the complexity of cornflakes

today we went to the best school in calcutta. this place was a whole other world. a little bubble containing within it 1% of the population. a state of the art building with 3 floors and a basement complete with anything you could ever want for your children. we arrive and film children all being dropped off by chaffeurs in cars- a stark contrast to the children we filmed walking to school or being dropped off in rickshaws. the gates are guarded by security and the entrance is a giant reception area, much like that of a museum. we are taken to a giant room where the children gather every morning for their prayer-a ritual carried out by all indian primary schools. the children form lines and wait for the principal to arrive. finally, he walks in and all of a sudden a mans voice yells ATTENTION, and the children click their heels together and stand as straight as possible. when the principal reaches the front the man yells, at ease and the children loosen up a tad.
the music teacher adjusts the sound equipment, plays a few notes on the guitar, and they begin to sing. "hes got the whole world in his hands". danny and i exchange glances as we coordinate our filming moving in and out of the crowd. wtf is this place. but who cares, its like christmas morning for our story. this footage will be awesome.
we are given permission to film wherever and whomever we like and so we scout out classrooms, peering in all the windows to find a group of children about the same age as sonam. we walk down empty corridors passing all the classrooms. music room. dance room. art room. dining room. finally we find a group of kids about the same age and walk inside. the minute we come in the children stand up and say GOODMORNING. we are startled and shyly greet them in return. the teacher instructs them to continue their work and the children do so without blinking an eye. they hardly look up to see wat we are doing. a young girl folds paper oragami and paints a face on it and walks up to me and says. here ma am, for you. i respond with thank you! and she nods and sits back in her seat. danny and i immediatly like her bc she is outgoing and we dont want to face a problem of deer in headlights crisis that we experienced before. later another girl give us a cut out snowflake paper design thing and we decide we will talk to both the girls to see which one we would like to interview
while danny and the others search the school for rooms with good acoustics for interview, i sit and talk to the girls. amongst other things i finally ask them, "what do you want to be when you grow up" (this was all possible bc they both spoke perfect english) the girl looks at me without hesitation, "do you know robots?"
im like wat? she wants to be a robot, oh kids!....not sure thats wat she means i say no tell me about it. she says: you know, they do things like made of metal, i think ok, we re on the same robot page.
ok, yes i know robots i say, she says yes, i want to be a scientist so that i can build a very smart robot who will help my mother around the house. wattt?? damn. i want one of those.
the other little girl looks up at me and says: i want to be doctor. why? i say. she says: because i want to help poor. the childrens and ladies i want to help and i want to help them for free so they can be better because this is good.
let us all pause to take this in.
besides the fact that this is a great story for our piece. we had just come from the slums where children can not even afford to eat food or have electricity. when i was there, i did not even think twice about how i looked, how dirty i was, or how i smell. as soon as i walked into this place i immediatly felt slighty uncomfortable, like i just became aware of the fact that i have been wearing the same 2 outfits for the last week and both are very far from being remotely clean.
wat a contrast. that being said, minus the ridiculous military morning situation, this was a good place, and these kids wanted to help others.
we ventured over to the principals office, expecting to get the worst inteview from a guy wanting to plug his brand new school in hopes to get some positive media attention for his ego; instead wat we got was an awesome 40 min interview with a guy expressing his desires to change the way primary education in india is handled amongst the elite. we finally found our voice for the story. we also gained access to the tallest building in calcutta where we got a crazy aerial view of the entire city. 2moro we will return at sunset for better light, and get some kick as shots.

as we leave the school i feel a burning need to express my confusion towards the fact that the guy who gives us our sketchy hot milk cereal everyday calls cereal "complex". danny agrees with me and says, yeah man, wats up with that, its lik milk and cereal, how complex could it be? then i say i think the guys that work there are just fuckin with us and giving us warm cereal everyday as a joke to see if we actually eat it. our indian friends have no idea wat the hell we are talking about or why our cereal is being called "complex" finally she says are they giving you cornflakes? lightbulb. FRIGGIN CORNFLAKES. not complex. hahahahahah amazing. no matter wat tho, we will still continue to ask for some complex in the mornings...
exhausted from the day, i go home and take a much needed nap. later, for dinner, danny and i have our usual enlighting conversation at tandor park restaurant and head home after 3 hrs of tasty eating. as we walk back in thru the doorway, i see a beetle on the floor turned upside down, struggling to get on its legs again. i kick it a little to help it out and danny and i discuss how it would feel if all of a sudden out of nowhere a giant foot came along and kicked us really hard 50ft in the other direction...

