Three young girls and a bottomless baby approached me yesterday near Delhi’s Lodi Garden with extended hands. The trio revealed to me that they have been working the streets since they, too were bottomless babies. When I asked if they ever had time to play the seven, ten and eleven-year-olds shook their heads "no."
Beggars and Bollywood
My first week in Delhi has been nothing short of exhausting. Each time I leave the house is pure vaudeville.
In order to catch a rickshaw I have to put on a Vegas hustler act. No joke - for 10 minutes I stand on a busy street corner and chat-up the drivers before getting one who will a) actually go to my destination AND b) agree to follow the law and use the meter.
I finally set-off in a rickshaw. At the first intersection, the chorus begins: “10 rupees, 10 rupees Madame.” When a group of 4-year-olds beggars approach me one minute feels like an hour. Barefoot and covered in dirt, they stare at me with their big baby-eyes. They paw at my pants and tap their puppy-dog lips....
The intersection quickly becomes a personal cross-road between my emotions and my intellect. A loud “no” will only encourage them more. I know that I can’t, in good taste, offer them a single rupee. After all, the money goes right into someone else’s pockets. If I offer them a meal, they often turn it down. But, they look so hopeless... What to do? So, I sit there paralyzed in close confrontation with my humanity.
I am exploring Indian efforts to stop child begging in my first TV piece. The deadline is fast approaching. I have been working tirelessly to find people who will speak honestly about this sensitive topic.
To do this story right, I can’t go around like an American Cowgirl on some sort of save-the-children crusade. Good & evil bleed together like tie-dye in India. Who is to say that begging is all bad? Is it not just another means of survival for people in a country where little support is given for social services? Point blank, this ain’t some Bollywood movie with classifiable heroes and villains...
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In lighter news, there is definite Bollywood flair to another freelance project I am working on. This one is for Public Radio International.
This weekend I interviewed Vijay, a Bollywood poster painter in a run-down arts studio in Darya Ganj, Delhi.
Finding Vijay’s studio wasn’t easy. Since there really aren’t addresses in many parts of Delhi, I had to rely on landmarks to find my way. It is impossible to find Vijay without tracking down the local Pan Wallah (person who sells betels and cigs) first. With a philosopher’s smirk and red-stained teeth he sends you on your way.... Below is a video I took of him in action. Not bad considering I shot it on my digital camera!
One hundred meters from the Pan Wallah was the art studio. It's hard to believe that this place was once like Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, a celeb magnet for Bollywod stars. Today tattered sheets dance from broken rafters. Crows scream overhead and chipped paintings are mixed into piles of colorful trash. Vijay equated the fall of his studio to the "sinking Titanic."
I went there this weekend because Vijay’s got a fight in him yet. He's found an innovative way to keep his classical art alive. And I find it freakin' fascinating. You'll have to hear the story for the scoop. I will put the link up once it airs! Meanwhile, enjoy some of the photos of Vijay's studio below.
Sweet scents saturated in stench. Soot soiled handshakes and toothless smiles masked by saffron viles. Ohhhh India....
Here are some visual snippets from my first evening shoot in Delhi. Figuring out how to navigate a camera through India’s chaotic street scene is like learning how to drive a car all over again. I was always one child-sized kick, spill or rickshaw side-sweep away from total equipment meltdown! Notice the snowflakes of smiles and seductive stares in the background of nearly every shot. I love it.
I met this beautiful group of children in Pushkar, India in 2007. This is what I meant about the incredible “ham for the cam,” stylings I’ve encountered when trying to shoot candid scenes here. Watching the youngsters' raw exposition of pride always makes me a little tearful...
In other news, I have been working on a TV piece on controversial eforts to curb child begging in India with CHILDLINE 1098 (a hotline that locals are encouraged to call to report young beggars). As I work away, it isn’t the language barrier, as I suspected, that has been my toughest challenge. In fact most diplomats and NGO workers speak better English than myself (The Queen's English, to be sure). The real issue is navigating the bureaucracy and unconventional work schedules.
Here is a play-by-play of my day today. Firstly, to get in touch with someone, anyone, from a specific government entity I had to dial out on a landline at least 3 times to ensure the number actually locked. Secondly, if I am ringing anyone I MUST have their cell number as they are never in the office, nor would anyone know their whereabouts or anticipated return... that meant I tell a few white lies to hook numbers we don't have on file. Thirdly, when I finally reach a warm voice (after dialing 10 times and letting it ring), more often than not, I find out the individual was just transferred horizontally to another directory/office.
One high ranking secretary joked with me today that he wakes up in the morning fully expecting his office to have disappeared. In fact, it had just happened as he was no longer in the Department of Child Labor... which I was hoping to reach. So, not only can I not get in touch with people to book them, but I cannot figure out who currently runs the department that I hope to speak with...
Did you ever play Telephone when you were younger? How 'bout Musical Chairs? This effort is the best of both....with a dash of the game Sorry for added spite.
It’s all part of the fun. Though, tomorrow it's on! Officials be warned, I’m turning full-on American debt-collector on you!
So much I have yet to share including updates on my pseudo-Bollywood adventure, my potential future as an outsourcee—earning Indian wages, no less (how's that for a table-tuner), and my upcoming journey to a small village 4 hours outisde of Delhi. All in due time..
