Documentary

I've included the link for a short documentary I made while abroad. It was all shot on a 90s era handycam and edited with iMovie, as neither Hollywood nor Bollywood were exactly calling out, but enjoy!

A Woman's Work

Rainforests and Deserts, Monkeys and Donkeys

The semester has ended. Saris were worn with tears and smiles, nervous laughter as the future seemed a little too imminent for comfort. Plane tickets printed from 5 rupee corner stalls and last minute dosas eaten with a vengeance alongside Kingfisher Strongs.

When I leave here things will change once again. Begin to forget the names of the others on my program, slowly push the Indian clothing farther back into my closet. But it happened, and its reality cannot be diminished. It has been so much more than I could have ever expected. This experience has made me laugh and cry, vomit and pull the threadbare covers way over my head to block out everything around me. I have danced alone on the dance floor and sang with thousands of people, screamed with excitement and sprinted from a desire to reach my destination faster. But it will start to fade, becoming more reminiscent of a dream than a memory.

So I have captured some of it here, more for me than for you, in an attempt to preserve these past couple of months for a little longer.

This semester I have about seen it all. From neon turbaned farmers to bikini-clad men. Cheered Pitbull on from a scantily guarded backstage and spoke with the President of Bhutan from his honeymoon motor brigade. Shared overfilled rickshaws with immigrant families and drove through the city with four adults on a motorcycle. Painted red for Ganapati and unknowingly tainted even whiter by bleaching soap. ‘Like a Prayer’ belted karaoke and sobs through a Bollywood film. Feet adorned in bedazzled heels and caked with feces encrusted mud. Danced on top of bars and danced Dandiya with the best of them. Survived many near-deaths while crossing “pedestrian” crossings and crashed to the dried mud on a scooter. Seen dead bodies floating and polio-stricken men crawling. Breathed in burning flesh and opium-flavored incense. Ran from security guards through stairwells and attended a German ‘Merry Christmas Party’. Shared bottles of Petron with Bollywood elite and sipped powdered tea from cracked cups in the slum. Swam in a mosaic tiled pool and the excrement filled Ganges river. Modeled for a hair and makeup salon and partied with the British Cricket Team. Replaced cutlery with my fingers and substituted coffee for chaha.

Dove fully clothed into the Indian Ocean at sunrise and played cricket on the beach in Mumbai. Apartment building underground clubs and endless buffet lunches. Underwent every body ailment possible and lived to see another day. Paddle boated in Mahabaleshwar and canoed in Varanasi. Stared at and then stared right back. Took hundreds of photos and was featured in hundreds more. Danced in Conga lines with middle-aged Indian women and gave up paying to get blessed. Drank chai with famous filmmakers and filmed my own documentary. Peed in a hole festering with critters and began only taking my showers at the gym. Overnight buses and overnight trains. Explored Colaba with the Google Privacy Team and got my fortune told from a rotting old man. Rickshaw rides of shame and holy temple visits. Saris unraveling at the Marriott and days relaxed into Ali Baba pants. Ate desserts with tin foil wrapped on top and swallowed what tasted like rat poison in an embrace of Eastern medicine. Used Hindi as a form of police bribery and sang along to a Jim Morrison cover band. I have wandered and I have found.

These past couple of months I have truly lived. And one of my greatest fears is that when I return everything will seem bland in comparison. The smells and the sights will return to merely pleasant, and I will be left in the midst waiting for something to stir up within me once again, left staring at blank white walls wondering where all the color went. 

c.u.l.t.u.r.e.

After a grueling SuperCardio session with India’s own Russell Simmons, complete with short shorts and a screaming voice, H and I settle into comfy pleather sofas at Costa Coffee, ordering Caramel Cappuccinos and warm blueberry muffins.

Shortly after setting up shop we are joined by two students to our left. Fatima, an Iranian, and Mohammad, a Saudi Arabian, both completing their masters in India. A conversation of cross-cultural understanding, travel, and acceptance ensues. Trying to understand the United States, as both of them realize they will probably never gain the coveted visa access to the States, Mohammad asks, “So what is the culture of the United States?”

H and I respond with the token phrases of “melting pot”, “land of immigrants”, “diversity”, “capitalism”, but he is not satisfied.

“I know how to communicate with others from the Middle East because of a shared Arabic culture, so what is American culture?” We cannot answer cohesively.  It quickly becomes apparent that neither H nor I can actually describe where it is that we come from. We have accepted the United States as a conglomerate, never truly questioning what it is about its culture that makes it a nation, an identity.

Yes, the United States is massive and encompasses many different cultures, religions, languages, belief systems, but what is it at its base that makes it America? What do I, as a white, Presbyterian, moderate, female, with ancestors riding in on the Mayflower, share with a black, Muslim, conservative, male, with ancestors speaking French, that leads us both to claim “American” as our nationality?

Maybe it is the inherent desire for individual success, the power placed in human initiative and drive, the honor associated with hard work. The American Dream, the ability for social mobility, the space endowed for critical thought and cringe-resulting questions. The idea that nights with no sleep pay off, that running will get you somewhere other than where you began. Freedom to exist as you wish to exist, while under a protection that enables you to exist.

It includes gluttonous spending, credit-driven consumerism, placated ignorance, lazy self-indulgence. Surgery rather than accepting the reality of age, anti-depressants to numb pain. Christmases focused on presents, businesses run on shredded files, dreams of nothing more than comfort.

There are parts of this culture that I do not like and there are parts intrinsic to my very being. I am still working through understanding what this all means, so that the next time some one asks me what it means to be an American I can answer them directly, succinctly, and truthfully. For how will people from different cultures ever understand each other, if they do not even understand where they come from?

Flash

On our way to an expat party in Koregaon Park -- skinny jeans, Western tops, hair and makeup patiently done. Restless to begin the night and failing to find vacant rickshaws, we opt to climb in the trunk area of a six-seater rickshaw that is already brimming with a family of eleven. Bump bumping on wooden planks in the back, heads hitting the canvas roof covering. Weighed down from existing beyond full capacity. A man in front of us, who is sitting on the lap of an older man, shares an old Bollywood music video saved on his aged cellphone. An undulating female soprano providing the background music to our late night ride through town. The rickshaw pulls up to the Swargate bus station, and the family gets out, pulling suitcases out of hidden crevices, helping more people descend than we knew were in the rickshaw to begin with. Waving goodbyes and wishing good lucks, we climb over the trunk divider and settle onto the cushioned back seat bench. Onward to a costumed night of expat shenanigans!