the humming baba

so, lets begin with yesterday. awake before sunrise, no alarm, but just because we can. film the sunrise, meditate, hang out. breakfast isnt available until 8 am so DB and i decide to take a trip to the fruit market and shoot some stuff. people come up to us and keep asking if i am from sweden. b/c Bush is an asshole i say yes. we get back for breakfast and our little bobble head friend asks us if we would lik some complex to go with our eggs. i say yes-as usual not knowing wat im getting myself into, while a more cautious mr. bull inquires as to wat exactly "complex" is. he does this by saying complex to him over and over with different inflections. finally we discover complex means cereal and it is served to us with warm milk. wat a sketchy surprise.

we meet our team and head out for our first day to the school in the slums to meet the young girl who we are basing our story on. we are greeted by tiny people with giant black eyes and smiling faces. they start dancing in the street in front of the tiny school and singing songs for us in english (which we are later told) and its about all the ways to cook a banana...i think this is awesome as i love bananas and would like to know all the different ways to cook them. (insert obvious joke here for dirty minded people)
the kids give us food and we all sit on the floor and eat some tasties with our hands, later they give us each a card which they colored themselves and it says welcome in english. my heart=jello and i go in for a giant group hug., after we follow our girl to her home in the slum which equals the size of your standard walk-in closet. 8 people call this space home and the people living inside of it could not be more welcoming or happy to have us over. all in all a wonderful experience. shooting starts monday.
today: we take a long adventure to get some rupees and end up taking pictures of ourselves to pass the time while our indian counter parts change up some doesky. we are givin free reign to roam one block in each direction so as not to get lost and i encounter a 4ft tall ancient little lady person who stares into my eyes smiling and says something to me in bengali for about 2 minutes, im pretty sure she was teaching me a life lesson, sharing the ancient wisdoms of existence...our energies exchange and i feel much better as a person in general.
then, we venture over to the ganges where one of the best days in the history of lauren takes place. we immediatly stumble upon a hindi death right ceremony where i am told the father of a family has just passed away and so the eldest brother is taking his place as leader of the family. while danny films two men who chant over a flame and some flowers, i film the son who is getting his head and beard shaved and is preparing to bathe himself in the river. after about 20 minutes of journalistic charm (harassment) we venture to the opening of the river which consists of a large staircase into the water. i immediatly take off my shoes without a question, roll up my pants and head in to the water against the wishes of our indian escorts who tell me it might be risky to film. "here, you can walk to the balcony and shoot from there" response: "abhijit,......uhh....look....im going in. theres no other option. you can watch from the balcony.", wat proceeded was probably the best video i will ever get for a long time at the expense of potentially the coolest stills i have taken on this trip thus far. i am torn, video vs still. but im here to do my job. documentary. after i am dragged from the water, i fall victim to a speech about caution when filming. dood. watch the video, then we can have watever conversation you desire.
after lunch, we then go to the next coolest thing ever, fish market/chicken market= animal rights activist's hell. chicken coops filled with way to many chickens all sticking out their head begging me to set them free. next to them a man chops off their heads and plucks out the feathers. foreplay for my camera. probably never been so happy to see blood spewing from
the headless body of a chicken-all to the horror of our innocent indian friends. but dont be confused, these people are the reason we are able to do or see anything we have filmed- they are awesome.
exhausted from the day, we end our trip at the top shopping mall in calcutta where im sure the people really appreciated how i smell, and i wonder to myself if any of these people have ever bathed in the ganges....