5/17/13
Threading where none have threaded before....
So I got up after the morning kicks, smiled, yawned and shook off my worries, they all fell to the ground like dandruff flakes. I could hear them screaming – “Don’t leave us in here, bitch!” - but I kept on my way and left them behind.
I was on a mission to return back to my former human self. The Chewbacca look I was working had to go. I needed to recover my dignity. And it wasn’t going to happen sitting there puking and letting all my body hair grow out of control. So I went to the patio and took roll call, stood in line at the Jailbucks to get my Chai and bread and started inquiring about hair removal. Someone had to know something, as all the Indian women looked mysteriously well groomed for prisoners. So I started asking around my gang’o’bitches, - “Hey sweet Fatima, do you know where I can get my eyebrows fixed, waxed, plucked or lasered?”
Sure Mexican, I’m glad you asked. – Her answer almost offended me, but I had no time to be offended. - There, across the patio, where the day care center is, we have a beauty salon, you can get nails painted, haircut, eyebrows threaded, and it’s good. She said. Very, very cheap. A few coupons will get you a complete overhaul. Wow! we have a day care center and a hair salon? Why wasn’t I informed about these perks?! – You are too busy crying Mexican - She said ironically. Life is not so bad in here; it’s better than outside. Here we have a place to sleep and food every day, and even hair salon – She was right, after seeing the way women live in India I could understand her perspective. Life was good in there, better than outside. Women that came in pregnant were able to keep their child until it turned 7. Children have school, food, and sleep in a safe place away from voulchers that prey on kids to create profitable enterprises. Many of the women in jail with me, had tried to protect their children from abusive fathers and grandfathers. Many women had tried to protect themselves or their daughters and showed their battle wounds almost with pride. Their burnt necks were only the tips of the lava like scars that ran down their entire bodies. Covered in battle scars they walked proudly dressed in bright colors. They had been burned while they slept. Dowsed with kerosene and lit with a match because they could no longer serve as ATM machines for their husband’s family. Yet, in there, they felt safe for the very first time. They felt pretty for the very first time. Respected, believe it or not, for the very first time. Life is cheap in India, almost worthless. Such a strange place, why was I here? And why didn’t I have any opium to guide me through this trip? Where was the invisible cat on the tree? As I asked myself these questions I headed down to the beauty parlor. I had my money coupons and a lot of hairy places to be threaded off while I contemplated my reasons for being here, now.
7/12/12
Another morning, another kick in the feet...
5 am call time. Location: Tihar Jail. It’s cold, November is here and so are you. You are both locked in prison until the sun decides to shine its happy face on you again. It’s 0 degrees now. The snow will be here soon. Christmas is going to suck in jail. Your father will be devastated when he finds out you are still here and he is still there. You spent your birthday in jail and got a roll of toilet paper as a present. You ran out of toilet paper and have been wiping your ass with your left hand for weeks. It may now smell like shit permanently. You are hungry and all there is in jail is dirty rice and chili broth. That guard in ward 4 hates you and curses at you every time you walk by. There are powerful people trying to keep you in Asia’s biggest maximum security prison for as long as they possibly can. Your embassy has no idea what to do or how to help you anymore. Your mother thinks you deserve this because you’re stupid and you followed your idiot boyfriend. You are broke and have no more money to pay corrupt lawyers and judges. You have no place to live anymore back in America. You look like shit. Your acting career is over. You may die here before all this is over. But today is Saturday, so forget about all those negative thoughts about the future and just take a fucking shower for pete’s sake.
Then....
I went back to my cell and ran into Fatima on the way there. She saw me and immediately came over to talk to me.
“Hey, Mexican, what’s your lawyers name?” - Dawar, I said. Rajeev Dawar. –
Her face turned a light shade of oh shit. Then she said it, “Oh, shit. You have to let him go. He got a girl convicted last year after taking all her money.- You have to tell your embassy to find you new guy”. I was getting it from all angles today. Now my lawyer was the shittiest lawyer they had in Delhi. I kind of figured that from the time he made me sign my own arrests warrant at the police station by telling me it was standard procedure. I had to do something, I had to get my eyebrows under control and I had to communicate with Mr. T and it all had to be done soon. Especially the eyebrows and the stash, those had to go.
That afternoon I ran into Angeli, my sweet warden. What a strange set of words. They almost don’t go together, sweet and warden. Hi, I said, I need to talk to you for a minute please. Sure thing she said and invited me to her office. I sat down in her drab office. She sat at her desk and looked at me with kindness. I started, “I was told my lawyer is not very….honest.” She stared at me and laughed. Really? She said ironically. --Yeah, I guess rumor has it he got a girl convicted after she ran out of money to pay him off with. How can I find another lawyer? Can I do that? Get my own lawyer? -– She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese.
See, the problem in India is you get caught with a person, guilty or not, and you both get tried together until the end. It is one case. You are accomplices of the same crime. Like my roommates for example, they were both caught at the airport together and only one of them had a fake passport, the other one was straight as Chinese hair. They actually didn’t even know each other. In China, through the newspaper, women find travel companions. This is how they met. Wei spoke no English and therefore needed a travel companion. Hui was young, nice, trilingual had a visa and was heading back to continue her studies in Paris, but she didn’t want to travel on her own so decided to respond to that fateful ad that landed her sleeping next to me in a concrete floor for months. Maybe years. Life is like this.
I could get my own lawyer, if I could prove that the one I had right now was doing nothing and trying to extort me for all I had. And it was true, he had not once come to see me and explain what the heck was going on. I only heard from him through Mr. T’s weekly letters where he always said, “ We need more money to pay Dawar this week ” – So, I said: I can do that. File a complaint. But are there any good honest lawyers in India? Angeli stared at me blankly. Then she said,
“The problem here is you are desperate to get out. If you are not desperate to get out you get out sooner.” – I had to think about that for days.
I actually only understood it not too long ago. That which you resist, persists. If you continue to resist a situation you get stuck in it. The moment you let go, everything flows and you move forward. The issue is that what you resist is on your mind 24/7 therefore you continue creating that reality for yourself. The moment you let go and say, Bah I don’t care anymore. That reality has the freedom to move on to the next phase, to transform. If we understand that, creative energy does not understand yes or no, it only understands intention as an energy source for creation, then we can understand that weather we think about wanting something or not wanting it, the fact is that we are thinking about IT all the same and have energy behind IT all the same. That though or desire has an intention, a very strong one behind it, so it continues to exist in our reality because of that intention. For better or worse.
It kind of made sense the way Angeli explained it on an instinctual level. So I started not caring so much about when I would get out. Maybe the fact that I showed no desperation in front of Dawar would turn him off and make him realize he could not turn me into his personal ATM machine.
So, I had decided this but what about Mr. T? I was stuck with whatever he would decide to do for himself. I had to get this intel to him as soon as I could. But it was Friday, oh glorious unproductive Friday. I wrote him a letter and went back to Angeli right away. She took my letter and without flinching said, consider it done. I know the male prison director. I will see him tonight and give him the letter to give to your associate, husband. Don’t worry so much. She said sweetly, life is like this. Sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down. You take the good with the bad and make the best of it.
Wise words Angeli. That is what life is, a series of experiences. And what we are able to learn about ourselves through these experiences, is what propels us forward into the next level of human conciousness. But at this point I just wanted this to be over and didn’t consider her words wise so much as just condescending. Trying to make good out of shitty. It was actually irritating to hear those words. “Life is like this” I was not going to just give up and grow old in an Indian prison because, life is like this. One day you’re at a Starbucks the next day you’re at a Jailbucks. Fuck that. I was getting out. I didn’t do anything! And truly I didn’t. I wasn’t trying to be like all the innocent inmates. I was stuck in a shitty situation because my boyfriend was too chickenshit to deal with things like a man from the beggining. That was the painful truth. Or at least that’s what I thought. He was too accomodating because his ego told him he would get a good directing gig out of a shit editing one. Looking back it makes no sense. One must never compromise one’s integrity in order to gain something else. It never happens. If you don’t stand for anything you’ll fall for anything. You can’t say “oh I’ll take a little shit now and have Glory later ” Wrong! You’ll never get Glory out of taking shit from anyone. Just like, you’ll never get a paying gig after working for free for anyone. Self love and self appreciattion should never be bargained with in order to attain anything. They are treasures to be protected at all cost.
So, the letter left my hands and was on its way to Mr. T. Now it was up to him to decide if he wanted to join me and fire that awful lawyer his people got for us. I went back to my chuckee it was almost cage time. The sun had gone down and mosquitoes were staring to swarm around all of our un-bathed bodies. I had been there for another week and had not had a shower yet. I looked like Chewbacca and probably smelled like him too. Tomorrow would be my bath / spa / wax day. I couldn’t wait.