e kotan

its been a couple days, but we have acomplished so much i have immediatly fallen into coma mode as soon as we get back home. we woke up early on monday morning to finally get the most important part of our story- an interview with sonya- the young girl frmo the slum. we arrive at the school and begin to set up our cameras. during this time sonya is looking very shy and will not even make eye contact with us. danny and i exchanged worried glances and ask the teachers if she is all right and everyone assures us she is fine. we tell them we are ready and the teacher begins to conduct the interview. silence. sonya is refusing to speak and she remains quiet for about 10 minutes. we had a feeling this might happen as she was always the most quiet of the bunch....he younger sister is called over to comfort her and begins to talk to us about her family...i quickly readjust the frame and decide that her younger sister will be our new subject. thank god she had a sibling otherwise we wud be screwed! just goes to show how anything can go wrong....
crisis averted.
We feel great on the way home and decide to go out for drinks with our team and some indian students. we have a great time at dinner where the men are especially happy bc we are seated in the "family section" which apparantly is more spacious and it is the section where you are seated if you are accompanied by women. the director of the comm school (a woman) comments on how she is surprised that the 2 young girls sitting behind us were served wine. she says that it is common for restaurants to refuse to serve women if they are not with men. crazycakes.
on the walk home an indian man curses at danny and i because we are in the way of his motorcycle path (the sidewalk). i laugh and move out of the way while his passenger apologizes.

the next day we get up at 5am to film our new younger participant going to school, we see a lot of young muslim girls on their way to school wearing burkas. we film at the school- probably the hardest session we have ever filmed because we are mobbed by the little girls who instead of playing at recess decide they all want their picture taken 50 different times and they just want to stick their face in the camera. i am forced to find high ground where the girls cannot physically reach me and so they decide to maybe play instead. they finally catch on to the fact that we like to film them if they go about their business and so they give a great performance. we follow sonam to here home in the slum where we film a short interview with brother and sister who are both now working after completing the same sort of school regimen as their younger sister.
at night, danny and i feel elated that we had such an awesome day (almost all our filming done in one day) BLAP.
back home we meet a photographer and a writer/professor who are staying at the guest house as well. after talking they inform us of a music festival taking place and we join them and head over. we didnt really know wat to expect but i have never been around so many guys in my whole life. no exagerration it was lik 500 dudes and about 10 other girls all chaperoned by watchful partners. danny i decide to go backstage which we do so with no problem and once the band begins to play i decide to sit in front of the stage to take pics. THEYRE AWESOME! probably the best band i have seen live for a really long time, indian/cumbia.crazy fusion. we have a blast. later, i have to hide behind danny and beg him to stop being so social bc the men feel the need to circle around me lik vultures, but it was an awesome time.
today we went back to the best mall in town for the rich peeps of calcutta, and did some filming of the elite. abhijit informs us that the mall has also a school for elite children and so he ventures off to ask permission to film there and works some magic with the principle who is delighted to have us so he can show off his wonderful school. we are given a brochure which lists all the amenities-yoga room, meditation area, jacuzzi, pool, dance hall, etc. 2moro we go to film and interview a primary school child in hopes to paint a larger picture on primary school in the region.
we are everyday closer to our indian friends who we joke around with constantly and have an awesome time being around. after the mall we cross the street and are caught in the median between traffic (very common) and we try no to be run over. one of our indian friends
smokes a cigarette. a cab driver driving down one lane stops his car and yells at her for smoking a cigarette-because she is a girl. she stares at him and yells back wat the hell is your problem. tis a whole other world.
anyhoo, thats enough for this session (sorry if it was a little less entertaining than usual but these last couple days have been business!!) i have some crazy things planned for the next couple days which i am sure will give my mother a heart attack but ill just leave her on the edge of her seat for now! toodles!