Monday, February 18, 2008

Bollywood and Delaware!





The pictures are of me and some locates hawkers at the Mumbai Arts Festival and other arts festival happenings!

I think I forgot to talk about the Kanheri Caves in Sanjay National Park. They were straight up amazing! They were built around 900 AD by Buddhist Monks! Here were over 109 caves. Most were simple dwellings, but about 20 are truly amazing. One is like a prayer hall with pillars carved in the walls and a shrine. Another was like a lecture hall complete with two long sitting areas. Most caves had canal for drainage! It was great. We are planning a field trip to the Park with the youth who come into our drop in center! I’m stoked.

Di and I walked to the Caves and it was a good 2 mile walk. We saw many communities of monkey along the way. When we past one set of monkeys there was a car, about the size of a station wagon carrying about 18 people feeding the monkeys. As Di and I walked by they stopped feeding the monkeys and just stared at us. (This is not uncommon, we get stared at all the time. I suspect any white person gets stared at all the time. It can get quite annoying sometimes) ANYWAY I want to do a study to see what people stare at longer…Monkeys or Foreigners! I will publish my findings in Science Today! Look for it upon my return to the states in the September 2008 issue!

Di and I went to Filmistan the other day. Filmistan and Film City are the sets that many Bollywood films and most India TV shows are shot. It was amazing! I have a new dream! To have my own cooking tv show. I would eat all day! How great is that! So let me report back to everyone what it is like to be on the set of a cooking show. They shoot for about 12-14 hours straight for 6 days. That basically gives them a season of shows. It takes around 20-30 minutes to shoot an episode and they everyone gets to try the tasties! Not too bad. On top of this world class food there is a stream of chai/coffee/soda/water. Of course lunch and dinner are served but they act as a side course the multiple gourmet tastings throughout the day!

If you have read this long you deserve the secret to getting stuff done or going places in India. The person who greets you will refuse you entrance pretty much no matter what. Even if you have a huge invitation that says you belong there or even if the building has a large picture of you face on it. You will not be let in. They will claim you need 5 other forms of identification or need letters from public officials of some sort. Do not be discouraged! Keep insisting that you belong or were invited or whatever the case maybe and after about 3 minutes they will welcome you in! Good Luck~

So Delaware is a real cool place on the other side of the world as opposed to in the US!!! I have gotten the following reactions to me being from Delaware the past 2 weeks!
Our one friend Red is Indian but lived in Chicago for 14 years and has about 340 tattoo’s and is a boat load of fun. (Yes we did sing her the “I used to Work in Chicago” song. This song did not nearly go over as well as I would have hoped with the international audience.) Any way were talking about where we were from in the states and I proudly told her Delaware! She basically fell over in excitement and started touching me screaming “I have never meet anyone from Delaware, that is an imaginary place!” This went on for a solid 5 minutes!
Another volunteer with AJWS was equally as excited to meet a true Delawarian. Over diner we were introducing ourselves and again I got the chance to throw the Delaware title out there and her reaction was equally as exuberant! Your from Delaware?!?!?!? That is amazing. I have never meet anyone from Delaware! What is it like? Can I have your autograph. And then we posed for pictures! It was great!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Delaware love in India!!! Tax-free goodness!!!