Hui, Wei and I were locked in our pad / chuckee for the night. It was lockdown. We gathered our old bollywood magazines and started swatting mosquitoes. We were trapped in a cage with two thousand five hundred and seventy five mosquitoes that waited to feast on our fragile little ethnic bodies. But we were not going to give up without a fight. I was not about to get more dengue injected in me and malaria was out of the question. The fight was on. I started jumping and swatting mosquitoes like they were Indian police. Wei was laughing hysterically. Hui was covering herself from the falling corpses of little tiny Indian insects. It was raining men that night in chuckee number 8. After we were done killing all those intruders we stuffed the remaining pieces of magazine on the border of the cell gate. It looked like a piece of Indian art. Crumpled Indian faces staring at us. It looked like we were being spied on from outside out cell. The damn light bulb was so bright it took me forever to go into dreamland. The rotten smell of feces poured out our private shit hole. All we could do was cover our face and drown in our dreams as fast as we could, just another night in Tihar jail.
“Hey, Mexican, what’s your lawyers name?” - Dawar, I said. Rajeev Dawar. –
Her face turned a light shade of oh shit. Then she said it, “Oh, shit. You have to let him go. He got a girl convicted last year after taking all her money.- You have to tell your embassy to find you new guy”. I was getting it from all angles today. Now my lawyer was the shittiest lawyer they had in Delhi. I kind of figured that from the time he made me sign my own arrests warrant at the police station by telling me it was standard procedure. I had to do something, I had to get my eyebrows under control and I had to communicate with Mr. T and it all had to be done soon. Especially the eyebrows and the stash, those had to go.
That afternoon I ran into Angeli, my sweet warden. What a strange set of words. They almost don’t go together, sweet and warden. Hi, I said, I need to talk to you for a minute please. Sure thing she said and invited me to her office. I sat down in her drab office. She sat at her desk and looked at me with kindness. I started, “I was told my lawyer is not very….honest.” She stared at me and laughed. Really? She said ironically. --Yeah, I guess rumor has it he got a girl convicted after she ran out of money to pay him off with. How can I find another lawyer? Can I do that? Get my own lawyer? -– She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese.
See, the problem in India is you get caught with a person, guilty or not, and you both get tried together until the end. It is one case. You are accomplices of the same crime. Like my roommates for example, they were both caught at the airport together and only one of them had a fake passport, the other one was straight as Chinese hair. They actually didn’t even know each other. In China, through the newspaper, women find travel companions. This is how they met. Wei spoke no English and therefore needed a travel companion. Hui was young, nice, trilingual had a visa and was heading back to continue her studies in Paris, but she didn’t want to travel on her own so decided to respond to that fateful ad that landed her sleeping next to me in a concrete floor for months. Maybe years. Life is like this.
I could get my own lawyer, if I could prove that the one I had right now was doing nothing and trying to extort me for all I had. And it was true, he had not once come to see me and explain what the heck was going on. I only heard from him through Mr. T’s weekly letters where he always said, “ We need more money to pay Dawar this week ” – So, I said: I can do that. File a complaint. But are there any good honest lawyers in India? Angeli stared at me blankly. Then she said,
“The problem here is you are desperate to get out. If you are not desperate to get out you get out sooner.” – I had to think about that for days.
I actually only understood it not too long ago. That which you resist, persists. If you continue to resist a situation you get stuck in it. The moment you let go, everything flows and you move forward. The issue is that what you resist is on your mind 24/7 therefore you continue creating that reality for yourself. The moment you let go and say, Bah I don’t care anymore. That reality has the freedom to move on to the next phase, to transform. If we understand that, creative energy does not understand yes or no, it only understands intention as an energy source for creation, then we can understand that weather we think about wanting something or not wanting it, the fact is that we are thinking about IT all the same and have energy behind IT all the same. That though or desire has an intention, a very strong one behind it, so it continues to exist in our reality because of that intention. For better or worse.
It kind of made sense the way Angeli explained it on an instinctual level. So I started not caring so much about when I would get out. Maybe the fact that I showed no desperation in front of Dawar would turn him off and make him realize he could not turn me into his personal ATM machine.
So, I had decided this but what about Mr. T? I was stuck with whatever he would decide to do for himself. I had to get this intel to him as soon as I could. But it was Friday, oh glorious unproductive Friday. I wrote him a letter and went back to Angeli right away. She took my letter and without flinching said, consider it done. I know the male prison director. I will see him tonight and give him the letter to give to your associate, husband. Don’t worry so much. She said sweetly, life is like this. Sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down. You take the good with the bad and make the best of it.
Wise words Angeli. That is what life is, a series of experiences. And what we are able to learn about ourselves through these experiences, is what propels us forward into the next level of human conciousness. But at this point I just wanted this to be over and didn’t consider her words wise so much as just condescending. Trying to make good out of shitty. It was actually irritating to hear those words. “Life is like this” I was not going to just give up and grow old in an Indian prison because, life is like this. One day you’re at a Starbucks the next day you’re at a Jailbucks. Fuck that. I was getting out. I didn’t do anything! And truly I didn’t. I wasn’t trying to be like all the innocent inmates. I was stuck in a shitty situation because my boyfriend was too chickenshit to deal with things like a man from the beggining. That was the painful truth. Or at least that’s what I thought. He was too accomodating because his ego told him he would get a good directing gig out of a shit editing one. Looking back it makes no sense. One must never compromise one’s integrity in order to gain something else. It never happens. If you don’t stand for anything you’ll fall for anything. You can’t say “oh I’ll take a little shit now and have Glory later ” Wrong! You’ll never get Glory out of taking shit from anyone. Just like, you’ll never get a paying gig after working for free for anyone. Self love and self appreciattion should never be bargained with in order to attain anything. They are treasures to be protected at all cost.
So, the letter left my hands and was on its way to Mr. T. Now it was up to him to decide if he wanted to join me and fire that awful lawyer his people got for us. I went back to my chuckee it was almost cage time. The sun had gone down and mosquitoes were staring to swarm around all of our un-bathed bodies. I had been there for another week and had not had a shower yet. I looked like Chewbacca and probably smelled like him too. Tomorrow would be my bath / spa / wax day. I couldn’t wait.
Hui, Wei and I were locked in our pad / chuckee for the night. It was lockdown. We gathered our old bollywood magazines and started swatting mosquitoes. We were trapped in a cage with two thousand five hundred and seventy five mosquitoes that waited to feast on our fragile little ethnic bodies. But we were not going to give up without a fight. I was not about to get more dengue injected in me and malaria was out of the question. The fight was on. I started jumping and swatting mosquitoes like they were Indian police. Wei was laughing hysterically. Hui was covering herself from the falling corpses of little tiny Indian insects. It was raining men that night in chuckee number 8. After we were done killing all those intruders we stuffed the remaining pieces of magazine on the border of the cell gate. It looked like a piece of Indian art. Crumpled Indian faces staring at us. It looked like we were being spied on from outside out cell. The damn light bulb was so bright it took me forever to go into dreamland. The rotten smell of feces poured out our private shit hole. All we could do was cover our face and drown in our dreams as fast as we could, just another night in Tihar jail.
3/17/12
Choosing.
The next day as I was getting my feet kicked at 5 am, as I came out of my dream I felt like something in me had shifted. I pulled my head out of the blanket and to my surprise, smiled at the guard that had just kicked me. And what do you know, grumpy-pants smiled back. I guess I figured if I was going to be there for a while I needed to do something to feel better. I couldn’t keep puking and crying. What kind of life would that be? Something had to change and the only thing that could change was my way of looking at things. It is in the way we choose to see the world that the world we see transforms.
If I kept seeing things as irresolvable and against me, something told me they would remain that way for as long as I chose to see them that way. So I started smiling, it was my first assignment. Smile at everyone and everything, you have nothing to lose, you are in fucking jail in India. Life does not get any worse than this. So I did. I smiled at the guard that kicked my feet, I smiled at the girl that killed her sister, I smiled at the other guard that gave me attitude and looked like she wanted to kick my beaner ass. I simply smiled at life in general. I started drawing and writing in my journal. I started being the clown I’ve always been, I started making people laugh every chance I got. And things did start changing, after all freedom is a relative thing. It is, you could argue, a state of mind. The rest of it is just geography. But mostly freedom is in our minds. Freedom is something that, at it’s very core, can never be taken away from us. We suffer because we fail to accept the present moment as it is and simply live it and learn from it. We struggle because we resist life every moment as it is, and are always looking to change it based on the fantasy that, if things were any different, we would be better, happier. But it is that very resistance that keeps us stuck in the situations we resist. I have no idea If that makes any sense to you yet. It will. It does to me now. It is because I stopped resisting my reality that I finally allowed it to start moving and to change.