AND as promised, I plan to finally post video of my first shoot in India first thing tomorrow when I score a high-speed internet hook-up!
This evening I took the Voice of America Bureau's PD170 Camera for a joy-ride. A long-line of beggars formed just outside a local Hindu Temple. Like a GPS system turned Lego, I positioned my camera before a steaming vat of orange-tinted beans. A golden-cheeked man shouted orders through his thick moustache to a pond of hungry eyes. He then drip dropped distorted lumps of orange into bowls held tightly by pairs of shaky hands... hands after hands after hands...
Most food-line grazers ignored my presence which is a big testament to the importance of this moment. In any other scenario, I'd have hordes of gyrating children hamming it up before the lens or the occasional tug on my jacket-sleeve ..."Please Madame, Will you take a picture of My Mother/Cousin/Uncle/Me." Capturing candid moments in India takes skill, cultural understanding, and patience.
Some of the cultural sensitivity I have to take into account has some political legs as well. I ended my lukewarm night of shooting by a stretch of road where a group of beggars gathered. As I attempted to record the chatter, men started throwing papers in my direction and yelling "no." I later realized they were conspiring in Hindi to break the camera as well. Their explanation for their resentment was quite clear. Media outlets have been shooting their actions in great numbers lately. As a result, the government is cracking down on beggars now more than ever before. In their eyes, I was just another cog in a government operation that grossly interfered with their livelihood...
I am going to string together some of this test-footage and post it on the site soon.
Meanwhile, I also went to an expat party this past weekend where I met some wonderful American foreign correspondents. A snap-shot is below. How grateful I am to be around such brilliant, gentle giants as I carve out my way in this chaotic culture...
Expat Party in Jor Bagh, Delhi (L to R): Washington Post's Emily Wax, Voice of America's Steve Herman, Me, Los Angeles Time's Mark Magnier
Here is a serene scene as captured from the back seat of a Silver Ambassador. A lone rickshaw schleeps along- a rare sampling of solitude in a city of 14 million.
After a16 hr journey from New York through Brussels, I arrived in Delhi. I glided past immigration with ease: my eye make-up smeared like a battered Vegas-showgirl's, my Jew-fro on the verge of becoming a ripe dread-lock and the smell of death blazing from my arm pits.
*STAMP
Another blemish marked my plump passport. Yet, this diplomatic ink-blotch is far from the nomadic pageantry of stamp’s past....
I left the Indian sub-continent on December of 2007 as a backpacker. I return in January of 2009 as a foreign correspondent in training. I carry my universe with me—two bag’s worth.
Shoving said bags into a Yellow & Black Taxi at the Delhi airport terminal, I proceeded to take a deep breath of India's magnetic midnight air. My tongue and lungs were, at once, coated by tar. A 3-legged dog hopped past me. To my right, two men warm their tired bones before a pile of burning garbage.
As my chortling cab criss-crossed the congested streets, I wondered: Why have I returned to this strange land filled with simultaneous expressions of love and filth - a place that has terrorized, teased and transfixed me? Why let the Shakespearian love affair take hold again? I found the answer this evening when browsing through old emails I sent during my first tour in Incredible !ndia...
10/2007
Dear Mom,
I think I fell in love with India yesterday. And this admission after being bumped, bent, and spun around as the sole foreigner on a 17 hr sleeper train ride.... I, of course, slept cuddling my bag as if the big knap-sack was my coffin. My snores hummed in tandem with the non-stop train's chugachugachugs. With each train stop the loud yells of "MASALA CHAI, MASALA CHAI" from slap-happy vendors patrolling the aisles would jolt my eyes open.
When the train stopped at the final station a group of ladies in radiating yellows, reds and greens started to sing and laugh --all holding hands. The women wore their leathered skin with pride and smiled at me with toothless grins.
Later that evening, I listened to the piercing singing of a moustached man. He darted his all knowing hazel eyes my way, turbaned-out in a ripe colored fruit basket. Women performed in the foreground. Their heads wiggled ever so slightly as they punched-out a subtle symphony, using only bangles and metal hangings from their bodies. When they weren’t erupting in creative music-play, their mouths spit fire. They softly wrapped their lips around sharp knife blades - contorting their bodies like birds in flight. To see such fragile forms, juggling fire and blades.... well, it opens my heart, Mom. It mirrors what I am starting to learn in this country: it is possible to be vulnerable and delicate in the face of such destructive forces. Flirt with fire-engage in a beautiful surrender.
Love,
Linda
Looking back at this declaration of love, I realize I have returned to India to capture this vulnerability. This time I will suck in the surrender and upon exhale reveal how it manifests itself in the political, social and economic fabric that is modern India...
My first TV assignment kicks-off Monday. With the global resonance of Slumdog Millionaire (or "poverty porn" as many call it here), I will explore one of the movie's major themes: corruption in India's network of child beggars. I will look specifically at the controversy over government efforts to ban child begging in a country where social services are limited and good cop/bad cop are often indistinguishable... I look forward to posting my latest works on this site in addition to regular multimedia--heavy updates.
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