The End of November

Sunset from the deck of the Gadda da Vida

It's the end of my third month in India. Since the monsoon ended the weather has been steady every day. 85-95º F all the time day and night. Most sunsets are nice, at least when I've had the chance to see them which is mostly on Sunday afternoons. The best beer in the place is locally brewed Heineken, in my humble opinion, served with peanuts and other little crunchy snacks, both covered with a pepper curry seasoning. I did manage to mistake a chili pepper for a green bean once. A fair amount of beer was required to counteract that. I was also offered sugar cane juice as an antidote which I guess worked as well as the beer. The bar at the Novatel, called Gadda da Vida (Hello, Iron Butterfly fans everywhere!) is all outdoors now, as seen above in the sunset photo.

Post Monsoon

Monsoon

When the monsoon ended, they took down all the covers over the outdoor areas. I had thought this was construction, but now I see that lots of places are simply covered against the rains and the covers come off when the rain stops. This is true all over town. It has been interesting to watch all these places open up on rooftops all over town and along the sea. I guess it won't rain again until next July.


The more I look at India the more I see it as a crazy mash-up rather than just a place that is disorganized. People don't care about continuity or "how it looks" like we do. They just do what is required to get along and if that means old guys with beards ride scooters with plastic Harley helmets perched on their heads, well that was the way for this fellow to get across town and off he went, dodging the auto-ricks, cars, busses, and yes, elephants with precision that only motorcycle racers have in the USA.



The day after Diwali ended there was a big gathering outside my hotel to celebrate yet another holiday, one primarily celebrated by people from the state of Bihar who have moved to Mumbai. It has become politicized because the government won't recognize it in the state of Maharashtra, so the celebrants gather in huge groups to oppose the policy and have music and religious rituals and speeches both spritual and political. Some celebrities appear. Anyway, they set up this huge lighted runway down the lane next to the hotel and then this massive stage bang up against the hotel retaining wall and just here there were what looked to me like 50,000 people on the beach. They stayed all night as part of the ritual is to go into the sea and stay there until dawn. It was full on. All cleared away the next day.

Here's this week's billboard, featuring the star of the film I'm working on in a double role, which is a bit of a speciality for him. This is a portable sign rolled into one of the big intersections on my way to work. The product is a kind of biscuit (cookie) I think. I'm not sure what the subtext is here…


So, on to December and the first weeks of actually shooting the film!