I remember every day at noon I saw a plane fly across the sky in the same direction, I imagined myself in that plane going home. Finally free. It was my daily meditation. A few days went by and I found myself actually enjoying my time there. Getting to know the stories behind the women that were around me. They were fascinating. It is a fascinating place, jail. I had to appreciate the experience and everything I was getting to see. I had a feeling somewhere in my nutty soul that I was there for a reason. Nobody goes that deep into a rabbit hole for nothing. But I wasn’t asking “why me?” as a victim anymore. I was asking because I wanted to know more. Somewhere in me I was willing to go deeper if that was where life was guiding me. I walked over to the soccer field, across from the jail food store, where there was a very large meditation room with hardwood floors and high ceilings. I stared into that room and thought to myself, If I have to stay here for years, at least I have a place where I can dance. I’ll teach dance! My whole energy changed when that thought crossed my mind. A possibility opened in a hopeless place.
Friday came with a letter from the Mexican embassy saying they had met with Evergreen and her cronies and she had put a deal on the table where, if we admitted to having done everything they accused us of, they would let us go and drop the charges. That’s how dumb she was. She wanted me to admit to doing something so she could say: no, she didn’t really do it. I hadn’t realized how dumb green people were. They gave us a deadline to sign the deal or it would be off. I personally thought it was so damn ridiculous I signed right away. Come to find out I was even dumber than my green nemesis. Mr. T didn’t agree and didn’t sign. I simply thought, once we are out of the cage we can handle this the Mexican way and it will be all done in no time. But he had never dealt with corruption at this level. He didn’t trust corruption the way I did. So he sent the contract back with his changes and said unless it was corrected he would not sign it. Monday came with a panic attack and visit from the Mexican consul. At 11 am I was summoned to the visitors area. Paredes sat there deflated, exhausted, almost defeated. I walked in looking like Kate Moss after Fashion week in Milan. Emaciated, disheveled and anemic. He took one look at me and started crying. I was really scared at that point. Did I look that bad? Although mexican men working in the government see corruption every day and deal with the scum of the earth, they simply do not cry or have panic attacks for nothing. So this was serious.
He said to me in his broken sweet voice, “I don’t know how to help you anymore mija. What did you do? Why do they hate you so much? I do not know what the fuck they want from you! T will not sign and they will not change this. I don’t know what to do anymore!!!!” He threw the contract down on the table and wiped his tears. I suddenly realized I had not waxed my eyebrows or lip in about three weeks and must have been looking like a Pancho Villa VS. Kate Moss mash-up doll. I held his hand, looked him in the eye and peacefully said. “They will make the changes, you’ll see, everything is going to work out just fine. And I will get my eyebrows waxed” – He looked at me and burst out laughing. He couldn’t believe how tranquil I was. Neither could I after what he had just said to me. But somehow I felt ok.
If I kept seeing things as irresolvable and against me, something told me they would remain that way for as long as I chose to see them that way. So I started smiling, it was my first assignment. Smile at everyone and everything, you have nothing to lose, you are in fucking jail in India. Life does not get any worse than this. So I did. I smiled at the guard that kicked my feet, I smiled at the girl that killed her sister, I smiled at the other guard that gave me attitude and looked like she wanted to kick my beaner ass. I simply smiled at life in general. I started drawing and writing in my journal. I started being the clown I’ve always been, I started making people laugh every chance I got. And things did start changing, after all freedom is a relative thing. It is, you could argue, a state of mind. The rest of it is just geography. But mostly freedom is in our minds. Freedom is something that, at it’s very core, can never be taken away from us. We suffer because we fail to accept the present moment as it is and simply live it and learn from it. We struggle because we resist life every moment as it is, and are always looking to change it based on the fantasy that, if things were any different, we would be better, happier. But it is that very resistance that keeps us stuck in the situations we resist. I have no idea If that makes any sense to you yet. It will. It does to me now. It is because I stopped resisting my reality that I finally allowed it to start moving and to change.
I remember every day at noon I saw a plane fly across the sky in the same direction, I imagined myself in that plane going home. Finally free. It was my daily meditation. A few days went by and I found myself actually enjoying my time there. Getting to know the stories behind the women that were around me. They were fascinating. It is a fascinating place, jail. I had to appreciate the experience and everything I was getting to see. I had a feeling somewhere in my nutty soul that I was there for a reason. Nobody goes that deep into a rabbit hole for nothing. But I wasn’t asking “why me?” as a victim anymore. I was asking because I wanted to know more. Somewhere in me I was willing to go deeper if that was where life was guiding me. I walked over to the soccer field, across from the jail food store, where there was a very large meditation room with hardwood floors and high ceilings. I stared into that room and thought to myself, If I have to stay here for years, at least I have a place where I can dance. I’ll teach dance! My whole energy changed when that thought crossed my mind. A possibility opened in a hopeless place.
Friday came with a letter from the Mexican embassy saying they had met with Evergreen and her cronies and she had put a deal on the table where, if we admitted to having done everything they accused us of, they would let us go and drop the charges. That’s how dumb she was. She wanted me to admit to doing something so she could say: no, she didn’t really do it. I hadn’t realized how dumb green people were. They gave us a deadline to sign the deal or it would be off. I personally thought it was so damn ridiculous I signed right away. Come to find out I was even dumber than my green nemesis. Mr. T didn’t agree and didn’t sign. I simply thought, once we are out of the cage we can handle this the Mexican way and it will be all done in no time. But he had never dealt with corruption at this level. He didn’t trust corruption the way I did. So he sent the contract back with his changes and said unless it was corrected he would not sign it. Monday came with a panic attack and visit from the Mexican consul. At 11 am I was summoned to the visitors area. Paredes sat there deflated, exhausted, almost defeated. I walked in looking like Kate Moss after Fashion week in Milan. Emaciated, disheveled and anemic. He took one look at me and started crying. I was really scared at that point. Did I look that bad? Although mexican men working in the government see corruption every day and deal with the scum of the earth, they simply do not cry or have panic attacks for nothing. So this was serious.
He said to me in his broken sweet voice, “I don’t know how to help you anymore mija. What did you do? Why do they hate you so much? I do not know what the fuck they want from you! T will not sign and they will not change this. I don’t know what to do anymore!!!!” He threw the contract down on the table and wiped his tears. I suddenly realized I had not waxed my eyebrows or lip in about three weeks and must have been looking like a Pancho Villa VS. Kate Moss mash-up doll. I held his hand, looked him in the eye and peacefully said. “They will make the changes, you’ll see, everything is going to work out just fine. And I will get my eyebrows waxed” – He looked at me and burst out laughing. He couldn’t believe how tranquil I was. Neither could I after what he had just said to me. But somehow I felt ok.
1/30/12
Trapped in your own life...
It´s the moment you realize that you are trapped inside your life that it all falls to pieces. There are no shortcuts to the end of a situation. You must walk through all the places you want to avoid. You must shit in a hole in the ground. You must wipe your ass with your left hand. You must shower with cold salt water. You must sleep on a freezing concrete floor. You must eat dirty rice and chili broth, everysinglefuckingday. You must be kicked in the feet to wake up. You must breathe. You must feel all the feelings you wish you could simply skip. Pain, desperation and fear become your posse. And all you can hear is their bad advice. The irony is you think they are there to protect you. You feel that at least they have not abandoned you in this shitty mess that is your life. You indulge in their arms and hold them tight to your chest even though they are burning holes through it.
I went back to my room and curled up on the floor like a kitten. I held on tight to Pain, Desperation and Fear. They held me tight. I covered my face with my hands and started breathing deeply. I needed to calm my ass down or I was going have a heart attack. Then suddenly, in the midst of all this angst and desperation, a voice called from outside my cell, I felt someone looking at me. Her sweet voice made me poke my head out from my suffocating self-pity, I looked up. It was a young girl. Probably 18. Her smile made me forget why I was crying. My posse disappeared as if they had seen a ghost. Cowards.
She was holding half a loaf of bread. She extended her half a loaf out to me and smiled. “For you” she said in broken English. “Eat - You ok.” – I got up and took the bread. I was taken a back by her kind gesture. She had nothing and offered half of her nothing to me. I politely accepted her loving gift and hugged her. As soon as she left tears flooded my eyes, a strange joy overcame my being. Something was speaking to me through life. I had to start listening. "You OK¨ - Had she meant that as a question or was it an affirmation? It was always confusing in Hindi because they move their heads in a circular-back and forth way as they speak that doesn’t really tell you what they mean.
