Production: Day 2

Our first day in Hyderabad was guaranteed to be a long one, because we had to do 95% of our remaining India preproduction by the time we went to sleep that night.

Since the Green Park is a hotel meant primarily for businessmen, a breakfast buffet was included. I know a buffet isn't the best way to taste local cuisine, but I saw it as a great compromise between blindly ordering from a menu (not knowing what to expect when the server brought the food) and chickening out with Western food. Plus, buffets allow for sampling, which greatly decreases the risk and embarrassment of Unpleasant First Bite Face (and since we were eating with Rob, I was a little more aware of this). I scooped small, neat piles of rice and vegetable dishes, like upma and bisi bele bath onto my plate, along with corn and mutton idly.

A van was sent to pick us up at the hotel and take the three of us to the Andhra Pradesh Productivity Council's Hyderabad headquarters, which also house the CMU Information Centre and some computer companies. We had to take all of our equipment with us, but by this time we were reasonably comfortable lugging everything around. Of course, as soon as we approached the van, the driver wordlessly took everything out of our hands to load it into the back. He didn't make eye contact, and didn't even look up when I thanked him. It's unnerving to be served like that, and I don't think I can fully explain how every new instance of it made me so uncomfortable.

Each time we sat down in a vehicle, we had a new experience of what it was like to get around India. The drivers that had been arranged for us seemed to fit into a hierarchy based on the level of terror induced by the ride. Our driver this morning was the same we had the previous night on the trip from the airport, so the ride was relatively smooth and stops were gentle. At the time, of course, it felt like he was weaving crazily and stopping just short of ramming us into idling cars. The traffic in Hyderabad was jam-packed, and we saw how motorcycles and scooters were preferable to larger vehicles. On some roads, they made up 2/3 of the traffic, and even when the lights were red, motorcycles jockeyed for a slightly closer position. They were like buzzing insects, constantly moving. Some intersections had traffic police stationed in kiosks to monitor violations, but we had to wonder how they would be able to catch someone in that kind of traffic (as it turns out, cameras and e-tickets). Pursuit would be nearly impossible.

Upon arriving at the APPC building, we were greeted and given bouquets of roses again. Then we were given a tour of the place, which served as our first round of location scouting so we could get all of the shots we needed (especially the India shots that were supposed to look like somewhere other than the CMUIC). The building was five or six stories tall (the top two floors were unfinished) with one or two companies on each floor. The main floor, where the APPC is located, has one large office with a few smaller offices and alcoves with desks in them for some of the staff. The rest of the employees worked at rows of desks with computers on them. We were introduced to every single person working there--about 25-30 in all.

Have you ever been introduced to thirty people, one at a time? It's an odd experience. There was little hope that we'd remember even a fraction of the names we were told, but it was helpful for them to see us so they wouldn't wonder what we were doing in their building for the rest of the week. They were gracious and welcoming, even though Aaron and I were just two white people with some camera equipment, suddenly standing in an office building in India.

Next we sat down with two of the APPC's administrators to talk about the Council's mission and goals, which was one of the most interesting conversations I've ever had because we learned so much about India in general and the state of Andhra Pradesh in particular. Much of what the APPC does is linked to economic and entrepreneurial development, but there's a huge focus on the development of human resources, especially in terms of education. Call me a nerd, but I can listen to people discuss education all day long, especially over cookies and Fanta orange.

In our discussions of Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad, we were told that the region has excellent (and very spicy) food. We had lunch at a restaurant called Southern Spice, and the name alone had me panicking a little. Here we go, I thought. A spicy meal in India is going to make me cry, and that's going to be really embarrassing. Even though the menus are printed in English, our companions spoke English, and the waitstaff seemed to have a good command of English, ordering was tricky because most items were labeled with a name and a very simple explanation that didn't reveal much about what was actually in the food. Spice was never mentioned. Ingredients remained a mystery.

For the picky and non-adventurous, it was a gamble. Rob asked about some fish on the menu. "What's the sauce like?" he asked. "Is it spicy?"

"Not too spicy," our waiter said. Unfortunately, that was his default answer. Rob asked them to make the fish without any sauce on it. The waiter nodded.

Aaron and I were a little more conflicted in our ordering, as Aaron is both slightly picky and not-too-adventurous. He was also still quite concerned about getting sick. I had stupidly adopted a "NOTHING CAN HURT ME!" attitude, but that didn't help me understand what any of the menu items were. We asked the waiters a lot of questions. We struggled with the unclear answers. In the end, we settled on Chinese food, which seems to be quite popular in India.

