pictures: family on a motorcycle! (in case you didn't believe me), beggar with a naked baby (it's never for sure if the baby belongs to the beggar, lots of poor communities send people out to beg and give them children b/c they get more money that way), moment between impatient woman and bratling little boy at the bus stop.
first of all, everyone should check out this article in the nytimes about hollywood trying to break in to the bollywood market. very interesting.
this has been a rather eventful, extremely up-down week for me. on monday, i officially quit my "internship" with epigram -- i've started dancing everyday, 10-12ish, and then on mon/weds/fri i still do yoga from about 12:30-1:30, and after all of that on monday the idea of driving for two hours to do office work/nothing for six and then another two hours to come back late at night just felt overwhelmingly not worth it so i didn't go and haven't been back since - i gave them my apologies/resignation etc on tuesday.
dance has been absolutely incredible -- i'm going to this studio run by Habiba, a bollywood legend who has choreographed over 500 films - and, unlike most studios with famous choreographers names above the door, habiba has basically retired from most of her film work/travelling, so she comes and watches class most days. when she shows up everyone stops dancing/stretching/whatever to go and touch her feet ( a sign of respect) and then she sits on the side of the studio yelling at people and giving corrections from the sides for the rest of class. it's funny and fantastic. it took me a few days to get the hang of things and now i am just LOVING class every day. first of all, it's been more than 2 years since i've attended dance classes regularly, and second, bollywood dancing is just so much fun. it's cheesy and light and i can't help but smile the entire time i'm going through the moves (a big shift for those of you who have seen me perform before...usually i never smile - but here i can't help it i just grin like a buffoon the whole time). i think ariadna is going to come to class next week and record some of the routines i learn so that i can have them to remember and post them on the internet for my embarrassment and everyone elses enjoyment/amusement.
another odd thing about dancing here: in the states, i ALWAYS feel inadequate and insecure during most dance classes because of my lack of ballet technique, it's considered standard in the states and expected that you have a certain level of technique - and here i'm in a culture where it is rare for anyone to have any ballet training at all, i feel self concious during class b/c of all the little ways in which the technique i do have comes out. i always make fun of ballerinas who try and do hip hop (they can't help having technique and it comes out all funny when they try and dance hard), and that's the exact problem i'm having here -- all my western ballet and hip hop makes it hard for my style to look right doing the bollywood moves. but i'm having a blast anyway and that's what matters.
so that's the up for the week - moving on to the down: des and ariadna can't go to goa this weekend b/c ariadna's friend in delhi is going to go out of town soon so they're going to delhi this weekend instead. and not just forthe weekend - they're going friday-weds. which is a long time. and that not only leaves me alone for the weekend (during which there's no dance), that also means that i probably won't get to see goa at all (unless i go by myself this weekend - my time here is running out!). so that sucks. hopefully i'll find something to do with the time.
another good thing is that as the end of my time here nears, i'm finally getting good at creating activities for myself/being in mumbai - i'm determined not to leave any of those things that i wanted to do during my time here undone and watching the days go by on the calendar is really motivating me to get off my ass and make things happen for myself. i'm finally hassling the program coordinators into helping me tie all those loose ends together and hopefully i'll leave here feeling good about the way i spent the last two months.
it's been a really eventful and interesting summer - hopefully i can pick up the pace to cram in as much stuff as possible before heading back into the real world.
- h
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