But just as I believed a sweaty apple that came from a woman’s breast was an omen, I had to believe this was an omen too. I felt an indescribable feeling of quietness and stability looking at her, she accepted her life as it was. She enjoyed her bread and her tea. And she enjoyed sharing. She wasn’t worried about coupons, savings, sales, hairstylists, gas prices, bills, and auditions – stupidity. She never questioned what she didn’t have in order to share what she did have. She just felt like sharing something nice with someone that needed some love and certainty.
She walked away smiling. I stood there in peace. I ate a piece of her holy bread. I headed down to Jailbucks for some chai to down my holy bread with. I sat in the courtyard and finally started to breathe. I couldn’t believe how many carbs I was about to ingest. And for the first time in years, I didn’t really care.
I went back to my room and curled up on the floor like a kitten. I held on tight to Pain, Desperation and Fear. They held me tight. I covered my face with my hands and started breathing deeply. I needed to calm my ass down or I was going have a heart attack. Then suddenly, in the midst of all this angst and desperation, a voice called from outside my cell, I felt someone looking at me. Her sweet voice made me poke my head out from my suffocating self-pity, I looked up. It was a young girl. Probably 18. Her smile made me forget why I was crying. My posse disappeared as if they had seen a ghost. Cowards.
She was holding half a loaf of bread. She extended her half a loaf out to me and smiled. “For you” she said in broken English. “Eat - You ok.” – I got up and took the bread. I was taken a back by her kind gesture. She had nothing and offered half of her nothing to me. I politely accepted her loving gift and hugged her. As soon as she left tears flooded my eyes, a strange joy overcame my being. Something was speaking to me through life. I had to start listening. "You OK¨ - Had she meant that as a question or was it an affirmation? It was always confusing in Hindi because they move their heads in a circular-back and forth way as they speak that doesn’t really tell you what they mean.
But just as I believed a sweaty apple that came from a woman’s breast was an omen, I had to believe this was an omen too. I felt an indescribable feeling of quietness and stability looking at her, she accepted her life as it was. She enjoyed her bread and her tea. And she enjoyed sharing. She wasn’t worried about coupons, savings, sales, hairstylists, gas prices, bills, and auditions – stupidity. She never questioned what she didn’t have in order to share what she did have. She just felt like sharing something nice with someone that needed some love and certainty.
She walked away smiling. I stood there in peace. I ate a piece of her holy bread. I headed down to Jailbucks for some chai to down my holy bread with. I sat in the courtyard and finally started to breathe. I couldn’t believe how many carbs I was about to ingest. And for the first time in years, I didn’t really care.
12/12/11
Dreams
That night I dreamt of a garden in the middle of heaven. It was weird, like all was light and flowers and birds, and in the middle of that flora and fauna spoke a sweet woman's voice. It said to me; you have a gift, you can see people clearly. Use it. It will help you, everything will be allright. Then a small blue and yellow bird, a sort of hummingbird painted in pastels, stood on my hand which was filled with water, and drank from it and bathed in it. Then, it flew away into the garden. I woke up to the annoying kicks of the guard like every morning, but something happened in me, I was starting to shift my connection. I woke up and smiled at her and much to my surprise, she smiled back at me with the kindest expression I had seen in that shithole, ever.
I took my time to get up and out of the cage. Sleeping on concrete is no small feat. Your bones start to mimic the concrete and turning into rock is painful. I walked outside and looked around at all the prisoners I was sharing my reality with, they were all smiling. It was weird. Did they give us some kind of tainted juice the night before? Why was everyone so fucking happy about being there, including me? I got my sandals on and went to the Jailbucks and got my morning chai as usual but my eyes saw things differently this morning, and things actually started responding back in kind. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. I sat in my chuckee sipping my chai and peacefully thinking about my dream. I was having a hard time knowing who to trust in there. But I did have a special ability, I could tell people's junk right away. It was something I always had. In fact my father would always want me to meet the new people he met before deciding to take on projects. He used to say; you have a knack for telling who's real and who's full of shit. And so I did. I can honestly say I knew we were gonna end up in a messed up situation months before it happened. But my partner didn't want to believe me so here we were. I guess I was so confused by everything that was going on that I had blurred vision but that dream helped me gain my focus again. Could I trust my Dolce Gabbana wearing lawyer? NO, said my gut. He was apparently trying to delay things so he could keep getting more rupees each week we were in there. I could sense he was in it with the other lawyers. It seemed awfully familiar, I'm from Mexico you must remember. We have one of the most corrupt legal systems on planet earth, so I knew the kind of people we were up against. It had nothing to do with weather we actually did something wrong or the shitty movie, or Evergreen herself. It had everything to do with how much money these assholes wanted to make off of us, or rather, how much they thought they could get from us. We were like a brand new ATM machine for them and that had to stop. But I couldn't talk to Mr. T. I had no way of communicating my thoughts to him before that nasty ass Dolce Gabbana wearing, henna hair commercial lawyer had his visit with him that week. I waited for Angeli to come in and requested a meeting with her. It was urgent that I got a letter to Mr T warning him about Henna Gabbana. So I sat there sipping tea and writing him a letter. Soon I would take the wheel on this lost tourist bus and whip that mother around in the right direction.
I took my time to get up and out of the cage. Sleeping on concrete is no small feat. Your bones start to mimic the concrete and turning into rock is painful. I walked outside and looked around at all the prisoners I was sharing my reality with, they were all smiling. It was weird. Did they give us some kind of tainted juice the night before? Why was everyone so fucking happy about being there, including me? I got my sandals on and went to the Jailbucks and got my morning chai as usual but my eyes saw things differently this morning, and things actually started responding back in kind. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. I sat in my chuckee sipping my chai and peacefully thinking about my dream. I was having a hard time knowing who to trust in there. But I did have a special ability, I could tell people's junk right away. It was something I always had. In fact my father would always want me to meet the new people he met before deciding to take on projects. He used to say; you have a knack for telling who's real and who's full of shit. And so I did. I can honestly say I knew we were gonna end up in a messed up situation months before it happened. But my partner didn't want to believe me so here we were. I guess I was so confused by everything that was going on that I had blurred vision but that dream helped me gain my focus again. Could I trust my Dolce Gabbana wearing lawyer? NO, said my gut. He was apparently trying to delay things so he could keep getting more rupees each week we were in there. I could sense he was in it with the other lawyers. It seemed awfully familiar, I'm from Mexico you must remember. We have one of the most corrupt legal systems on planet earth, so I knew the kind of people we were up against. It had nothing to do with weather we actually did something wrong or the shitty movie, or Evergreen herself. It had everything to do with how much money these assholes wanted to make off of us, or rather, how much they thought they could get from us. We were like a brand new ATM machine for them and that had to stop. But I couldn't talk to Mr. T. I had no way of communicating my thoughts to him before that nasty ass Dolce Gabbana wearing, henna hair commercial lawyer had his visit with him that week. I waited for Angeli to come in and requested a meeting with her. It was urgent that I got a letter to Mr T warning him about Henna Gabbana. So I sat there sipping tea and writing him a letter. Soon I would take the wheel on this lost tourist bus and whip that mother around in the right direction.
10/29/11
Listen...
Arrival at the gate to ward number 6 was like arriving at the LAX Tom Bradley terminal. The security screening procedures were brutal and slow. We had to sign in with a guy at a desk then step into a line and sit on the floor until we got called behind a curtain to get our private parts checked for any smuggled items. After the curtain check and getting fondled by the prison guard, we were then let in through the big metal door into the prison. Above the the door, hand painted on the wall, an inspiring legend read: “Thank you for cooperating, your lack of cooperation will be violently punished”
I crossed the door and headed back to chuckee number 8. Another day passed and those three days to freedom were now 6 days of incarceration. I was beginning to understand everyone lies in India. Maybe everyone lies in the world? Human nature is distorted, corrupt, un-healthy. Human nature is anything but natural anymore. It is conditioned to objects, things it can purchase. Everything in human life functions in relation to what a human can buy for itself. Everything else seems to have fallen into an abyss. Sitting in chuckee number 8 where I am nothing more than my human self I started to understand how far we have strayed from being human. Only in this place, where not even my name matters, do I begin to understand how far I have been from myself for all these years. Longing for things instead of loving life as it is. Being tortured by compulsive thoughts of lack and misery instead of fully embracing all that I did have in my life, freedom the most important thing of all. Freedom to move, choose, eat, dance, sing, love, live! What an asshole I have turned into. How numb have I become to the amazing experience of being alive. How hypnotized have I let myself get by the system? It had to all be taken away for me to be able to see it clearly. There are things we can only see when they’re not there, because they leave a space that cannot be filled by anything else. Freedom is such a thing. I was feeling frustrated and angry that our bail had been denied. That another day was wasted. That another Indian lied to me, again. Who was I going to be able to believe in anymore? I felt more alone than ever before. But something in me started awakening. Something I still couldn’t understand.