When our food came, Rob let us try his fish, which was in a mildly spicy sauce. We shared our chicken, which was in a red, burn-your-lips-off spicy sauce that made Rob cry a little. I thought he must be exaggerating, but the initial bite coated my tongue in a blanket of hot. Unlike other spicy food I've suffered through, however, this wasn't about pain--it was just heat, and it faded rather quickly. In fact, the sauce would have been delicious, had it not also been chock-full of cilantro leaves. Oh, the soap-tasting humanity. I filled up on vegetarian soup and chicken fried rice instead.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the CMUIC for preproduction. We rearranged the furniture and displayed the CMU paraphernalia Rob had brought with him, including some banners, pennants, and a new clock. A light kit had been rented for us, so we blocked out our shots and figured out how to make the best use of the room's two windows, the fluorescent fixtures and the diffused incandescents in the kit lights. Since Rob had to meet with some students regarding CMU's graduate programs, we were shuffled over to Dr. Reddi's office to finalize our shot list and make a list of the props we'd need to buy that night so we could shoot the next day.

And then Aaron had an unfortunate post-meal incident I cannot discuss. I will only say that we were prepared.

As the afternoon wore on into the evening, Rob and Vinay (the CMUIC advisor) were ready to take us shopping for props. Our task was to transform the slightly bland and mildly industrial CMUIC into a prospective student's living room, where she would discuss her education options with her parents. We had a couch, two chairs, and a glass coffee table to work with, so we set out to the mall with a list that included curtains, a rug, a vase, a lamp, and some throw pillows.

The mall was like a very large department store, spanning several floors of the building and divided into merchandise categories. We had to go through security scanners to enter the building (with, once again, a separate curtained-off area for women). In a country that constantly challenges the senses, the mall was another form of sensory overload: the displays were bright and crammed with merchandise; the music was loud, pulsating; salespeople wove their way into the crowds; and the colors were exaggeratedly bright. It was like the vision of consumerism I'd first noticed growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s had been reanimated, but with a foreign flavor. There was so much there, screaming to be purchased, and crowds of people with that adrenaline-infused, slightly glassy stare of want glinting in their eyes.

We were here on business, though, so I couldn't let myself get distracted by every fascinating detail. I couldn't buy anything for myself (or for others--I so badly wanted to find the perfect turquoise sari for Allison Joseph). And even though we had a list, a set of directives guiding us through the towering displays and labyrinthine halls of stuff, it took us forever to find the right items. We had to try to make an office look like a home, but we also had to think about the way these props would photograph. We had to think about matching color and pattern but also textures, reflectivity, saturation, the scale of the pattern in relation to other elements. It's definitely not how we normally think about furnishings.

Somewhere between one store and the next, I had developed a strange rash on my arm. It was a little red, a little bumpy, and a little itchy--and unlike any contact dermatitis I had ever had. It was only on one arm, so I went to the restroom to wash it and (maybe) prevent it from spreading. All I needed was to wake up in the morning with my left arm red, swollen to twice its normal size, and completely unusable. We finished up at the mall and had the driver take us to a pharmacy, since I had somehow neglected to pack any kind of Benadryl in my gigantic toiletry/first-aid kit.

The pharmacy was marked with a green plus sign, like the ones I had grown accustomed to (but had never visited) in Rome. It was tiny, with most merchandise behind the counter and two pharmacy clerks there to help. I was very grateful to have Vinay with us, since the pharmacist spoke Telugu and I didn't recognize the brands on the shelves. I held up my arm to show the pharmacist, and he gave me a tube of something called Fourderm. It was a white cream and smelled vaguely medicinal (I still can't figure out what it reminds me of), but it didn't contain hydrocortisone. I paid my rupees and fervently hoped I wouldn't have a bad reaction to the cream, since my skin does not act like other people's skin. In fact, my skin sometimes decides to react to things that were once safe, like laundry detergent and certain fabrics. I can only imagine what my immune system was going through.

By this time, it had been dark for hours and I was ready to be in a quiet place, alone. But first we had to go back to the CMUIC to set up the props for the living room scene, and we managed to do that in about 20 minutes. I think we were all ready to go back to the hotel, to come up for air. None of us had even eaten dinner, because we had all been so busy working on the video project (and Rob and Vinay had meetings with students).

At least the work was getting done.

