November 27th, 2008 (exactly one month before I'm scheduled to fly to India)
Indian soldiers stormed the last hideouts of Islamist militants in Mumbai yesterday after a day of bloody confrontation that left 120 dead, hundreds injured and the country's prime minister pointing the finger of blame at "external forces". Over 24 hours, gangs of heavily armed young men had attacked two luxury hotels, a hospital, a popular restaurant and a railway station. By the early hours of the morning the mayhem had left India's financial capital's skyline smoking…. Mumbai, a metropolis of 19 million people, had been reduced to a ghost town - with many international firms canceling travel and closing offices. [www.gaurdian.co.uk/world/2008/November/27/mumbai- terror-attacks-india9]
- Randeep Ramesh and Daniel Pepper in Mumbai
December 27th, 2008 (Takayama, Shanghai, New Delhi)
Twelve hours later we touch down onto the runway in New Delhi. After being asleep most of the flight, I take out my ipod earphones and look out the window. India's first impression on my eyes is made in the form of smog. The thick, sticky air illuminates the yellow lights on the barn-like structures, which sit still alongside the runway and transform the yellow into a golden hue. Accentuated by the grim haze, each glowing light beckons attention and reiterates it's own mysterious form. I’m in India.
Coming out of the terminal, we are greeted by a young man holding a white sheet of paper with my name written on it. Handsome with short, dark hair and on his fifth day without a shave, he greets us with a warm smile, “Are you Kyle? I’m Zahid. Let’s go this way.”
Out of the airport, we walk into the clammy night air. This short walk to the parking lot feels like taking a stroll down a recently declared demilitarized zone. Trash lines the walkway, half finished construction surrounds us and beyond the initial space between sidewalk and gravel, groups of people huddle together over waste bins of fire; standing, warming themselves and staring. We make it to the taxi in the parking lot and a man is laid down in the back seat, deep in sleep. Startled when awoken by Zahid, he stands up and quickly dismisses the peaceful dream. We all get in the car and proceed to the anarchic highway.
There is no way to prepare yourself for your first experience on the streets in India. Some people say that there are no rules I think that’s a fair assessment. However, there is a well-known system among those who drive, ride, run or meander (as seen in the form of cargo-by-camel), but those who don’t know the system are unclear that there is any kind of order and therefore look out of the windows in mystified confusion and terror. The driving, akin to a video game, forces an authentic appreciation for the true skill involved. The weaving in and out of objects on the road, the speeding up and slowing down in order to pass or be passed and the pin-needle gaps threaded between dump trucks, usually carrying hay stacks the size of small houses, is the art of the Indian driver. The constant ebb and flow of traffic becomes analogous to a seamstress with her needle, weaving her thread with swift and deliberate purpose.
Finally we arrive at our hostel, tired from the full day of traveling and the exhaustion that the roads have impeded upon us and a bed is the only desired destination. A Canadian and three younger Indian men sit in the main room drinking a bright, green liquor. Offered as a welcome gift and in no position to refuse, the seven of us gulp it down together. The buds on my tongue immediately send a message to my brain that familiarizes me with the distinct flavor of licorice. I don’t know how frequent or how much they drink Absinthe, but this was my second time tasting it and it was clear to me that after the last 12 hours, one shot is enough.
I find my bed and lay down. The sites, sounds, smells and tastes take my short-term memory hostage and the bright-green walls that surround me, keep the static moment temporarily blurred. The chaotic elements are semi-subdued as my head rests on a pillow, but the anticipation of a two-week long sensory binge, stirs the rich broth of anxiety in my stomach. This paired with the Absinthe creates an uneasy, yet honest reality that I will come to learn more about humanity in the next two weeks than I may want to know. With this uncomfortable, yet willing surrender, my mind escapes to a softened dream state where the fears of an unknown become overcast by the anticipation and intrigue of another new adventure.
December 28th, 2008 (Delhi) Ghaijini – A Movie Review -
Let’s start with the facts. This is a Bollywood movie made in Mumbai, India. The majority of the movie is spoken in Hindi, with very short spouts of English. Its running time is 183 minutes. Yes, that’s 3 hours and 3 minutes (though it seemed like infinity, plus one) and there was an intermission somewhere in the middle… and I don’t speak a lick of Hindi.
This movie is based on Christopher Nolan’s Memento, an American film made eight years prior. Since I absolutely love Memento, I was naturally intrigued. However, there are more facts about this story that helped to make this the worst movie-going experience in my short but extensive history with the film medium.
First, it should be noted that our newly acquired Indian friends from the hostel invited James and I to this movie. They wanted to show us a good time and therefore they brought us to an Indian movie made in their country. As a result, despite the length, horrible acting, long, sappy music videos dispersed throughout and the insanely drawn out dramatic scenes… we were forced to sit through the entire thing for the fear of leaving would be too rude. Thus, being trapped and virtually forced to watch a movie against my will only added to its horror: not the genre, the actual experience.