As I lay to sleep, Hui and Wei sat beside me in our chuckee. Wei was sad too, their bail had also been denied. We were all stuck in jail for who knew how long. We all needed comfort, so Hiu started singing a song in Chinese.
Tianmimi, ni shao de tinamimi
Nide shaorong namelal shushi, wo…
Yi shelal shiangbu chi tianmi
Ni shao de dup tianmi, shini, shini
Wo meng lal de jin chini, chai meng lal li…
I had no clue what the song was saying but it made me feel at ease. It made me feel less lonely and less far from home. She sang it so sweetly and lovingly we all fell fast asleep listening to her sweet voice. Sometimes you just have to stop wanting. And have the ability to just be where you are.
The next morning I woke up with a guard kicking my feet at 5 am. Not a pleasant way to wake up to your already shitty reality. They’d wake us up and haul our buts out to the yard for head count. As if anyone could actually escape those medieval cells we were locked in? The steel barrel bolt went through the foot and half thick wall into a smaller space where a huge medieval lock secured it from outside our cell. We stood in the patio as our heads were counted and waited in line for some hot chai and bread, our breakfast. I don’t think I have ever felt as hopeless in my life. I stood there in the middle of the courtyard on that dark morning and wondered if I was ever going to dance again? Was this going to be my life for the next 10 years? Was I ever going to see my father alive again? I knew that if I was locked up for years he wouldn’t be able to survive the experience. My mother was already in her late sixties, was I ever going to see them again? Life could go any which way at this point. It was terrifying. My own mind was terrifying. I went back into my chuckee and started crying. I couldn’t help it. Hui and Wei stared at me and tried to console me but I was devastated.
I was in jail. My brain could not wrap itself around the experience. My heart felt crumpled up like a piece of waste paper. My hands shook. My voice trembled. I couldn’t eat. I got so upset I started throwing up. I ran to the bathroom and puked my heart out. The smell of rotten stagnant water on the floor helped me puke out the rest of me onto that old broken sink. This was my life. I had to live it. I went back to my room and curled up on the floor like a kitten. I covered my face with my hands and started breathing deeply. I needed to calm my ass down or I was gonna have a heart attack. Then from outside my room I felt someone looking at me. I looked up. It was a young girl. She was holding half a loaf of bread. She extended her half a loaf out to me and smiled. “For you” she said in broken English. “Eat,You ok.” – I couldn’t believe my eyes. She had nothing and offered half of her nothing to me. I politely accepted her loving gift and hugged her. As soon as she left tears flooded my eyes, a strange joy overcame my being. Something was speaking to me through life. I had to start listening.
I crossed the door and headed back to chuckee number 8. Another day passed and those three days to freedom were now 6 days of incarceration. I was beginning to understand everyone lies in India. Maybe everyone lies in the world? Human nature is distorted, corrupt, un-healthy. Human nature is anything but natural anymore. It is conditioned to objects, things it can purchase. Everything in human life functions in relation to what a human can buy for itself. Everything else seems to have fallen into an abyss. Sitting in chuckee number 8 where I am nothing more than my human self I started to understand how far we have strayed from being human. Only in this place, where not even my name matters, do I begin to understand how far I have been from myself for all these years. Longing for things instead of loving life as it is. Being tortured by compulsive thoughts of lack and misery instead of fully embracing all that I did have in my life, freedom the most important thing of all. Freedom to move, choose, eat, dance, sing, love, live! What an asshole I have turned into. How numb have I become to the amazing experience of being alive. How hypnotized have I let myself get by the system? It had to all be taken away for me to be able to see it clearly. There are things we can only see when they’re not there, because they leave a space that cannot be filled by anything else. Freedom is such a thing. I was feeling frustrated and angry that our bail had been denied. That another day was wasted. That another Indian lied to me, again. Who was I going to be able to believe in anymore? I felt more alone than ever before. But something in me started awakening. Something I still couldn’t understand.
As I lay to sleep, Hui and Wei sat beside me in our chuckee. Wei was sad too, their bail had also been denied. We were all stuck in jail for who knew how long. We all needed comfort, so Hiu started singing a song in Chinese.
Tianmimi, ni shao de tinamimi
Nide shaorong namelal shushi, wo…
Yi shelal shiangbu chi tianmi
Ni shao de dup tianmi, shini, shini
Wo meng lal de jin chini, chai meng lal li…
I had no clue what the song was saying but it made me feel at ease. It made me feel less lonely and less far from home. She sang it so sweetly and lovingly we all fell fast asleep listening to her sweet voice. Sometimes you just have to stop wanting. And have the ability to just be where you are.
The next morning I woke up with a guard kicking my feet at 5 am. Not a pleasant way to wake up to your already shitty reality. They’d wake us up and haul our buts out to the yard for head count. As if anyone could actually escape those medieval cells we were locked in? The steel barrel bolt went through the foot and half thick wall into a smaller space where a huge medieval lock secured it from outside our cell. We stood in the patio as our heads were counted and waited in line for some hot chai and bread, our breakfast. I don’t think I have ever felt as hopeless in my life. I stood there in the middle of the courtyard on that dark morning and wondered if I was ever going to dance again? Was this going to be my life for the next 10 years? Was I ever going to see my father alive again? I knew that if I was locked up for years he wouldn’t be able to survive the experience. My mother was already in her late sixties, was I ever going to see them again? Life could go any which way at this point. It was terrifying. My own mind was terrifying. I went back into my chuckee and started crying. I couldn’t help it. Hui and Wei stared at me and tried to console me but I was devastated.
I was in jail. My brain could not wrap itself around the experience. My heart felt crumpled up like a piece of waste paper. My hands shook. My voice trembled. I couldn’t eat. I got so upset I started throwing up. I ran to the bathroom and puked my heart out. The smell of rotten stagnant water on the floor helped me puke out the rest of me onto that old broken sink. This was my life. I had to live it. I went back to my room and curled up on the floor like a kitten. I covered my face with my hands and started breathing deeply. I needed to calm my ass down or I was gonna have a heart attack. Then from outside my room I felt someone looking at me. I looked up. It was a young girl. She was holding half a loaf of bread. She extended her half a loaf out to me and smiled. “For you” she said in broken English. “Eat,You ok.” – I couldn’t believe my eyes. She had nothing and offered half of her nothing to me. I politely accepted her loving gift and hugged her. As soon as she left tears flooded my eyes, a strange joy overcame my being. Something was speaking to me through life. I had to start listening.
8/7/11
Purgatory
¨Hi, little bear¨...started the letter as tears started rolling down my pale cheeks. I was sitting in the middle of a piss smelling, spit reddened concrete holding cell. I read the letter hearing Mr. T´s voice clearly in my head. It was like being with him. I missed him so much. I missed my life so much I couldn´t bear the thought of never returning to it. It had been weeks in that shit hole and still no resolution. The famous three day stay had turned into a torturous endless wait for destiny to decide what was going to be of my so called life. The screeching Hindi voices yelled words I couldn´t understand. It was like purgatory in there, lost souls voicing screeching sounds begging for redemption of their sins. They had all killed people or tried to, stolen money, trafficked drugs, bought fake passports, anything they could do to get out of a place they considered hell only to get stuck on the way out on the purgatory floor. And I was there, I tried to get out of my own hell and got stuck on that shit elevator too. I was hungry and exhausted from thinking so much. The gate was opened and a tray full of little plastic bags came in and started making the rounds. It was yellow curry broth in a bag. Our meal of the day. I saw that salmonella ridden juice and took it. My stomach was like a sock flipped inside out. I was starving. We had a 6 hour wait until we were hauled back to Tihar, the big house. I made a hole at the bottom of the bag and sucked on the salmonella cocktail. Who knows what Indian water it was made with. In any case, it was an alternate way out of purgatory. I drank it all. Then, a sharp pain piercing through my chest reminded me of that lucky apple I had been baking in my breast for hours. I wasn´t sure if I should eat it or if it was an amulet I should keep with me. I decided to put it back in my breast. I wasn´t in the mood for apple pie.
Hours passed and the screeching voices never stopped. Suddenly, the gate was opened again and everyone started piling up to get out and on to the moving cage that waited outside for us. As we crossed the back patio, I caught a glimpse of Mr. T., looking at me he muttered the words ¨I love you¨ in silence, and got on his bus back to jail.
