today i was on the street in bandra, standing on the sidewalk, eating a mcdonald's ice cream cone dipped in choco sauce that hardens when cold....yes, i have supported the yellow arches with a $0.40 contribution today. and i felt just like a child again. i also noticed that the indian at the cash register pronounced its name as the brits do: a MACswirl, he called it. that made me smile. anyway, it's great stuff, whatever it is, and prob filled with millions of free radicals and god knows what other chemicals.
as i stood there, trying to just ignore the world and eat my child-size ice-cream cone, a man armed with maps approached me. after only a few minutes, and because i was in a fairly good mood, he had convinced me that i must buy this map of india. i finally gave in...because i did, in fact, need a map of india's states and layout. i learned nothing about indian history or geography ...or anything, for that matter, about this country, so it's high time i did.
just as i was walking away with my $3 map and half-eaten ice-cream cone, another man approached me, begging me to let him shine my shoes. i started to laugh. they're not shoes! i said. they're sandals! (they amount to approximately five square inches of leather.) i said no, thanks, and kept walking.
but he was persistent and followed me. 2 rupees! only 2 rupees ! he called after me. finally i could see in this poor fellow's eyes that he was desperate. i took out my wallet and gave him 10 rupees (about 0.20 u.s.) and said, i want you to have this. but he got angry and said, i am not a beggar. now if you'll please step aside and into the street, i will shine your shoes.
well, this guy was really good...because i do not have the time or patience to give in so easily. he had convinced me to allow him to shine away.
after we'd chatted a bit, i realized he had excellent english. he started to tell me that he feels that he looks like a beggar because he did not have a shoe kit, the standard for a shoeshiner. in order to be deemed shiner of shoes, you must have a kit. his english, i noticed, was remarkably good....strange for a shiner of shoes.
he asked me, do you know how much one costs?
how much? i asked.
350 rupees, he said. (that's $7, exactly.) and i cannot save enough to live on in order to buy one.
red flag, i thought. this guy is pulling on my heartstrings and probably lying. i saw it coming: he was going to ask me to buy the shoe kit. i started to imagine a scam where the shoe kit was a ploy, used again and again, between him and the 'owner' of a shop. but something told me to trust him. yes, i am crazy.
he said, didi, if you could just go with me to that shop, and buy me the box, i swear i will pay you back every rupee. my mother is a beggar, and it kills me to know she is out there begging right now.
in the meantime, the mapman came back. madam! he began again. look at THIS map! and he showed me an even bigger map of india. i flicked him away with my wrist and turned back down to my sandal-shiner. how old are you? i asked. 23, he said. i told him i'm 34 and that he could call me didi. he was just finishing up when i'd made up my mind. and surprisingly, my gold sandals looked much improved!
look, i said. next week i will be living right here, near this corner. if i come around and see you here on this corner shining shoes, we will go together to buy the shoe kit. okay? even i couldn't believe i was going to give this guy a loan.
the man had tears in his eyes. so he was either a really good actor, or i was right.
as it turns out, i told my friend about the investment i was about to make. all in the name of humanity, and kindness, and hope, i said. the world can be a better place! i'm paying it forward when i see him again.
my friend's reaction was ...somehow...not surprising.
by any chance, was this in front of the bandra mcdonald's? he asked. why? i asked. well, a guy asked me the same thing last time i was there, that's all.
two things. my shoe-shiner loan client could be lying... or telling the truth. maybe he's just been asking a lot of people over the course of the last few weeks, in hopes that he will score the shoe kit. but i think we all know the probability of this equation.
is the world made of suckers like me, to have cold hands and a warm heart, in order to provide entertainment for the gods (or the non-suckers)? why is it that as i age, and despite the number of times i've been duped, now... i'm still becoming more liberal when i'm supposed to be going further right on the political spectrum, as my dad had once assured me? is life more fulfilling to trust the bad people, too, even if only to deceive oneself?
i want to be a good person in this life, but i don't want my faith to make me that vulnerable. on a night like tonight i feel as if my coupon book for faith in humanity has just expired.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
my bollywood début
again, i was supposed to have posted this back in november, when it happened. this is too funny, so i must share it now before i forget the details.