Studying film in college, I realized early on that a film, if done well, should be able to tell a story purely through visual action and technique, unless it consciously strays from the narrative structure. So, in this case Ghaijini was a success. Throughout the film I was able to follow the plot line despite not knowing the language. However, it was a particular method in which the editor used that crushed my film making standards like the gushing explosion of a head under a hammer (an excruciatingly over-used theme, which we see the antagonist in this film use to kill his victims). The editor and director teamed up to, what seemed like repeat every theme at least twice, beat the audience over the head with each one and then told the actors to over-act... in every scene. Though the repetitive themes and the terribly drawn out dramatic scenes, which seemed to completely disregard real time like an old, Jean Claude Van Damme action movie, weren't bad enough, it was the conscious hybrid of genres within the framework of the film that nearly drove me to insanity.
Some critics refer to this as the wristwatch phenomenon (actually, only one critic calls it that but that's just because this is my first movie review... it'll catch on). It’s the moment during a movie that you stray from its universe just long enough to wonder what time it is and then look down at your watch. Then, this is the moment the film has lost you and may never get you back. This happened to me within the first 20 minutes. The movie began as an action/adventure film, rich with fast cutting and dark lighting, but then transformed via flashback, into a romantic comedy with the same character being clever and cute. Then, this morphed into a lavish, MTV pop song and dance routine with the main character singing in different costumes with his shirt off nearly the entire time and clichéd, bulging muscles conveniently pulling the buttons away from their holes. The narrative structure finally returns to the dark, mysterious, revenge-driven character but not before changing the mood and dynamic of the entire film. The director jumped between genres as if to portray every experience of Indian life in one 3-hour time period. The metaphorical horse was beaten to death with a thick, trite stick and by the end I was as angry and confused at the entire film as I was exhausted and ecstatic that it was finally over.
The final scene alone lasted an agonizing 5 minutes when the painstakingly obvious symbol of love between the protagonist and his lover was returned to him. Tears streamed from his eyes and the camera pans as slow as it possibly can for 720 degrees; that’s two complete times around his head to show the audience of the “beauty” he sees as he sits on a park bench. At this point, my fists were full of my own hair and I was ready to either vomit in my lap or punch the kid behind me who’d been kicking my seat for the entire 22 hours that we’d been in the theatre. When it finally ended, I turned to my new Indian friend, and his eyes were filled with tears. He loved the movie and when I asked why, he said, “this movie shows what Indian people are made of. It was very true and very sad. Most of the truth though is in the love.” It was at that point that he asked me what I thought of it.
“Yeah, umm, it was really… different.” It was 2:30 in the morning as he wiped his tears away.
“This is real India, na?!” I had no other choice than to take his word for it.
December 29th, 2008
A mixture of fog, pollution and humility perpetuates the setting of this journey. We ride in the back seat of a cab where Indian music plays on a DVD player, which is hooked up to the passenger seat sun-guard. The seemingly hi-tech gadget streams music videos of Indian fantasy. We slow down just long enough to see a child running alongside the road, wearing a collared shirt in a sweater, small kid-sized boots and no pants.
Stray dogs, run-down excuses for buildings and scattered groups of people display the porous displacement of people who have been brought here with the soul purpose of contributing to the every-day challenge of survival. The rat race, the paper chase, the grind is one of which the clever, risk-taking, deliberate crusaders live the longest.
A child wearing a shall running as hard as his legs guide him, a calf being nudged hard enough by its mother to topple to the ground; these sights are moments captured only by pen and paper as they are the actions of the everyday and are either forgotten immediately or witnessed by no one.
An invisible fog blinds us from everything 15 yards away. Hazards blink and tick within the cab and our driver pulls out a hand-made beedi from a small newspaper jumble, “Can I smoke? This is okay?” He flicks the end a few times and lights it. Music from the DVD player produces a methodic drum kick with systematic bells, jingling in the backseat speakers.
What would this life be? Filled in fog, depending on the day’s work to provide that night’s dinner? Where coming across a new job opportunity provides the same relief and excitement as my impatiently anticipated Canon XTI arriving at my door. This constant inner struggle with money and the paranoia of getting swindled tightens my shoulders like a taut rope. However, this is only one side of the coin, so to speak. The other side of course is that while I don’t have much, I do have something more valuable that most of these people may ever afford in this lifetime: opportunity. Therefore, it’s acceptable to give money and try to support their cause, even if it means paying more for it than I “should”. However, the choice then becomes WHO do I give to? And this brings me to an even more confusing and unsettling question: who am I to decide and choose which unfortunate life becomes a little more fortunate, even if only for a day? They all need something. I suppose if I give my money to those who provide the best service and safety, than I’m rewarding those with work and purpose. This seems like a fair formula.
It is difficult to stumble upon the knowledge that while a large portion of suffering in the world is self-induced, there is an even larger amount that is completely determined by fortuity. Though many religions and beliefs will argue with this, I believe that because we cannot ask for what is given to us when we first arrive, our situations, to begin with anyway, are purely dependent upon chance. Therefore, it seems that that which makes a person complete is he who can give back to those less fortunate from him, if he possesses the means to do so. He then is truly contributing to the overall purpose of mankind, which is simply to survive. The only question left is one with two parts and is usually lost among most of those who ask it: HOW can I help, and WHEN do I start? A new long-term goal must be established: answer these questions and turn humility to action. This is why I travel.
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