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Contact Jim: jim@dollarhide.net For Previous Entries Click Here. Raining, Still Raining Mumbai. June 27th 4:00 AM. We have been in India for about 48 hours now. Yesterday we went on a reckie to a small village on the outskirts of Kalyan, north of Mumbai About an hour and a half drive. We scouted locations the entire afternoon. This is a village that the Tsunami sent 12 feet of water through last year. Most of the villagers lived in homes made of clay bricks. The floodwaters dissolved the bricks and the structures gave way, leaving many of the town homeless. Habitat stepped in and has built around 100 homes for the villagers. Some are still under construction. New construction methods will keep these homes from washing away in future floods.
No, this isn't a cow barn, it is a home, where someone lives. It has been raining almost non-stop since we got here. So far, we have observed the sun will break though the clouds during the mid-day period – and of course, that is not when we want to shoot. Never-the-less, even though we got back to our Marriott in Mumbai last night 11pm, we got up at 3:00 am and are headed back to the village. And it is raining, cats and dogs. But we will press on, and wait for sunshine. In all of our travels, each country has had a unique culture, which is to be expected. But I guess we have experience the most culture shock here in India. More people, more poverty, more noise, more aromas, more refuse and waste. More cars, more busses. More of the ubiquitous tut tuts – little three wheeled, covered motor-cycle-like things that transport one or two people at a time. The word tut tut, I guess comes from their horns, as the never cease honking them. And for that matter, everyone honks, constantly – the transport trucks and busses even have large signs painted on the rear that say HONK PLEASE.
A Tut Tut. In the evenings, the streets turn into a huge outdoor food festival. Small street vendors, open-air eateries, people cooking on the sidewalk. The aromas are intense and never-ending. What a sensory explosion. If you are not hungry, you’ll get hungry real fast. We should have smell-of-vision.
As I mentioned in my last post, we are here at the beginning of the Monsoon, and the first storm of the season came last week. It seems to be stagnant and we are concerned about getting good weather. The world, outside the US it seems, is absolutely nuts about football. In every country we have gone to, everyone sort of drops what they are doing to watch the World Cup. True here too. They are Soccer Nuts. In Amsterdam, on the most famous tourist street, Sam and Susan told me that when they rounded a corner onto this famous street, it was almost deserted, and then all of a sudden there was a tremendous roar – coming from the open doors of all the pubs and bars. No one was on the street because they were all watching Holland play in the World Cup.
A street vendor. No particular connection - just the sort of odd things you see on the streets. Notice the white girl listed in the pictures of pests. The poverty here seems to be everywhere. In Mumbai, there are people living in shanties, nearly everywhere there is any empty space. A mass sea of humanity. Even in the commercial districts, amidst office buildings, there are areas where people use whatever material is available to construct a frame. Then they cover the frame with whatever is available – plastic, tarps, tin, cardboard, discarded wood scraps. They are not single structures, but one adjoins the next, to the next, to the next. These structures cover huge fields in places. And to the passing observer, there seems to be no paths or walkways between any of them.
Inside these shanties, people live on the dirt, with no plumbing of course. Building fires to cook on, with no stoves or vents. And everywhere we look, people sleep on stone, slate or dirt floors, with only a sheet or blanket. A simple mattress seems to be a luxury beyond the reach of these poor people. I can’t imagine what would happen if this level of poverty were thrust upon the United States. We have checked out of the Marriott and are leaving our comfort zone for a smaller hotel close to our production site, to eliminate the 3-4 hour transit each day. We’re going to Kalyan, to check into a small hotel, and then out to the village and we are going to wait it out (the rain). As we have gone through this project, we have tried to do just that. Wait it out for the sun. In trying to create a look that will have continuity from shot to shot, country to country, I decided early on to try to shoot in direct sun in early or late hours of the day. Thus putting natural catch-lights in people eyes, and having the colors and textures of the locale vivid.
5:30 PM. At 7:00 am we checked into the hotel in Kalyan and never left. It has been raining constantly all day. We slept, had lunch, slept some more, and are not about to venture out into the streets to find an internet café. We are the only fair faces in this city. There are no tourists here. The hotel owner is a Rotarian and I told him of my Rotarian friends back in the US. He has gone out of his way to take care of us. Cows. As you know, they are sacred in India – at least that is what I remember. Anyway, they are allowed to wander. A herd of them just came down our street in front of our hotel. It is common to see them cross a street, a boulevard, even a freeway – stopping all traffic while they take their sweet time going wherever they are headed.
So here we are in the middle of a monsoon, hoping for sunshine. Now, where’s my Starbucks. Noon, June 28th. It rained into the night, and we got up at 5:00 am and we could see stars in the sky. So we all loaded up and headed to the site. As our luck would have it, the clouds rolled in and we spent three hours waiting for the sun. We did get one good shot, but have returned to the hotel for our mid-day break. (we don’t shoot in the middle of the day, as the light is not good on the faces). We went back at 3 pm and tried again. Only getting one shot.
7:00 am, June 29th. We woke up to rain again. Totally socked-in gray skies. The crew is in the lobby, all having had coffee, and no one is trying to go back to sleep. In the last 12 hours I have become ill, some sort of stomach problem. But I'll press on. The crew is supportive. Waiting on the sun . . .
Friday, June 30th. Still Raining. Stuck in a Monsoon. Habitat is considering sending us to the Philippines or Thailand to find some dry ground. Going stir crazy here. One restuarant in the hotel, nowhere else to go. Cabin fever going wild. Saturday, 7:30 pm. Still raining. Please get us out of here (or let the sun shine).
Jim, Susan and Sam |
Setting up a shot, only to wait for the sun. 