The ride always happened at sunset. You could see the orange sun pierce through the clouds of burnt shit they use as cooking gas. It made for a very poetic picture, the orange sun, behind the barred bus´ window, going down as you went into the city like prison. It reminded me of L.A. and it´s smog enhanced sunsets. I suppose we all have our own shit to deal with.
Hours passed and the screeching voices never stopped. Suddenly, the gate was opened again and everyone started piling up to get out and on to the moving cage that waited outside for us. As we crossed the back patio, I caught a glimpse of Mr. T., looking at me he muttered the words ¨I love you¨ in silence, and got on his bus back to jail.
The ride always happened at sunset. You could see the orange sun pierce through the clouds of burnt shit they use as cooking gas. It made for a very poetic picture, the orange sun, behind the barred bus´ window, going down as you went into the city like prison. It reminded me of L.A. and it´s smog enhanced sunsets. I suppose we all have our own shit to deal with.
7/5/11
Rock bottom
Mr. Paredes was shocked and angry about the arbitrary decision to deny us bail. He started arguing in Spanish while the judge stared at him impatiently. "No! no puede ser!" Yelled Paredes. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me to the front of the courtroom, right in the judges face. "Does this look like a criminal to you?!" "She didn't even have a contract!" She should be let go...keep the Canadian" - At that moment my blood pressure dropped- "No!" I said. "If he stays I stay" Silence froze the room for a moment. Paredes stared at me bewildered. And he was right, what a fucking idiot love makes us. I had no idea what I had just done. Mr. T was standing in the back of the room stunned. This was too passionate for him. In fact the two people from the Canadian "High Commission" were calmly standing beside the judge's podium listening in shock. Shocked but just listening while Mr. Paredes fought like a tiger for his cub. Somehow I knew if I left he would be stuck there for who knows how long. I knew that the "Mexican way" was the only way to get out. Yes, bribes, threats and diplomatic pressure. It was the only way out of that shit hole. And Canada was not going to go down that road. The judges hammer started banging on his desk, he started yelling at Paredes. No! They stay together, they are associates. Sorry. No bail! Go. Next! Slam, slam!!!! went the hammer...
The nice female guard held my hand and walked me out of the storage room. They hold your hand. Over there, nobody wears handcuffs. They just trust you not to take off running. Of course the fact that all guards carry old unlocked AK 47's might be part of the reason they trust you will not run. As we made our way back to the holding cells Mr T and I had about 4 minutes to speak. Looking forward as if we were not talking we made plans. "The lawyer asked me for more money", he said to me. More money? Why? We said 150,000 rupees. I know, Mr T said. He changed it now to 150,000 rupees each. How much is that in real money?
As I tried to do the math, which I have never been very good at, we arrived at the junction were we said goodbye. Mr.T handed me a letter and I had just enough time to mutter "I love you" He was swallowed into a dark corridor and I was pulled the other way.
I sat in the holding cell reading his letter. I couldn't help it and started crying. My life was like a bad Hallmark movie. I was reading love letters sitting in a stinky pissed holding cell in India. I had hit rock bottom.
The nice female guard held my hand and walked me out of the storage room. They hold your hand. Over there, nobody wears handcuffs. They just trust you not to take off running. Of course the fact that all guards carry old unlocked AK 47's might be part of the reason they trust you will not run. As we made our way back to the holding cells Mr T and I had about 4 minutes to speak. Looking forward as if we were not talking we made plans. "The lawyer asked me for more money", he said to me. More money? Why? We said 150,000 rupees. I know, Mr T said. He changed it now to 150,000 rupees each. How much is that in real money?
As I tried to do the math, which I have never been very good at, we arrived at the junction were we said goodbye. Mr.T handed me a letter and I had just enough time to mutter "I love you" He was swallowed into a dark corridor and I was pulled the other way.
I sat in the holding cell reading his letter. I couldn't help it and started crying. My life was like a bad Hallmark movie. I was reading love letters sitting in a stinky pissed holding cell in India. I had hit rock bottom.
6/28/11
Wallowing
The next morning it was my turn to visit the courthouse. I had hoped that we would be out on bail that day. The cop that arrested us said it would be no more than 3 days. Despite the fact I read my charges were non bailable, I had faith in corruption. It was now my god and only hope of getting out of there. I jumped on the bus and sat near the back next to an old lady dressed in a bright pink sari. I preferred the back of the bus in this particular situation.
The guards had the habit of sitting with their AK 47's laying on their lap like little kittens, pointing their firing hole at the cons. Every pothole we passed over we all ducked for safety. The stability of the bus' suspension was more than questionable. And that kitty jumped on the guard's lap like it had just seen a dog.
The 25 minute bus ride though New Delhi, was like waiting for the oncologist to give you your test results. Excruciating, slow, torturous.
The lady sitting next to me saw my angst. She caressed my head softly and suddenly pulled an apple out of her breast and gave it to me. She said, "No cry, you go soon...." It was like an omen, or at least I wanted to believe it was. I wanted to believe in everything that gave me hope. At that moment I believed that a breast sweated apple was an omen of good fortune. I took the holy apple and put it in my bra. That's where we kept things in prison. That's how we rolled.
We were all put in a holding cell behind the courthouse.
Same cell were I waited the very first day before going to Tihar Prison, same place I met Smile and trusted that when she said, "Oh, It's nice in there" It was true. I sat there waiting for my name to be called. Every time your name was called you got to go in front of a judge "Sandeep" (apparently all judges are named Sandeep) and you were a step closer to getting out on that oh so coveted "Bail". 5 hours later my name was finally called. I was escorted through a back patio full of male prisoners into the courtroom.
The courtroom looked like some old folks home storage room. It had furniture piled up to the ceiling and piles of old dusty books under the clerk's desks that looked like they had been there since the British invaded India.
It was filthy, dusty and gave me allergies. It was all a chaotic mess. I stood in the middle of that courtroom hoping that the apple digging a hole on the side of my thorax, was the lucky charm I had been waiting for.
Mr. Paredes, my consul, was busy walking in and out of the courtroom frantically. He was holding a suitcase full of sweaty wads of cash my family had sent over so we could bribe people.
Evergreen's lawyers were giving me the evil eye. Their filthy smirks reminding me how vile humans can be.
Evergreen ignored me as if she couldn't deal with her own guilt of seeing me so destroyed by her wrong doing.
I stared back at her with no expression, no anger and no remorse. My eyes pierced through her saying, I can take it. You haven't won yet. Amidst the chaos in the courtroom and my allergies a sudden strike of Judge Sandeep's Thor hammer announced my fate in broken English. "Bail deeenied!'
The guards had the habit of sitting with their AK 47's laying on their lap like little kittens, pointing their firing hole at the cons. Every pothole we passed over we all ducked for safety. The stability of the bus' suspension was more than questionable. And that kitty jumped on the guard's lap like it had just seen a dog.
The 25 minute bus ride though New Delhi, was like waiting for the oncologist to give you your test results. Excruciating, slow, torturous.
The lady sitting next to me saw my angst. She caressed my head softly and suddenly pulled an apple out of her breast and gave it to me. She said, "No cry, you go soon...." It was like an omen, or at least I wanted to believe it was. I wanted to believe in everything that gave me hope. At that moment I believed that a breast sweated apple was an omen of good fortune. I took the holy apple and put it in my bra. That's where we kept things in prison. That's how we rolled.
We were all put in a holding cell behind the courthouse.
Same cell were I waited the very first day before going to Tihar Prison, same place I met Smile and trusted that when she said, "Oh, It's nice in there" It was true. I sat there waiting for my name to be called. Every time your name was called you got to go in front of a judge "Sandeep" (apparently all judges are named Sandeep) and you were a step closer to getting out on that oh so coveted "Bail". 5 hours later my name was finally called. I was escorted through a back patio full of male prisoners into the courtroom.
The courtroom looked like some old folks home storage room. It had furniture piled up to the ceiling and piles of old dusty books under the clerk's desks that looked like they had been there since the British invaded India.
It was filthy, dusty and gave me allergies. It was all a chaotic mess. I stood in the middle of that courtroom hoping that the apple digging a hole on the side of my thorax, was the lucky charm I had been waiting for.
Mr. Paredes, my consul, was busy walking in and out of the courtroom frantically. He was holding a suitcase full of sweaty wads of cash my family had sent over so we could bribe people.
Evergreen's lawyers were giving me the evil eye. Their filthy smirks reminding me how vile humans can be.