Home Sweet Hotel

After our trip to Elephanta Island, we had a small chunk of free time to do with what we wished. As excited as we were to see Mumbai, we were even more excited to get better acquainted with our expensive hotel room. While Biplab headed out to a phone store to get help with repairing the damage from the puddle encounter and Rob walked around Mumbai to get souvenirs, we dragged ourselves into the elevator and instantly slumped against the walls.

While we were gone, the bed had been made and dressed up with throw pillows:

Somehow, this is one of the only pictures we managed to take of our hotel room. I guess we were too busy thinking about video production to bother documenting what the room was like. I promptly messed up the bed by collapsing, fully clothed, into the center of it. Aaron downloaded pictures and footage from the cameras onto his laptop and made the first of his video-diary entries (which he did not manage to keep up with over the course of the trip because by the end of each day we were just too tired). We were supposed to have about 45 minutes, so it wasn't long enough to take a real nap and feel rested.

For as upscale as the hotel is, our room was relatively plain. It was nice. It was clean. But, for the most part, the room wasn't overly spectacular, for which I was grateful. I always feel uncomfortable in fancy places, like I'm underdressed, outclassed, and clearly an outsider who will be commanded to leave once someone in power notices I'm there. Thankfully, our room didn't make me feel this way because we were staying in the Tower wing rather than the Palace wing. Our main indulgence was that we had a sea-view room rather than a city-view room.

No joke, this hotel is a fancy-pants place for rich tourists, politicians, celebrities, royalty, and anyone else who expects luxury. The Obamas stayed here. Oprah stayed here. John Lennon stayed here. And I understand why they stayed at the Taj, how if you're going to stay in Mumbai, this hotel is unquestionably the place to stay.

But the whole time we were there, I felt very conflicted about staying in such a lavish hotel. I didn't fully belong there, but I also didn't really want to belong there. I won't deny that I've been fortunate in my life, and have benefited from a position of privilege (especially concerning race, educational opportunities, and employment). I'd like to think, however, that even with my inborn and acquired privilege, I have managed not to take it completely for granted or devolve into an entitled, ungrateful wench (well, I hope so, anyway). I'm not great at being grateful, but I try.

That first day, I was grateful for the quiet of our room. Clean sheets. Bottled water. Privacy, if I thought I wanted or needed it. Distance--not only from the restless clamor of the city, but also from my life back home, from everything familiar, from the petty things I think about on a day to day basis. I was also grateful that I was having this experience at all, and that I was lucky enough to be sharing it with Aaron.

Physiological needs did make themselves more apparent in India, though, and we both realized that it had been almost 12 hours since our last real meal (we had eaten trail mix bars sometime between the Gateway and the rooftop shoots). We were supposed to have dinner with Rob and Biplab when they returned from their shopping. We went back to the lobby to wait for them. And we waited. One hour passed, then two. Ordinarily, this is the kind of situation we would have been peeved about back home. Feeling very hungry and sleep deprived, and then having to wait longer than expected for other people to show up so we could finally eat? Somehow, the situation didn't really even matter to us. We felt the hunger, we felt tired, but we also were content to have a comfortable place to sit.

Rob came through the revolving doors, without Biplab, explaining that the damaged phone was proving more difficult to fix than anticipated. In fact, the phone was currently in pieces at a nearby shop, being meticulously dried and inspected, so Biplab had said for us to go ahead without him. We asked the front desk for a recommendation regarding the restaurants in the hotel, specifying that we were looking for options other than Indian food (Rob's stipulation) and that it couldn't be too expensive or formal (a concern for all of us). We were told to go to the Sea Lounge, one of the casual-dining restaurants that serves high tea and some American/European food.

I wanted to experience everything I could while in India. But after the long day we had, I didn't feel too guilty ordering a safe, boring chicken BLT burger and fries. Aaron and Rob both ordered fish and chips. We sat in a quiet, air conditioned restaurant staffed by impeccably uniformed wait staff. We were three Americans waiting for a friend to join us. We could have been anywhere in the world, really.

Biplab couldn't stay for dinner because he planned to stay at his sister's home that night, and it was a two-hour ride from our hotel, even though it was somewhere in Mumbai. I had the terrible realization that this would quite possibly be the last time I would see Biplab in person. We had only known him for a day, but it had been so much less stressful and also enlightening because he was so knowledgeable, articulate, and open to answering all of my questions about India.