we were approached in the hawking district of colaba one day when we were shopping. someone named imran came up to us and asked annika and me if we'd like to be extras in a film. no thanks, we'd said.
two days later, he came up to me again (this time i was alone). since i was curious about the film, the actors, and the fact that he'd said it was going to be a blockbuster, imran had me hooked. so i was in. eventually annika and our aussie friend, alan, joined in.
so, here's how it happened. we were picked up in a bus (imagine a kind of 'magic bus' meets brady bunch van crossed with an old vw van...industrial size) headed north to goregaon, or film city, as many call it. the bus was filled with freaks, and i mean funny and freaky, weird, and, well, interesting people. for those of you who don't know, the agents pick out us westerners to act as extras in the movies...since the fairest skin is, in india, the most beautiful.
on the bus and in front of me sat a team of six or seven swedish tech people, here for training in bangalore. they were just visiting bombay for a few days and got lassoed in. behind us was a french israeli woman with dreadlocks, her hare-krishna clad lover, and their six-year-old son. there were tourists from south africa, the u.k., and the u.s. there was a dutch pothead lesbian. there was a seedy, bukowski-type junkie deadbeat in the back of the bus, talking to himself and later wandering about the set, clueless and chain-smoking, probably stranded here from ten or twenty years back. there were curious people like annika and me who, obviously insane, chose to live and work here. like i always say, you've got to try everything at least once. that goes for living in bombay as well as being an extra in a film.
once we arrived, we were whisked into an open corridor where we had to select costumes from a few racks of clothing. mine turned out to be a strapless velour wine coloured piece from hell that clung to my body as if it were painted on...we're talking woman-of-the-night wear, here.
soon after, with the arrival of the makeup team, i became known as the 'troublemaker' when i refused to let them apply the disgusting, neon-pink lip gloss that had probably touched the lips of hundreds of unknown women. finally, the only thing i could do was lie and tell them that i was allergic. (you can get all kinds of diseases from that!! i told my setmates. they grimaced with already glossed lips. when you're in your 20s, maybe you don't think about these things. but i'm a germaphobe to start with.)
the morning began with us holding up martini glasses filled with fake colourful liquid (our 'drinks') with one hand and slowly waving the drink back and forth in a 'festive' mood, and waving the other hand simultaneously to the beat of the horrifyingly 'happy' music (listen with the link below). the director and asst. director kept bellowing, 'be happy! smile! dance!' i have to admit, i got cramps in my cheeks from laughing so hard (as did the other participants). the whole thing was just too ridiculous to be true.
time seemed to be going fast. but by 4 p.m. we were ready to get the hell out. we had spent hours either standing around and "acting" (waving our hands with the drinks), or sitting and watching the russian girls do their dances in their red and yellow costumes. at one point, the assistant director and the director got into a discussion in which the drinks were distributed, then collected, and then redistributed. the other argument was regarding whether we should snap or clap on the staircase while we held (or didn't hold) the drinks. that was pretty hilarious. so it took about 20 minutes just to prepare the drinks for that scene, which never made it to the final cut, anyway.
lo and behold, those agents had been through enough cuts to predict our dissipating enthusiasm. they had locked all of our personal belongings into a huge room for "safe keeping." a south african told me that his friend had tried to escape a few months back in a rickshaw (he'd even left all his personal belongings!) but was actually 'captured' at the exit gate and escorted back to the set. the story annoyed us because we knew we were doomed. by that point in the afternoon, we'd heard the film's theme song hundreds (yes, literally hundreds!) of times.
my most memorable (yet least favourite) moment occurred when the famous and one of the biggest directors in all of india, subhash ghai, grabbed me and put me in the front row for one scene, so that i would be standing directly behind the even more famous and beautiful katrina kaif, for the shot of her playing the bass cello.
