 272 steps leading up to the caves.
Umbrellas and reflecting pools in Malaysia's winter monsoon -- the gods' gifts to a photographer.
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