The Billionaire’s Sleep

I’d read about it. Pretty interesting concept. The funny thing is that I’ve only been away for 6 weeks but I still found myself sitting at the gate in Singapore waiting for the Sydney flight thinking “where the hell did all these white people come from and why are the women flashing so much skin!” My new found predeliction for modesty had been offended.

It made me think about something the Australian Prime Minister had said. He felt that a head covering for Muslim women was OK but felt that most Australian’s would find full “head-to-toe” covering “confronting”. I can just imagine how “confronting” a lot of Australian culture would be arriving here. It’s gotten me thinking about a documentary project I’ve had kicking around in the back of my head for quite a long time that talks about shared ‘values’ but how they’re applied differently across cultures. I started writing a treatment (probably as a procrastination device to avoid working on the screenplay).

I am however very much back in Australia. Just renewed my drivers license, had some Indonesian food in Chinatown and rode my bike through Centennial Park. It is a pretty nice lifestyle, space, reasonably fresh air (particularly when the sea breeze is coming through) and quiet. It is missing something though. I keep thinking of the word community but I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that. I might have to do another post once I’ve worked it out.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog. There have been many things that haven’t made it into a post but I had to save something for stories. Considering I lived in the States 16 years ago and I’m still telling stories from then I think you’re all going to have to endure India in coversation with me for quite a long time.

Well. I even shed a tear leaving India. I forced the driver to play a cd called Hindi Film Nostalgia 4 all the way to the airport. I suspect he enjoyed it as much as I did. Had a delicious final dinner with my friend Arul’s parents. Prawn moily and appams. I had treated myself to the 5 star experience. Ayurvedic massage, swimming pool, bizzare demands on the staff, a driver for the day (which they made complementary!)

It was also a very humbling day as I visited a friend of my mother’s who has been running a womens refuge/hospital/training centre since 1979. It’s a 5 story building with around 500 girls living there plus another 200 staff and 500 students during the day. Seeing a class of pre-schoolers 50 in size getting their afternoon nap by resting their heads on their chairs all crowded up against each other was a bit of a wake up. Still, as the staff member who was guiding me around said “at least they’ve got clean clothes, have been fed and been paid attention to today.”

I’m in Singapore now. Taking advantage of all the free tech stuff here. Will walk round for the 3 hours till my connection to Sydney departs. Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and making myself a coffee tomorrow morning.

Everyone likes to say, the south is so different from the north. At Bombay airport a young man wheels my luggage 15 meters, states “you give me money now”. 10 rupees doesn’t quite do it for him, he says “give me 10 dollars”. I say “eat me”. Our transaction is concluded.

In Cochin a group of fishermen using huge counter-levered nets (weighted with massive rocks) wave me over. The gang leader tells me that since the Tsunami none of the commercially viable fish come into the harbour so he just comes to work for the tourists. I help them haul in a catch of tiny shrimp and sprats, drink chai and eat rice cake. Then I give them some money for the privilege of my labour. It felt different.

Saw a Kathakali performance last night. I shot a video which I think will cut together into a nice 10 minutes instead of the several hours it took. It was pretty easy to follow the story. What was interesting was how long it takes to say ‘leave’. About 10 minutes of gestures and grimaces. Of course the character has to say ‘leave’ 4 or 5 times so it was a fairly short dramatic piece that somehow spiraled into several hours. What really struck me was how foolish the main male characters all seem to be. Pompous and self-righteous but foolish all the same.

Well. I started at the end of Holi. Down at Chowpatty beach where thousands of young men wash colour out of their hair, clothes and skin and play an odd version of sumo wrestling where one person is thrown out of a square drawn in the sand by another 15 or so.

As I watch hundreds more stream onto the beach and into the water from surrounding neighbourhoods, out of cabs, three to a motorbike and along Marine Drive. I decided to follow this flow of people to its source.

I’d taken a video camera rather than stills because I imagined Holi would be this spectacle best captured in motion but in fact it’s a very intimate, one-on-one engagement. Individuals approach you crying “Happy Holi!” then gently mark your forehead with a brightly coloured tilak. No, they think, that’s not quite right, so they grab you by both cheeks asking “How are you, my friend?” smearing further colour over your face. Now your clothes need some attention and what… no colour on your arms? That can be mended. Top it off with a silver coloured handshake a splash of water and welcome to Holi.

As I got further into the meelee it becomes both more exhuberent and more agressive. Men drink a cocktail of cane juice and what smells like raw alcohol. Encouraging each other to drink more while simultaneously smearing additional colour over each other’s faces. Small pink and purple children run around throwing water at each other. Any idea I had of simply being an observer has long since been abandoned.

Eventually everyone moves off to wash, but the spirit of goodwill remains. Today Bombay is quiet (strangely enough), people take the time to chat and ask questions. Usually when I say I’m writing a screenplay people ask me who will be in the film? Today they ask me to tell them the story. I end up sitting on Marine Drive, under a tree telling the plot to a group of multi-coloured men and women, eating ice-cream and leaving everyone in suspense by not telling them the ending. They laugh, saying “Now we’ll have to see it! We know people like you!”

Back in the hotel. The manager was unimpressed but everyone else who works there laughed, slapped my back and said happy Holi!

Met with a venture capitalist yesterday. I’ve been thinking a lot about the opportunities for content creators in India (and the world) with regard to building branded ‘products’ across all possible platforms. Actually, those of you who know me will remember that used to be my job.

What was amazing was to sit in a cafe with an investor who not only understood this but was building a major fund to put into these kinds of projects. His first fund eclipses the total budget I had for 5 years at the ABC substantially and he’s thinking it’ll be spent on ‘one, maybe two projects’.

Just sitting and watching TV (all 500 channels) is inspirational and depressing. All these cool things I wanted to do at the ABC that were ‘too expensive’, ‘too complex’, ‘not possible’ are been done on channels run by kids in their 20’s.

There’s a lot of opportunity for TV producers here in India. Especially if you own formats that are G rated (or G + a little bit of naughtiness). Even if you don’t own the format, first in first served.