so here i would be, perhaps noticed for a moment behind goddess katrina, on the big silver screen. but alas, my hopes were dashed all too soon. before i could start to fantasise about my sudden flash of fame, subhash pointed his thick finger at me, yelled, "HIDE!" and grabbed two tall, blonde swedish girls to stand in my place. i humbly sank back into the crowd, or as a michigan farmer might put it, 'sucked hind tit' for the rest of the evening.
by 11 p.m., we'd each received a 500 rupee payment for a 12-hour day (about $10 u.s.). our 'agent,' imran, gave us a ride home and rekindled new hopes for my bollywood career when he asked me to show up for another, 'bigger' part. a week later, it turned out that he needed me for an advert for a watch, but this time for 1000 rupees. i couldn't have made it that day, so he is going to ring me back when something else good comes along.
if you are a masochist and have the time, patience, and sanity to sit out the credits, then feel free to watch our moment of fame via the link below. still cannot find myself, but my students and colleagues said that i was visible in at least three shots in the cinema.
http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAGOH6v-I0
we were approached in the hawking district of colaba one day when we were shopping. someone named imran came up to us and asked annika and me if we'd like to be extras in a film. no thanks, we'd said.
two days later, he came up to me again (this time i was alone). since i was curious about the film, the actors, and the fact that he'd said it was going to be a blockbuster, imran had me hooked. so i was in. eventually annika and our aussie friend, alan, joined in.
so, here's how it happened. we were picked up in a bus (imagine a kind of 'magic bus' meets brady bunch van crossed with an old vw van...industrial size) headed north to goregaon, or film city, as many call it. the bus was filled with freaks, and i mean funny and freaky, weird, and, well, interesting people. for those of you who don't know, the agents pick out us westerners to act as extras in the movies...since the fairest skin is, in india, the most beautiful.
on the bus and in front of me sat a team of six or seven swedish tech people, here for training in bangalore. they were just visiting bombay for a few days and got lassoed in. behind us was a french israeli woman with dreadlocks, her hare-krishna clad lover, and their six-year-old son. there were tourists from south africa, the u.k., and the u.s. there was a dutch pothead lesbian. there was a seedy, bukowski-type junkie deadbeat in the back of the bus, talking to himself and later wandering about the set, clueless and chain-smoking, probably stranded here from ten or twenty years back. there were curious people like annika and me who, obviously insane, chose to live and work here. like i always say, you've got to try everything at least once. that goes for living in bombay as well as being an extra in a film.
once we arrived, we were whisked into an open corridor where we had to select costumes from a few racks of clothing. mine turned out to be a strapless velour wine coloured piece from hell that clung to my body as if it were painted on...we're talking woman-of-the-night wear, here.
soon after, with the arrival of the makeup team, i became known as the 'troublemaker' when i refused to let them apply the disgusting, neon-pink lip gloss that had probably touched the lips of hundreds of unknown women. finally, the only thing i could do was lie and tell them that i was allergic. (you can get all kinds of diseases from that!! i told my setmates. they grimaced with already glossed lips. when you're in your 20s, maybe you don't think about these things. but i'm a germaphobe to start with.)
the morning began with us holding up martini glasses filled with fake colourful liquid (our 'drinks') with one hand and slowly waving the drink back and forth in a 'festive' mood, and waving the other hand simultaneously to the beat of the horrifyingly 'happy' music (listen with the link below). the director and asst. director kept bellowing, 'be happy! smile! dance!' i have to admit, i got cramps in my cheeks from laughing so hard (as did the other participants). the whole thing was just too ridiculous to be true.
time seemed to be going fast. but by 4 p.m. we were ready to get the hell out. we had spent hours either standing around and "acting" (waving our hands with the drinks), or sitting and watching the russian girls do their dances in their red and yellow costumes. at one point, the assistant director and the director got into a discussion in which the drinks were distributed, then collected, and then redistributed. the other argument was regarding whether we should snap or clap on the staircase while we held (or didn't hold) the drinks. that was pretty hilarious. so it took about 20 minutes just to prepare the drinks for that scene, which never made it to the final cut, anyway.