Evergreen ignored me as if she couldn't deal with her own guilt of seeing me so destroyed by her wrong doing.
I stared back at her with no expression, no anger and no remorse. My eyes pierced through her saying, I can take it. You haven't won yet. Amidst the chaos in the courtroom and my allergies a sudden strike of Judge Sandeep's Thor hammer announced my fate in broken English. "Bail deeenied!'
6/27/11
Stupid
My two room mates, Hui and Wei walked in as I sat there whaling and refusing to open up the "book of terror". Wei, my loving China doll, held me in her arms and opened the book for me. She could read English, French and Mandarin and was stuck in that hell hole along with me over someone else's fake passport. Someone else she didn't even know mind you. She was ready to be canonized if you ask me. "You want me to read them for you?" She asked sweetly. Yes I said. OK, your charges are..........Her eyes widened as she started to read in a very subtle voice. As she read my fate I sat there in awe, as if I was watching a movie of someone else's life unfold in front of me. Her subtle voice pounded my eardrums like a hammer on an aluminum pot.
120 - Criminal Conspiracy.
Punishment of criminal conspiracy. (1) Whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, (2) Imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for a term of seven years or upwards, shall, where no express provision is made in this Code for the punishment of such a conspiracy, be punished in the same manner as if he had abetted such offense. Non bailable charge, Non quash-able charge.
405 - Criminal breach of trust.-- Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property.
Punishment for breach of trust. 1* imprisonment for life or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Needless to say my shopping spree, new pillow and my visit to "Jailbucks" were brutally quashed by my cathartic understanding that I was, in fact, in a maximum security prison on the opposite side of the planet, accused of non bailable, non quashable charges that carried a sentence up to life or at least 10 years of being stuck in that shithole.
I was speechless for the rest of the night. How was I going to prove that I had not conspired to commit a crime?
Yes my dears, I was fucked. Broke and fucked half way around the world inside the planet's asshole. It was getting very hard to breathe that night. The fluorescent light bulb in our cell was a creepy creature staring me down and making me face my reality. I hated that light bulb. I hated my life. I hated myself for being so freakin stupid.
120 - Criminal Conspiracy.
Punishment of criminal conspiracy. (1) Whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, (2) Imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for a term of seven years or upwards, shall, where no express provision is made in this Code for the punishment of such a conspiracy, be punished in the same manner as if he had abetted such offense. Non bailable charge, Non quash-able charge.
405 - Criminal breach of trust.-- Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property.
Punishment for breach of trust. 1* imprisonment for life or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Needless to say my shopping spree, new pillow and my visit to "Jailbucks" were brutally quashed by my cathartic understanding that I was, in fact, in a maximum security prison on the opposite side of the planet, accused of non bailable, non quashable charges that carried a sentence up to life or at least 10 years of being stuck in that shithole.
I was speechless for the rest of the night. How was I going to prove that I had not conspired to commit a crime?
Yes my dears, I was fucked. Broke and fucked half way around the world inside the planet's asshole. It was getting very hard to breathe that night. The fluorescent light bulb in our cell was a creepy creature staring me down and making me face my reality. I hated that light bulb. I hated my life. I hated myself for being so freakin stupid.
No money, no titles, no me?
How do you function in a place where money doesn't count, education is obsolete, titles, resumes, credits or previous experience is worthless. Who are you in a place like that? I was starting to realize this was the real world. If a nuclear disaster strikes us, this is what the world will be like. No money, no CEO's, VP's, movie stars...no nothing. Just us humans trying to survive each other and, If we're lucky, trying to help each other survive. I look like any old Indian girl from Kashmir, so I assumed that role. It was better for me to have people think I was local and not western. Western people all have money. Even if we're broke, according to their Eastern perception, we are the lucky bitches here on earth. Bhavna finally explained to me how I could get money deposited at the "jail bank" by an outside person. I asked Mr. Paredes, the Mexican Consul, to deposit all of $50 dollars, I thought three days fifty bucks, that's about enough. Little did I know.
So on I went the next day to buy stuff to the "Jailer Joe's" - I bought some sort of fancy fried tostito things, colored pencils, a few white pages, Indian bottled water.......(really?) and shampoo. By this time my hair was a hot mess. I had been un-showered for about 5 days now, the two days in the police station and three days here. I needed a shower urgently. The good thing is we had no mirrors in jail. Or at least, I hadn't see one yet. So after my deadly shopping spree I returned happy and exhausted to "Chez Vega-Hui-Wei" AKA cell number 8. I got home to a nice surprise, Fatima, the veteran African woman that sold the chai in our ward had brought me gifts! She gave me a pair of pants with a beautiful african animal print on them, and a pillow she had made herself with cotton and a t-shirt. My gifts were waiting for me on my dirty old wool blanket sleeping mat. My heart swell up, my eyes well up and I went to look for her at the "Jailbucks". "Fatima!" I yelled, thank you so much! I gave her a huge hug. She was happy to see me happy. She invited me into the lunch area - She sat there with her two friends from England and Germany. They were all there on similar charges. Drug possession for England and drug trafficking for Germany. England was nice, she was tall and blue eyed. And of course as soon as they could they both asked me, why are you here? What did you do? I was surprised to figure out I had no actual idea what my charges were. So I lied. Well, sort of I just said. It's complicated. Fatima quickly said, it's stealing right? My blood pressure dropped. I felt faint. I didn't even know what I was accused of, it could be anything. I left the "Jailbucks" and head over to Angeli's office.
Angeli was our warden. She took care of all the newcomers into ward 8. Ward 8 was were you spent your days until you were formally convicted or let go. So I got to her office in the middle of the patio, knocked on her door. Felt myself getting paler every knock I gave the door. She opened and i practically fell into her office rambling like a moron. "Hi, I don't know what i'm accused of, do you know? I have no idea why I'm here. I shouldn't be here. I didn't do anything! I was just trying to go home...." She looked at me knowing I was realizing where I was. She sat me down and gave me some water. As I started regaining my capacity to inhale oxygen she went to her drawer and pulled out a little book. She chose a few pages, marked them with a piece of paper and handed it over to me. "I marked the charges that are on your case, read them over so you know what your chances are...." I took the little book and walked over to Chez Vega, I sat on my wool mat and started crying. I couldn't bring myself to look. Little did I know.....
So on I went the next day to buy stuff to the "Jailer Joe's" - I bought some sort of fancy fried tostito things, colored pencils, a few white pages, Indian bottled water.......(really?) and shampoo. By this time my hair was a hot mess. I had been un-showered for about 5 days now, the two days in the police station and three days here. I needed a shower urgently. The good thing is we had no mirrors in jail. Or at least, I hadn't see one yet. So after my deadly shopping spree I returned happy and exhausted to "Chez Vega-Hui-Wei" AKA cell number 8. I got home to a nice surprise, Fatima, the veteran African woman that sold the chai in our ward had brought me gifts! She gave me a pair of pants with a beautiful african animal print on them, and a pillow she had made herself with cotton and a t-shirt. My gifts were waiting for me on my dirty old wool blanket sleeping mat. My heart swell up, my eyes well up and I went to look for her at the "Jailbucks". "Fatima!" I yelled, thank you so much! I gave her a huge hug. She was happy to see me happy. She invited me into the lunch area - She sat there with her two friends from England and Germany. They were all there on similar charges. Drug possession for England and drug trafficking for Germany. England was nice, she was tall and blue eyed. And of course as soon as they could they both asked me, why are you here? What did you do? I was surprised to figure out I had no actual idea what my charges were. So I lied. Well, sort of I just said. It's complicated. Fatima quickly said, it's stealing right? My blood pressure dropped. I felt faint. I didn't even know what I was accused of, it could be anything. I left the "Jailbucks" and head over to Angeli's office.
Angeli was our warden. She took care of all the newcomers into ward 8. Ward 8 was were you spent your days until you were formally convicted or let go. So I got to her office in the middle of the patio, knocked on her door. Felt myself getting paler every knock I gave the door. She opened and i practically fell into her office rambling like a moron. "Hi, I don't know what i'm accused of, do you know? I have no idea why I'm here. I shouldn't be here. I didn't do anything! I was just trying to go home...." She looked at me knowing I was realizing where I was. She sat me down and gave me some water. As I started regaining my capacity to inhale oxygen she went to her drawer and pulled out a little book. She chose a few pages, marked them with a piece of paper and handed it over to me. "I marked the charges that are on your case, read them over so you know what your chances are...." I took the little book and walked over to Chez Vega, I sat on my wool mat and started crying. I couldn't bring myself to look. Little did I know.....
