We watched a great movie tonight. Given to me by my friend Theo, it is a movie that is enjoying great popularity and for good reason. It's a funny, thoughtful, well-done portrayal of life in the arena of modern day global commerce. It's the story of a guy named Todd whose job is sent to India. He has to go there to train his replacement. The story that unfolds is one that explores how a Westerner experiences India with all of the hilarity and confusion and touching moments that India itself truly offers.
I won't say too much about the plot and the dilemma, but I will tell you that there is love and that the final scenes offer a good depiction of the ultimately different nature of US and Indian society, as well as how those of us living in that gap are changed by it.
I can tell you that the movie depicts India pretty darn well. Our experience here has in fact been similar to what is depicted in the film.
If you see it, you'll notice that in several scenes Todd is depicted as staring at a picture of Kali on his wall. This goddess in Hinduism is shown holding a severed head, with a necklace of heads around her neck. She has a fierce look on her face and there is blood dripping. She wields a scimitar.
In other scenes, Todd slows down to experience the subtle and unthinkable. He stares at a chameleon climbing a tree. In a scene that invokes baptismal imagery, Todd immerses himself in a body of water (that is the unthinkable part!) after being bombarded on Holi with colored powder. In various scenes, Todd throws open his window time and again onto a fantastical cityscape below.
These scenes really struck me personally.
India does demand that you view her fierce nature. It can be a cruel place where the horrible and terrible are seemingly evident at every turn. Life here is hard for almost everyone here in India. But, despite the harsh reality of what life can dish out here, we have seen the most touching of things in this place. And Todd saw these things. He too was changed by it.
This movie shows what India can be when you "give into it", as stated by a character in the film - India can be a veritable explosion of providence.
In one scene, Todd is beckoned over a wall by a worker. He climbs over and is invited to a meal with a family on the dock. He eats with them off of a metal plate with his hands while sitting on the ground. The makeshift tools that the family uses to make the meal are hilarious - and accurate - and it is a very moving scene that will surely make anyone smile. Now, when I watched this scene, I had the impulse that most Americans would have - "Wow, he shouldn't go over that wall." Grimy, crowded, and filled with the poorest of the poor - be it the US, South Africa or any of the places we expats call home, we all have the same impulse of being on guard in such a setting.
Yet, I checked that impulse and thought of what those circumstances really offer in India.
In the scene that followed, people stared at Todd - as they stare at us - they smiled at him when he smiled - as they do with us - and a crowd of children gathered around him, smiling - as has happened countless times with us. All we have been taught about how poverty and deprivation breed animosity and danger - India isn't really like that. You can enter just about any arena and you are pretty much OK. It is perhaps the only place on Earth like it in this regard - I am probably not capable of stating something that broad, but it certainly fits my experiences to-date.
There are all sorts of caveats to what I am saying, but I no longer feel compelled to give these every time I speak of the magic that is India. It is indeed a fantastic place.
Definitely take the time to see this movie. If you are a family member, friend, or follower of this blog (or any combination thereof), it will help you experience a bit of our life here in a way like no other movie we have seen.
Even as I sit here and type this essay out front of our home, there is some music off in the distance (or is it right behind me?) celebrating something or other. The servants quarters of our neighbors is filled with noise of toddlers chatting in Telugu. There are huge toads jumping all over the lawn I am sitting on. And I have a coil of mosquito repellent releasing smoke all around my feet, which are wearing sandals I bought in the Old City - leather strap around my big toe. I paid five bucks for them and I still think I got ripped off. These sandals didn't fit well when I bought them, but with the passage of time they have become a favorite. Hmmm, kind of like India itself.
Wonderful, wonderful.....