lo and behold, those agents had been through enough cuts to predict our dissipating enthusiasm. they had locked all of our personal belongings into a huge room for "safe keeping." a south african told me that his friend had tried to escape a few months back in a rickshaw (he'd even left all his personal belongings!) but was actually 'captured' at the exit gate and escorted back to the set. the story annoyed us because we knew we were doomed. by that point in the afternoon, we'd heard the film's theme song hundreds (yes, literally hundreds!) of times.
my most memorable (yet least favourite) moment occurred when the famous and one of the biggest directors in all of india, subhash ghai, grabbed me and put me in the front row for one scene, so that i would be standing directly behind the even more famous and beautiful katrina kaif, for the shot of her playing the bass cello.
so here i would be, perhaps noticed for a moment behind goddess katrina, on the big silver screen. but alas, my hopes were dashed all too soon. before i could start to fantasise about my sudden flash of fame, subhash pointed his thick finger at me, yelled, "HIDE!" and grabbed two tall, blonde swedish girls to stand in my place. i humbly sank back into the crowd, or as a michigan farmer might put it, 'sucked hind tit' for the rest of the evening.
by 11 p.m., we'd each received a 500 rupee payment for a 12-hour day (about $10 u.s.). our 'agent,' imran, gave us a ride home and rekindled new hopes for my bollywood career when he asked me to show up for another, 'bigger' part. a week later, it turned out that he needed me for an advert for a watch, but this time for 1000 rupees. i couldn't have made it that day, so he is going to ring me back when something else good comes along.
if you are a masochist and have the time, patience, and sanity to sit out the credits, then feel free to watch our moment of fame via the link below. still cannot find myself, but my students and colleagues said that i was visible in at least three shots in the cinema.
http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAGOH6v-I0
Sunday, January 18, 2009
we take stuff for granted, or experiences on an escalator
i tell people that stuff happens every day here that i have to stop and think, wow, that blows my mind. well, when this happened just the day before i left for the u.s., it honestly brought tears to my eyes. when i told my family, they couldn’t believe it.
there’s a new thing in bombay. it’s called the escalator. yes, really. the reason why it’s so new is a fascinating mixture of socio-economics and urban planning trends. take a rising middle-class group in a developing country. throw in increased purchasing power en masse, more trade with china and then add dozens of malls and new skyscrapers to a city in the financial capital of this developing country. suddenly, you’ve got people, old and young alike, who are just getting onto an escalator and using the lift for the first time in their lives.
so, as you can imagine, many indians have never been on an escalator or a lift. those things came with the gleaming buildings that outsourcing brought to india. but there's a little, dirty secret hidden behind all of this too: only around 50% of india's population can actually afford to go INTO those gleaming malls, residence buildings and calling centres with escalators and lifts. it's only the rich and the growing middle class who have access to enter and shop there. so begins my story.
in the first week of school, i'd promised two students (my top student and my most improved student) that by the end of the term, i'd take them out to dinner just before i flew to the u.s. for xmas. the point was to motivate that group of 15 kids. ultimately, two hard-working girls won the prize. i let them choose from a list where we'd dine (including some of the top spots in the city). because they're kids, though, they chose the food court at the mall at nariman point here in bombay.
we took a taxi over to the shopping mall in nariman point, to the girls' amazement. we stepped inside, had our bags examined per safety protocol, and proceeded forward. i was just stepping onto the escalator when i turned around to face them...and was already three our four steps up. as i watched them, i could see that they were trying to "jump" onto the moving staircase. then, the shocking realisation came: they had never been in a mall before, and they had never used an escalator. because malls are for middle and upper class people, not slum dwellers.
they finally managed to jump on, as i watched from about halfway up, and i called down to them something like "you are TOO funny!" and then kind of tried to laugh it off, but i had tears in my eyes. the idea hit me like a slap in the face: we take everything...EVERYTHING... for granted.
after we finished dinner, i told the girls to get ice cream cones while i waited with our stuff in a booth. they came back eating huge waffle cones, and with chocolate smeared all over their faces. they were so cute and it was then that i'd realised i'd forgotten my camera (or would have posted the shot here). i asked them as they ate if they'd had a good time. one said, 'didi, this was SO expensive!' and the other: 'we've never had ice cream cones like THIS before!' i got all bleary eyed again and averted my eyes. the thing is, dinner and ice cream for the three of us amounted to less than $6 u.s.
