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!  

And So It Begins To End

Back alley black market electronics stores, with owners calling for “Uncle” and patrons waiting eagerly in the shadows. Slim young men in flared jean bell bottoms and fuzzy lime green sweater vests, screaming static energy. Texts involving “hey ;)” and “!!!!”, “LUV YA!!!” and “y rn’t u txting me bck????”. 15 rupee cold coffees, side of ice cream please. Convincing the rickshaw drivers to let us drive, in exchange for speaking English to their friends on old cell phones. Welcomed into homes and offices for my filming, always accompanied with cups of chai and large smiles. Post office buckets of glue to seal letters. Bollywood and Zumba dance classes taught to packed rooms of the uncoordinated but highly motivated. Rows and rows of carbon copied earrings. Haggled prices and threadbare sheets. Fresh fig, pomegranate, papaya, lychee off the street corner. The fat man and his fat wife and their fat dog living on the sidewalk down the street. The security guard outside the motorcycle store with the perfectly groomed handlebar moustache and sly grin. Electronic Titanic and Christmas songs whenever cars are put in reverse. Slippery tile sidewalks that have never made sense, but are more inclined towards promoting ice skating than walking. Talking film and philosophy over hot cups of coffee and languid stares. Eight small children in perfectly pressed uniforms climbing out of a single rickshaw upon reaching school. Dancing the night away at an ex-pat party. An entire city shut down by bandits on motorcycles pledging their allegiance to a political party. Bouncing along with four grown adults on a motorcycle. Street side masala corn, no butter. Small Ganesh idols with heads that wobble. Fireworks set off at all hours of the night. Wide-eyed appreciation and narrow-eyed disdain.

I am going to really miss this country. With 18 days left of this program, the end is seeming far too near. Crazy, dysfunctional, beautiful, rigid, exciting, lazy, foul, vibrant, India has undeniably sunk its teeth into me, and I am not yet sure how I will emerge.

Who Said Third Time's the Charm?

Welcome to Goa, for the second time.

Begin your journey with flights cancelled and connections pulled, moving on to beachside ‘Sex on the Beach’ and ‘Between the Sheets’, freshly cut pineapple and papaya and your increasingly aggressive “No” to the sellers of Goan crafts. Meander over to a fruitfully landscaped restaurant to listen to a live band playing ‘Hotel California’, and pick the street side stores clean of any clothing you might potentially see yourself actually wearing upon return to the States. Saunter to a night out on the town filled with coconut Feni and Limca, Bollywood dancing and rushed conversations, that lasts well into the next morning’s sunrise.

Candolim Beach, Goa -- L. Glick

Awake to mango juice and fresh feta salad, followed by leisurely napping to the sounds of wind chimes chiming, infinity pool water approaching infinity, and the slow beating of a heart experiencing contentment. Jolted alive by the crashing of a scooter, recover with a hot, well-pressured shower and the pure happiness accompanied with the donning of a fresh robe post-bathing. Nestle on top the California King bed beneath the romantic mosquito net inspired canopy at the Yoga Magic Eco Retreat, and grow full belly full on a dinner complemented by cheap Indian wine. Join friends for a re-venture downtown to dance the night away with Australians, and Germans, and French, oh my!

Yoga Magic, Anjunta, Goa

Greet the final day with an incense-infused, early morning yoga and pranayama class filled with ohms and exhales and a finale of a big mug of fresh ginger and lemongrass tea. Stretch your stomach to consume all the muesli, curd, pomegranate, toast, and fresh pear jam your body can inhale, and then roll from your outdoor patio down into the island structured swimming pool. Climb feet-first into a beach taxi that will bring you to the acclaimed Aashyana Lakhanpal luxury villas and curl up on the beachside chaises under the hot Indian sun. Say good night to the sun on a cliff look-out while contemplating your future and upgrade to a bottle of vintage white wine served with your dinner on the outside terrace of the Portuguese inspired villa. 

Aashyana Lakhanpal, Candolim, Goa

Pack your bags to head back on the 22:15 flight to Pune, of course only after agreeing to pay the ticket collector who cancelled your initial flight tickets home.

The Group - Capetown Bar, Baga Beach

I Think It's Time to Breath

Following the trail of billowing saris up and over the trash-strewn, impossibly rocky hill and then through the winding labyrinth of streets, my video camera records the faces peering out from windows, the smiles and the laughter of those whom we pass. Those initial looks of confusion and then the breaking of a smile upon realizing the camera is pointed at them, filming their responses. The shrieks of laughter from a boy getting tickled by his mother, the purity of a young girl’s smile as she plays with a baby kitten. Everyone knows each other, calling out hellos as children play makeshift cricket and badminton in the alleys. While this area is technically classified as a “slum”, it is far from Western perceptions about what a slum actually entails. Instead of derelict huts and rotting corpses, this “slum” represents more of a community than most of the Pune I have experienced thus far.

I have come to this area to film for my documentary film project, following the women through the streets, armed with my video camera and rudimentary Hindi, allowing them to take me where they please. She brings me into her modest home, adorned with lavender walls and spotless floors, and sits me down on a last-limb folding chair situated next to an old wire birdcage. Serving me scalding coffee (from which my tongue still burns) and then watching as I try and take chug-approaching sips to match her Olympic drinking rate.

This finally feels real. We do not understand each other, but at the same time we do. Language barriers surpassed, connected by a shared feeling, a shared basic humanity. After I finish my coffee she leads me over to sit on the chair in front of their Bollywood playing flat screen. The others in the family sit on the floor in a semi-circle around the chair, alternating between looking at the screen and my face.

It might finally be happening. Maybe my face has been relaxed by Indian suns, my smile lit by Maharashtrian fires. No longer a Western imperialist, I feel more like Diane Sawyer, but significantly more grungy. I have accepted that I will not be fully immersed in the culture, that I will always be seen first by my race. But maybe I can capitalize on that. Use my novelty to spark relationships. My outsider status to instigate conversations.

For these past couple of weeks I had begun to truly despise parts of India, essentially following verbatim the “Steps of Home Sickness” manual we were handed at the beginning of the program. I hated the looks I got walking down the street, finally caving by wrapping my head and shoulders in a long scarf when leaving the house in an attempt to self-protect against leering glances. I was perpetually cringing, swallowing down hatred and believing I would never understand so there was no point to even try. Taking rickshaws instead of walking to get from one place to the other as fast as possible. Constant tunnel visioning to prevent the seeing of the unpleasant, scarf to face to prevent the breathing in of the pollution, the smell of burning trash.

But then the other weekend when we were in Mahabaleshwar, hill station of the strawberries, it slowly began shifting. We ventured to a small, isolated Shiva temple on the side of a cliff overlooking the cascading hills and deep blue lake below, very Lords of the Rings-esque. Standing in front of the old stone temple, facing the cliff below, lifting my hands above my head, arching my back into the sun in a perfect post card posture. And breathing, really breathing in and out. Breathing in all the good and releasing the bad. It began to click. All that India has to offer, to teach, it was merely waiting for me to release my faulty expectations and actually act upon the pure basis of experience.

While I have less than a month to act on these new ideas, I have nothing to lose by trying.