Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Indtalian food. Yum.
You knew it had to come. This is the morning I woke up and said to myself: "I've really had it with Indian food." Here's what I'm having for lunch:
I'll recover soon enough, though.
Hey! I got the loveliest letter from the loveliest lady, Ms. Eloise Pretorius, one of the great talents of South African radio. She asks of my trip to India:
"Is it wonderful?"
Yes. All the time. Even when it isn't, it is.
"What's radio like in India?"
If I came in with any assumptions that I'd be The Great Wise South African with everything to teach and nothing to learn, I was wrong. India has one of this planet's hottest media industries. Rules are being rewritten here. Of course, this has only made the mission more exciting -- I get to work with enormously talented people in a market so big I've lost fingers and toes to count the millions of listeners on! Nothing but yay, hey? Come see!
"Are you working hard?"
I try to avoid it whenever I can.
"How's your accommodation?"
When it's been good it's been very, very good, and when it's been bad it's been, well, um.... There was this one hotel in a little rural town outside Calcutta that David Lynch would love to take a camera to. But I'm grateful for all of it; I tend to think that we should live each day searching for stories to tell. And I've certainly gathered a few of those.
"What are the people like?"
Let's not forget that I have the foreigner's advantage and most people seem endeared by my lostness. People tend to be nice to me.
Somebody back home asked me this morning: are the Indian people especially special? Especially benevolent? Especially kind? Good questions all.
A mindset of mutual acceptance and a zen-like calm is often mentioned in reference to Indian people in general, and I can't say it's not supported by what I've seen and experienced -- Mumbai traffic would drive most people to beat each other up with lead pipes, but it doesn't. I sometimes find the general unwillingness to become infuriated damn infuriating.
Still, I think general differences in the nature of people in any part of the world -- cold Englishmen, humourless Germans, dumb Americans, saucy South Americans -- are ultimately superficial.
Have you ever watched The Muppets Take Manhattan? If you haven't, drop everything and track down a copy. There's a very special bit of dialogue from Pete, the owner of a New York diner. It's stuck with me since I saw the movie at age four. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Age four. I want to get it right, so I'm pulling this quote off imdb.com:
"Big city, hmm? Live. Work, huh? But only peoples. Peoples is peoples. No is buildings. Is tomatoes, huh? Is peoples, is dancing, is music, is potatoes. So, peoples is peoples. Okay?"
It gave me a lump in the throat back then, and it still does now. Peoples is peoples. Dark and light. Good and bad. Smelly and nice-smellin'. Complex, wonderful, horrible, unfathomable, damn predictable, but above all, endlessly entertaining. Each an individual.
Peoples is peoples.
Over here, though, they tend to be brown. Like me.
www.levdavid.com
I'll recover soon enough, though.
Hey! I got the loveliest letter from the loveliest lady, Ms. Eloise Pretorius, one of the great talents of South African radio. She asks of my trip to India:
"Is it wonderful?"
Yes. All the time. Even when it isn't, it is.
"What's radio like in India?"
If I came in with any assumptions that I'd be The Great Wise South African with everything to teach and nothing to learn, I was wrong. India has one of this planet's hottest media industries. Rules are being rewritten here. Of course, this has only made the mission more exciting -- I get to work with enormously talented people in a market so big I've lost fingers and toes to count the millions of listeners on! Nothing but yay, hey? Come see!
"Are you working hard?"
I try to avoid it whenever I can.
"How's your accommodation?"
When it's been good it's been very, very good, and when it's been bad it's been, well, um.... There was this one hotel in a little rural town outside Calcutta that David Lynch would love to take a camera to. But I'm grateful for all of it; I tend to think that we should live each day searching for stories to tell. And I've certainly gathered a few of those.
"What are the people like?"
Let's not forget that I have the foreigner's advantage and most people seem endeared by my lostness. People tend to be nice to me.
Somebody back home asked me this morning: are the Indian people especially special? Especially benevolent? Especially kind? Good questions all.
A mindset of mutual acceptance and a zen-like calm is often mentioned in reference to Indian people in general, and I can't say it's not supported by what I've seen and experienced -- Mumbai traffic would drive most people to beat each other up with lead pipes, but it doesn't. I sometimes find the general unwillingness to become infuriated damn infuriating.
Still, I think general differences in the nature of people in any part of the world -- cold Englishmen, humourless Germans, dumb Americans, saucy South Americans -- are ultimately superficial.
Have you ever watched The Muppets Take Manhattan? If you haven't, drop everything and track down a copy. There's a very special bit of dialogue from Pete, the owner of a New York diner. It's stuck with me since I saw the movie at age four. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Age four. I want to get it right, so I'm pulling this quote off imdb.com:
"Big city, hmm? Live. Work, huh? But only peoples. Peoples is peoples. No is buildings. Is tomatoes, huh? Is peoples, is dancing, is music, is potatoes. So, peoples is peoples. Okay?"
It gave me a lump in the throat back then, and it still does now. Peoples is peoples. Dark and light. Good and bad. Smelly and nice-smellin'. Complex, wonderful, horrible, unfathomable, damn predictable, but above all, endlessly entertaining. Each an individual.
Peoples is peoples.
Over here, though, they tend to be brown. Like me.
www.levdavid.com