By the time our food arrived, Biplab had left and I was practically slapping myself to stay awake so as to avoid one of those embarassing "I literally fell asleep face-down in my plate of food" moments we've all had as small children (and most of our parents have the pictures to prove it). Rob told us he planned to go back to Elephanta Island so he could visit the caves; we decided that we'd spend the day walking around Mumbai, since this would be our only chance to see any of the city before flying to Hyderabad in the evening.

I was also ready to get closer to India itself: to see the traffic, talk to strangers, see what we could. I needed to get out of the hotel and walk down the street because I needed some grit--I didn't want to remember Mumbai just as it was inside the Taj because that isn't the Mumbai most Indians see or experience. I needed to feel more than just safe and comfortable. I knew India would teach me about wealth, privilege, class, race, culture, and power. It was up to me not to flinch.

Breakfast of Indians

We got up around 6:30 on what was, somehow, January 16th. It felt like we had lost about a week in transit, so it was disorienting to know that it was, in fact, Monday and that we would complete a significant portion of our production that day.

One of the benefits of being so sleep deprived and traveling through so many time zones is that when you do finally sleep, it is immensely restorative. Giving in to the exhaustion and jetlag was not an option, anyway, since we had so much to do.

We had a "seaview" room on the 4th floor with our own screened-in balcony overlooking the Gateway of India and the Arabian Sea, and this fact made it extremely pleasant to wake up in the morning. This was our first view of Mumbai in the daylight:

Smoggy but stunning!

Getting ready involved slathering ourselves with both sunscreen and mosquito repellent, dressing in long sleeves and pants, and putting on shoes with good traction, since we would spend a portion of the day on a boat and a few hours on an island. I pulled a George Costanza and wore my Timberlands (and yes, they did make me look taller).

At 7:00, we went downstairs to meet Rob and our Indian celebrity host for the video, Biplab Ganguli. We needed to go over portions of the script and plan out how, where, and when we would be shooting that day, and make sure that we were ready (more on that in subsequent posts). We met at Shamiana, the "coffee shop" (casual-dining restaurant) right off the lobby, for a buffet-style breakfast. This was our first encounter with Indian food, and we were nervous because we didn't know what to expect from an Indian breakfast. Everything was labeled, but that didn't really help because we still didn't know what was in it, whether it was savory or sweet, or even how it should be eaten (Was it finger-food? Should we use silverware?).

Here's someone else's slightly blurry picture of the restaurant. Shamiana is a kind of tent used for weddings, parties, and feasts, so the fabric draped around the light fixture is meant to evoke that.

I've always considered myself a relatively adventurous eater, and when I'm in a foreign country, I figure I should take my chances and eat the local food. I have had a few bad experiences from not knowing the language, most notably in Naples, when I ordered a thin-crust pizza only knowing three out of four toppings. Ten years later, I still know that "alici" are anchovies. In India, my biggest fears were spiciness and improperly washed produce. The former was something I could deal with; the latter would hamper our production schedule, and we couldn't have that.

Aaron is definitely not an adventurous eater. He isn't picky, exactly, he just has a strong sense of what he likes (and dislikes) and tends not to deviate from that. I make fun of him because every time we eat at Big Boy, he orders fish and chips. He looks at the menu, but he always orders the same thing. He also needs to know what ingredients are in his food, in case there's one or more ingredients he strongly dislikes--a sentiment I share, to a certain extent (we'll talk about cilantro, anise, and cloves in a future post). Like me, though, his biggest concern was illness, since we had read on numerous websites that even in upscale restaurants, there was still the possibility of contracting an illness from the water used in food preparation.

There were some typical American breakfast foods on the buffet: French toast, home fries, eggs, chicken sausage, bacon, oatmeal, cold cereal, and fresh fruit. Rob and Aaron seemed to stick to the familiar.  I took a little bit of everything and ate with gusto, because once I started eating I realized just how hungry I was.

Everything I ate was delicious (and this was by no means the tastiest meal we had). I had banana sheera, which was sweet and kind of like oatmeal, but smoother and thicker. I ate something crusted with some kind of legume. The chicken sausage had really interesting spices in it--a faint burn at first, and then a second wave of flavor. We drank fresh-squeezed juice. I joined the clean plate club. I just wish I had brought a pen with me to write down the names of the things I ate, because I'd love to get an Indian cookbook and make some of the dishes here.

A lot of our dining experiences in India involved filling our plates with unfamiliar foods, taking a test bite, letting all of the flavors and textures register for a minute, and (usually) digging in eagerly. Everything was an experiment.