Alkesh & Shloak Patel

Alkesh is my 1st cousin on my dad´s side (one of the 14 or so!) and Shloak is his first born son, Panamanian by birth! Thankfully, Shloak looks a lot like his mummy. These shots show roughly the area of the living room floor where a mattress gets pulled out and I sleep whenever I am in town. At the moment that is about 4 days a week. The other 3 days, I am in the slightly more spacious and luxurious surroundings of Alkesh´s older sister (Minaxshi´s) place in the suburbs at Howard. Shloak is a rare and unusual name...I have not heard it before. The word Shloak refers to the ancient Sanskrit verses that are recited by Hindu priests at most religious events......as Shloak´s mum is from a more devout family than us lot (to put it mildly) I assume she was in the driving seat when it came to naming the boy. He is a sweet baby, albeit prone to dribbling constantly. His "front crawl" is more or less perfected now so he slides across the tiled floor like a mini-marine on stealth manoeuvres. He is in loose, cotton re-usable nappies most of the time; great for the planet but not so great for whoever is holding him when he takes a leak. Alkesh was roughly Shloak´s age when I first visited India with my mum in 1976.