The Changing Bom/Mumbai
Changing India

I have had the privilege (?) of living in New York for four years. When I reached the Big Apple, the City that never sleep, my first impression was that I was still in Bombay, the Indian city that I love the most. What similarities did I find between New York and Bombay? Not in size or style or even in look. It's something else. Here you have two cities, where an `immigrant' like me can wander around without being stared at and asked to leave (politely or unpolitely). Here you have two cities, where a commoner like me can move back and forth, scaling all nooks and corners of the city without having the luxury of one's own vehicle.You feel at home, because in the public transportation systems that you move around you meet a whole range of familiar faces from your `family', the family of `immigrants international'. A family that knows no boundary; it crosses all geographical, national and political and many times economical borders.

But I'm talking about the Bombay of the late eighties and early nineties. The New York that I felt at home is the pre-September 11th New York.

In 2006, I'm back to Bombay to live here for a short period of time. It's not Bombay anymore, it's Mumbai, more `swadeshi' it sould be. The cityscape with the concrete skyscrapers remains almost the same if not uglier than in the 90s. The pace of the people hasn't changed, if not faster and more aggressive. That determination I watched on their faces in the 90s has vanished and given way to anxiety and suspicion.
The earlier immigrants have somehow settled down; the new ones keep coming.
Should I believe that this city continues to be friendly to the immigrants who made it is through their dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled?
I would have, until yesterday.

The rude awakening or shock came to me at a doctor's clinic, where he charged my friend with an ordinary flue a consulting fee of Rs. 500!

Which city are we talking about and whose country?
Is this the Bombay I thought I knew and felt at home?
Is this how the privatization that many of my friends glorify going to treat a commoner like me? Then something is wrong somewhere and there more is to go wrong sooner or later.

Mumbai Dreams

It’s not for the first time that I’m living in this busiest (?) city of India. In fact, I’m not sure if I can call any time that I was in Mumbai in the past as `living’.

First time I came here as member of a Thetare troupe to perform Karutha Deivathe Thedi, by late Prof. G. Shankarapillai, the great soul who selected me as a student at School Of Drama, Trichur. In the play I was part of the chorus, but I enjoyed the antics I had to do on my own, esp. at the Opening sequence.

While I was in Pune, studying at the Film Institute, I frequented Mumbai…and to the contrary of what most people would say, I enjoyed the Bombay crowd, I celebrated the local train trips that I took to different corners of the `Mahanagar’. I felt that I fit into the crowd perfectly, to its accelerated rhythm and pace. For the same reason I enjoy the crowd of Pooram, the great midsummer festival in Trichur, my home town.

After I left Pune, I came to Mumbai, mainly to attend different film festivals and floated in the crowd of familiar and not so familiar people. I enjoyed everything, the variety of films, the late night travels…but always avoided the ` film pundits’, who didn’t take their avtar just in Mumbai, but are found at any film festivals.

……22 years have passed since my first visit to Mumbai, the city of dreams for Indians.
Now I’m here again, to ‘live’, for months in a row. I have joined the Tata Institute of Social Sciences as a PhD student, at the age of 46.

I’m taking the same kind of train trips, on a different route though. I’m staying in New Mumbai. At times I take a bus-ride. Both don’t appear exciting as they used to be.

I noticed quickly that not any more do I feel as part of the crowd- a member of the chorus of a big ensemble. Though late, I have realized that I’m now playing my own tunes. One good thing that the specificity of the research work has dawned on me is this realization: `Benny, it’s your play and you’re the player’.

Rehearsals are over.
The PLAY is on!
(This realization also brought me back to blogging!)

VIBGYOR
Short & Documentary Film Festival

From Febuary22-25, 2006, we organized the first edition of VIBGYOR Short & Documentary Film Festival at Trichur. It was a joint venture of various media collectives in India. The following is the concept note of VIBGYOR that I wrote for our Festival Book. I liked it and thought it could be my second blog.

Stories of colours have been told and re-told in many different ways in every culture around the world. Anywhere, any time, if one colour is considered superior to another, it has to be taken as a matter of perception, a defective one, I should say. The Chaturvarnya theory in India is just another story, just another inadequate attempt to categorize and label human beings to the extent of branding someone or something bad or good.

Why only four colours? Why not seven, matching the colours of the rainbow? Gradations of the so called primary, secondary, tertiary colours are only our making; mix the colours as you like and go for all possible permutations and combinations. Perfect purity is a bore; `Pure Chutney’ is an illusion. We’re all mixed, hybrid. Being hybrid is not a shame. Mestizo, the mixed, is the preferred self-description among the Hispanics of Latin America and the Caribbean Islands.

For me, the co-existence of differences is the most beautiful thing I can ever imagine. I’m blessed and enriched by my sisters and brothers who are different from me and who choose to be different from me. I consider VIBGYOR as an all inclusive spectrum of all possibly imaginable colours, all possibly thinkable thoughts and theories, ideas and ideologies and creeds.

This doesn’t mean that VIBGYOR is apolitical or neutral. Cinema, or any artistic endeavor, can ever afford to be apolitical. We at the VIBGYOR festival do take an unmistakable political stand, one which doesn’t belong to any single political party or movement. It’s a stand against any attempt at standardization and conformity in life, art, religion, anywhere.

VIBGYOR is a fiesta where anyone with a free and open mind can come together--artists, academicians, activists, students--anyone. All are welcome to indulge in this unending celebration of our co-existence in the broader cosmic sense.

HALF-BAKED LIVES

My name is Benedict; my mother, father (he's no more) and my friends call me Benny. To pretend that I'm somebody important, at some point in life I combined both my names and now I'm known (if at all) as `Benny Benedict'.

My intimate friends call me many other names. I'm important to them, they are very imporant to me; so my friends don't care what my real name is or what my titles are.

Today, March 19, 2006, I decided to create my blog. I know I'm not yet ready. I like to write, but I write longer and deeper only when I know that Time is waiting for me; but rarely does it happen as I'm always on the move, doing many things at a time and leaving almost everything incomplete.

I don't know how to describe myself. Computers have made my self-description easier with the `foward slash'(/). At no point do I have a complete answer to the eternal introspection "Who am I?" So I put myself in paranthesis, I bracket my self-definition.

I happen to be from Trichur, Kerala, India. I happen to be a catholic priest, working full time in media. Yes, happen to be......anything can change!

I have already said too many things about me, unintentionally: that I'm a man on the move (el pasajero= traveler, in Spanish), that I'm a priest and I'm active in media. I also said I leave things incomplete. If ever I write my autobiography I will title it `Half-Baked Life/ves'. This might be the best description about myself. I have lived my life/ves half-baked and continue to SERVE my life/ves to others `half-baked'. Take my life/ves or throw it/them away.

Or TRY to complete it/them....welcome!