Suckale Film Production

I wish you all a happy new year and may your wishes and all your projects become true!!

Impressions for a new project  -  part 3

After a beginning euphoria, several weeks in India have been passing by and I finally arrived in reality. People are running, working, searching for jobs, food, water, a tough competition reigns the market place, long hours in the trains, stuffed like dry sardines, walking, running, waiting, no answers for mails, anonymity, freedom? What does it mean - freedom in Mumbai? Freedom in Paris? Freedom in New York? I am just trying to get into the grove. The competition is everywhere the same, it’s getting tougher. My brain is tired of these talks of what to do and where to go. People are stuffed and tight together and are they still smiling? I know, India is known for the people - smiling. But where has the smile gone in Mumbai? I know people were smiling in Kolkata, Holdia, Varanasi… But where has the smile gone in Mumbai? Did it disappear in endless work and train hours, behind walls of impressive buildings? Did it disappear in endless confrontations of religious fights, terrorist attacks, touristic overflows and media manipulations? Mumbai is such a beauty; it is such a dream, but it’s also a disaster of hopes and despair. I know I am just a writer/film maker, not fighting in the streets of Mumbai for food and water like many others from 5 am to 10 pm. Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes it’s fast, where are we in Western-Europe in our fantasy / Disney land, in between reality or still far away? Is reality in ourselves or just outside reigning our brains and well being?

By the way what do you do on Sunday in Mumbai? You go to the Dhobi Ghats, doing your washes of the week, or as a tourist you take photos of people doing their washes of the week. You may go to the horse riding around the corner. But in case you get too much addicted to games you may go to the main Hindu temple Mahalaskshritt at the Arabian Sea or close by to an important Muslim mosque, the Hali Ali Dargh complex. The Europeans and Americans go to the nearest Spa, while film people have diner in a simple restaurant, enjoying and observing daily life at the beaches of Mumbai, discussing. I am still delighted what you may discover in Mumbai. The seaside is such a beauty queen; only sometimes its smell is not so attractive. The people are walking, sitting along the beach, watching each other, playing with the kids, enjoying the summer wind, which is for them a cool winter brise. Young guys are playing cricket, as everywhere in Mumbai there are men playing cricket. By the way I saw no women yet playing cricket. For me personally cricket is not as interesting as football, so I always preferred to play football, but where are women playing cricket or football here in Mumbai? But the beauty of this city is more hidden in the center. The seaside is holidays, the daily life happens in the huge art deco or neo-gothic buildings. In case you don’t end up in one of these impressive buildings, you may end in a street, where they sell only paper cards. Greeting cards for the wedding, the funeral, your birthday or the birth of your child… for your happiness and despair, for everything you may wish and will never find. Finally I get stuck in the street for sweets, Arabian sweets, European sweets, American sweets and Indian sweets, little petit fours like in France with almonds and cashews, with ginger or without ginger, small delights - Mumbai sweets are very special but beware of, you may be cheated on.

Mumbai changes - Everything is slow and very fast the same time. An astonishing thing for me is still the separation of men and women in the suburban train. In the beginning I didn’t realize it, getting into male compartments. For sure they were all staring at me and I was wondering why. Finally a friend of mine grumbled, telling me, that I should go into the female compartments. But I don’t want to, but you should, that’s the way it is, but I don’t like it, when you don’t like it, then you don’t like it, but it’s the way how it works in Mumbai. The first difference, which jumped into my mind, were the colors. While men are dressed in blue marine/black with different variations of white/blue shirts… women wear all variations of colors and tissues in the world, either as a Sari, Panjabi, Shirts, scarf’s, whatever with gold, silver, with or without jewelry, you are overwhelmed by their colors. In the female compartment there are always sales women announcing their newest, exciting products from jewelry, bindis to the newest cleaning product. They sing their products, like they sing for their samosas… Moreover women talk and talk and talk much more than men do in the trains. They discuss, laugh and even shout at each other like the devils in a torero fight, even when it’s just the question who may sit or who may not sit. I rarely saw screaming faces like this, except in a method acting workshop. Men in their compartments are calm, sitting or standing squeezed in the corridor, staring at each other or playing on their mobile phones, while women read newspapers, books.