I got to Philadelphia on September 1st, 2009.
I know after a while remembering dates like this feels truly cheesy and overloaded.
But some dates just need to be given the space to be remembered more than others.
After having finished 'Four Women and a Room' and getting a 'permanent/government' job at what is called one of the most well reputed media institutes in India, life could have just been like that. Grounded. I could have done more documentaries. Pretended a bit more. The way I had done in the past. With every new film, I had felt more and more uncomfortable with the idea of pointing the camera for my purposes. I tried 'participatory' work soon to discover that though very relevant, it cannot escape questions of power and issues of morality in totality.
And so I was with a one way ticket on a plane to Paris. My first visit to the US.
Charles de Gaulle Airport is like a true monument in the sense where a
monument stands up purely for its 'monumenatlity' and nothing else.
It cannot stand for concepts of 'functionality' But goddam this is no war memorial. It is an airport. There are some hundreds of strangely connected terminals that take hours to get to and get from. And I spent some deadly eight hours there without being able to get hands on a simple phone card with which I could kill time.
Anyway, on the Paris to Philadelphia flight I sit next to a fellow Indian who is grinning all through. He is too happy because the flight attendant has just called us a 'family'. He has no idea how he bugs me. It was after landing, on my way home, I was to realize the importance of being discreet and not letting my irritation show through. He was sweet as a pie and lugged my 26kg bag only to park me in the car and go and pull his stuff. Thank you..:)
As the plane takes off, he is shifting in his chair to catch a picture of Eiffel Tower.
Disappointed at not being able to do that, he thrusts the camera in my face and takes a picture of himself.
I reach home to a person I have never met before and feel at home.
Absolutely. In the next few days, I go around Philly, window shopping ( my third love) and street hopping. I go to a feature shoot on my first weekend here. Join classes the very next day and as the weeks pass, my little diary that contains a list of works I see and people I meet just grows and grows and grows.
Tuesday is a day of postings. I absolutely love writing 'The Eiffel and the Itinerant'. And today see some exquisite e-literature concepts with Rod.
Revisit Hiroshima Mon Amour and fall in love again.
Am sure that in the next few months my ideas about why I am here and where I want to go shall change. But at the moment this opportunity to just be and see is great.
Am just finding it a bit hard to fit in my Salsa classes...with so many lovely old houses converted to dance studios, that's something I would die if I miss.