so this little episode made me think a lot about my role here as i left india for xmas on my continent, and i continued to ponder coming back to another job (where i would cater specifically to india's privileged bourgeoisie). how is it justifiable, any of this? truth is, i'm still thinking.
there’s a new thing in bombay. it’s called the escalator. yes, really. the reason why it’s so new is a fascinating mixture of socio-economics and urban planning trends. take a rising middle-class group in a developing country. throw in increased purchasing power en masse, more trade with china and then add dozens of malls and new skyscrapers to a city in the financial capital of this developing country. suddenly, you’ve got people, old and young alike, who are just getting onto an escalator and using the lift for the first time in their lives.
so, as you can imagine, many indians have never been on an escalator or a lift. those things came with the gleaming buildings that outsourcing brought to india. but there's a little, dirty secret hidden behind all of this too: only around 50% of india's population can actually afford to go INTO those gleaming malls, residence buildings and calling centres with escalators and lifts. it's only the rich and the growing middle class who have access to enter and shop there. so begins my story.
in the first week of school, i'd promised two students (my top student and my most improved student) that by the end of the term, i'd take them out to dinner just before i flew to the u.s. for xmas. the point was to motivate that group of 15 kids. ultimately, two hard-working girls won the prize. i let them choose from a list where we'd dine (including some of the top spots in the city). because they're kids, though, they chose the food court at the mall at nariman point here in bombay.
we took a taxi over to the shopping mall in nariman point, to the girls' amazement. we stepped inside, had our bags examined per safety protocol, and proceeded forward. i was just stepping onto the escalator when i turned around to face them...and was already three our four steps up. as i watched them, i could see that they were trying to "jump" onto the moving staircase. then, the shocking realisation came: they had never been in a mall before, and they had never used an escalator. because malls are for middle and upper class people, not slum dwellers.
they finally managed to jump on, as i watched from about halfway up, and i called down to them something like "you are TOO funny!" and then kind of tried to laugh it off, but i had tears in my eyes. the idea hit me like a slap in the face: we take everything...EVERYTHING... for granted.
after we finished dinner, i told the girls to get ice cream cones while i waited with our stuff in a booth. they came back eating huge waffle cones, and with chocolate smeared all over their faces. they were so cute and it was then that i'd realised i'd forgotten my camera (or would have posted the shot here). i asked them as they ate if they'd had a good time. one said, 'didi, this was SO expensive!' and the other: 'we've never had ice cream cones like THIS before!' i got all bleary eyed again and averted my eyes. the thing is, dinner and ice cream for the three of us amounted to less than $6 u.s.
so this little episode made me think a lot about my role here as i left india for xmas on my continent, and i continued to ponder coming back to another job (where i would cater specifically to india's privileged bourgeoisie). how is it justifiable, any of this? truth is, i'm still thinking.
Monday, January 5, 2009
gold's gym, my former anti-intellectual outlet
this is a post that i was meaning to write back in october, and i've only now just now remembered that i need to post. i joined gold's gym, to my own astonishment, back in the fall. normally i would not have joined a gym filled with the kind of people who frequent that particular gym. not to be a snob, but in my op it's a haven for anti-intellectuals and a meat market for people who don’t think so critically about the world in general. now that i’ve left the gym and have moved on to a better, cheaper place (and within walking distance to my new flat), i must take the opp to divulge some of my experiences there.
why did i join that particular gym, my friends ask. well, it came down to these factors. first, you cannot run in this city without risking your own life. it is a developing country, after all, so the sidewalks in this vicinity are either non-existent, torn up for repair, or occupied with squatters and/or weavers weaving baskets. so there's the option to run in the street, which is an option only if you would like to risk getting run over by the constant flow of bombay traffic.
secondly, even if i did have a sidewalk in this neighbourhood, i could not run in my running gear. you see, women cannot really show much leg, midriff, or skin in general in india, esp. if you're white! (so i have to do that privately: in a gym where people who are rich enough to understand that i'm not advertising myself when i wear a sports bra.) finally, the other gyms, with their outdated and/or broken equipment, did not meet my standards. so i was spending around $55 u.s. a month...a hell of a lot, for india... at gold's. and might i add: these people are the most high-may ppl i've ever seen in my entire life. esp the women.
just a quick snapshot of the typical female gym-goer at gold's: she exits her suv at the front door, dropped by her driver. over the shoulder is a huge patent leather gucci handbag with gold chain straps. she’s wearing peep-toed jimmy choo stilettos, with pearly silver manicured nails. she’s hot: has huge boobs, tiny waist, face totally made up and hair done in a ponytail by a stylist for the gym. she is speaking vacuous parle on a diamond-encrusted phone. you know what i mean. i’ve never, ever seen so many women like this in one place at one time. these women are married to oil magnates, or bollywood stars, or ARE bollywood stars, or inherited all their money from their wealthy gujarati fathers when they passed away. bottom line: it's all about how you look and what you have, hon.
so the women were superhot. the men looked good and had great bodies. i recognised quite a few from bollywood movie adverts and t.v. but i couldn’t handle all the pageantry, especially after working with kids from the slums every day (and it really IS a big circus, a place to see and be seen). i would just go in there, not make eye contact, head directly upstairs to the treadmill, run 6 to 8 k, and then row for 15 minutes. i avoided any type of interaction b-c i didn’t wanna become part of that elitist attitude. and believe me, i could have reveled in it. b-c it would have been major bonus points for many of those people to chat or associate with me, a westerner.
i'm not saying that i must belong to a gym for intellectuals. all i can say is that i had a very interesting experience, at least from an observer's perspective, on that very far spectrum of india's tax bracket.
why did i join that particular gym, my friends ask. well, it came down to these factors. first, you cannot run in this city without risking your own life. it is a developing country, after all, so the sidewalks in this vicinity are either non-existent, torn up for repair, or occupied with squatters and/or weavers weaving baskets. so there's the option to run in the street, which is an option only if you would like to risk getting run over by the constant flow of bombay traffic.
secondly, even if i did have a sidewalk in this neighbourhood, i could not run in my running gear. you see, women cannot really show much leg, midriff, or skin in general in india, esp. if you're white! (so i have to do that privately: in a gym where people who are rich enough to understand that i'm not advertising myself when i wear a sports bra.) finally, the other gyms, with their outdated and/or broken equipment, did not meet my standards. so i was spending around $55 u.s. a month...a hell of a lot, for india... at gold's. and might i add: these people are the most high-may ppl i've ever seen in my entire life. esp the women.
just a quick snapshot of the typical female gym-goer at gold's: she exits her suv at the front door, dropped by her driver. over the shoulder is a huge patent leather gucci handbag with gold chain straps. she’s wearing peep-toed jimmy choo stilettos, with pearly silver manicured nails. she’s hot: has huge boobs, tiny waist, face totally made up and hair done in a ponytail by a stylist for the gym. she is speaking vacuous parle on a diamond-encrusted phone. you know what i mean. i’ve never, ever seen so many women like this in one place at one time. these women are married to oil magnates, or bollywood stars, or ARE bollywood stars, or inherited all their money from their wealthy gujarati fathers when they passed away. bottom line: it's all about how you look and what you have, hon.
so the women were superhot. the men looked good and had great bodies. i recognised quite a few from bollywood movie adverts and t.v. but i couldn’t handle all the pageantry, especially after working with kids from the slums every day (and it really IS a big circus, a place to see and be seen). i would just go in there, not make eye contact, head directly upstairs to the treadmill, run 6 to 8 k, and then row for 15 minutes. i avoided any type of interaction b-c i didn’t wanna become part of that elitist attitude. and believe me, i could have reveled in it. b-c it would have been major bonus points for many of those people to chat or associate with me, a westerner.
i'm not saying that i must belong to a gym for intellectuals. all i can say is that i had a very interesting experience, at least from an observer's perspective, on that very far spectrum of india's tax bracket.
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