4/24/11
Smile
Anyway, I was stuck in this shithole now, what was I gonna do? I was in over my head in a sitaution that involed too much ego and little heart. How was I gonna solve this issue now?
I sat in my concrete cell, wrapped in my itchy wool blanket and thought. I thought and thought days on end. What happens if I get to stay here for years? What am I gonna do then? My father, being the neurotic person he is, will surely die of some sort of attack. I can’t let that happen. Is this really my life? What did I ever do to deserve this? Well, kabbalists would say that I had a certain karma to resolve. And so I did. But the problem was, I had no idea what the balance on my karmic account was? I felt like a victim of destiny. I felt like life had donde me wrong. I had done nothing but make an effort, I had done nothing but work hard and try to accomplish. What was so wrong with that? I was in absolute victim mode.
I spent days on end crying my eyes out at my unfortunate destiny until one morning I was bored to tears.
I saw a guard staring at me from outside my cell with a blank expression. It seemed she had seen this a thousand times before. She looked at me and smiled. I suddenly realized self pity was getting me nowhere. That smile made me realize I could actuallly have any experience I wanted. I could shift the energy around me to benefit my own future. I had never aspired to becoming a victim, I had always thought of myself more as a hero. And heroes don’t cry, they especially don’t cry like little bitches. And at that precise moment, everything changed.
A voice inside me said, smile and keep walking Cantina. You’ll get over this. And so I did. I started smiling at the guard that kicked my feet at 5am. I started smiling at the lady that gave me my morning bread and chai. I started smiling at anyone I saw or made eye contact with. I walked around smiling, and got familiar with my surroundings. I found the store which sold basic items like, colored pencils, paper, water, soap, toothpaste and an Indian version of chips. No candy. Actually sugar was not allowed inside the jail gates.
I guess you wouldn’t want a bunch of murderers on a sugar high in a confined space, right? I agreed. I tried to get water but was informed in sign laguage I could not get any. I walked back to my cell and started trying to figure out how to get a bottle of water. Is it on account? How does one pay for stuff in here if one cannot have any dinero? So I set out to ask around how the system worked. Dr. Bahvna slept in the cell next to mine. She knew her way around, apparently it wasn’t the first time she visited Tihar jail. She was a leader of sorts. She was in charge of several tasks, orgnizing the inmates for cleaning chores and calling the name of the released every night in the courtyard. I knew she sould help me get familiar with the place.
I walked over to her cell and found her on the ground listening to the radio. A Hindi song played loudly. Good God, they like their volumes high in India. The song played so loud and distorted I couldn’t help but react to it by doing a little Hindi eye dance. Dr. Bhavna instantly started laughing. I knew I had made a friend.
I sat in my concrete cell, wrapped in my itchy wool blanket and thought. I thought and thought days on end. What happens if I get to stay here for years? What am I gonna do then? My father, being the neurotic person he is, will surely die of some sort of attack. I can’t let that happen. Is this really my life? What did I ever do to deserve this? Well, kabbalists would say that I had a certain karma to resolve. And so I did. But the problem was, I had no idea what the balance on my karmic account was? I felt like a victim of destiny. I felt like life had donde me wrong. I had done nothing but make an effort, I had done nothing but work hard and try to accomplish. What was so wrong with that? I was in absolute victim mode.
I spent days on end crying my eyes out at my unfortunate destiny until one morning I was bored to tears.
I saw a guard staring at me from outside my cell with a blank expression. It seemed she had seen this a thousand times before. She looked at me and smiled. I suddenly realized self pity was getting me nowhere. That smile made me realize I could actuallly have any experience I wanted. I could shift the energy around me to benefit my own future. I had never aspired to becoming a victim, I had always thought of myself more as a hero. And heroes don’t cry, they especially don’t cry like little bitches. And at that precise moment, everything changed.
A voice inside me said, smile and keep walking Cantina. You’ll get over this. And so I did. I started smiling at the guard that kicked my feet at 5am. I started smiling at the lady that gave me my morning bread and chai. I started smiling at anyone I saw or made eye contact with. I walked around smiling, and got familiar with my surroundings. I found the store which sold basic items like, colored pencils, paper, water, soap, toothpaste and an Indian version of chips. No candy. Actually sugar was not allowed inside the jail gates.
I guess you wouldn’t want a bunch of murderers on a sugar high in a confined space, right? I agreed. I tried to get water but was informed in sign laguage I could not get any. I walked back to my cell and started trying to figure out how to get a bottle of water. Is it on account? How does one pay for stuff in here if one cannot have any dinero? So I set out to ask around how the system worked. Dr. Bahvna slept in the cell next to mine. She knew her way around, apparently it wasn’t the first time she visited Tihar jail. She was a leader of sorts. She was in charge of several tasks, orgnizing the inmates for cleaning chores and calling the name of the released every night in the courtyard. I knew she sould help me get familiar with the place.
I walked over to her cell and found her on the ground listening to the radio. A Hindi song played loudly. Good God, they like their volumes high in India. The song played so loud and distorted I couldn’t help but react to it by doing a little Hindi eye dance. Dr. Bhavna instantly started laughing. I knew I had made a friend.
3/19/11
Now what?
As the military truck left the station I kept asking myself, what are you gonna do Cantina? What are you gonna do now? The morning seemed tranquil through the barred bus window. People went on about their business as usual. The bitter smell of onion sweat sat beside me like a prisoner. Like a cell mate.
Once inside the holding cell I met an African girl named Smile. And so she did. She smiled about everything. She was the first one to sit beside me and ask my name. Hi, I’m Smile. Your name? Shaula, I said. I couldn’t stand myself right then. I felt so sorry for myself, if I saw myself on the street, I’d kick my own ass.
Smile was kind and pretty, she looked like she just came from the salon, she was so well dressed. I asked her if she had just been arrested, No, she said smiling. Of course. I have been here 6 months. Wow. Jail does a body good girl. You look fantastic. She smiled again. I look like shit and I’ve just been to the holding cells so far. She sported a red pachmina and some slender jeans. Her nails were done, her eyebrows waxed and she smelled like jasmin.
What was going on? Was I being taken to a resort of sorts?
Anyway, Smile asked me what I was arrested for. I said, nothing. I’m innocent. It’s complicated. I wasn’t about to get into the whole numeric list bullshit. Only I get arrested half way around the world for a bunch of virtual numbers. Bullshit.
Shit. Anyway, she went on and smiled again and said; Oh you’re innocent too? Welcome. We’re all innocent in here!
I’m not sure if she was being sarcastic, as her smile was so fucking genuine, I couldn’t tell. I was being serious. I didn’t fucking do anything. That bitter bitch Evergreen, and her cronies, did me in. Bitch.
But you can’t really trust anyone in jail. I mean, they’re in jail. You know what I mean? So I opted for the easy answer, It’s complicated Smile, it’s just complicated.
She went on and believed me with no reservations. How else could a person called Smile possibily react?
Anyway, I walked into the prison area and innocently asked what seemed to be a fat Indian man, “Whats in there?”
He replied in a strikingly femenin sweet voice, Prisoners.
Oh. Yeah. I’m in prison aren’t I? I realized I was inside now.
Dr. Bhavna with her manly looks and femenin ways took one look at me and came closer, she was fat, kind and innocent.
“Hi.” She said warmly. “And you are here for stealing right?” How the hell did she know what I was accused of?
I honestly had no idea what I was there for exactly, as my "charges" were never read to me or discussed entirely.
I was confused and astonished, I was actually in an indian jail and I was in for stealing?
The following hours were spent figuring out where I was gonna spend my next 12 hours at, was I gonna be locked up with 80 Indian inmates, or was I gonna be put ina smaller cell in a safer enrvironment? I asked Bhavna, "Where is the "Foreigner" area. It was supposed to be like a VIP room or something. Separated from general population, this is what I was told. And there's a phone so I can make phone calls yes? " She stared at me kindly and suddenly burst out in laughter and started rambling on in Hindi. Aaaaaajajajajahahaha Tike tike,, mukty jonji nutty wahtsa...blah blah....
Everyone around me started laughing and pointing. I mean, I knew I was funny but I didn't think I had said anything funny in a long while. Yes, Cantina they're laughing at you. Gen pop it is baby. get used to it. So I was thrown in to a cell with about 79 Indian women. We all were given a space on the floor defined by the width of our blankets. I was given an aluminum plate and a cup. A blanket that smelled like dust and a plastic spoon. No forks or knives, not even a spork.
I spent almost the entire night trying to understand why all my "cellmates" were surrounding me touching my hair, caressing my hand, hugging me. It got weird. Like I was some weird Toltec idol. Until toltec idol could hold no more her eyes open. I fell asleep and went into my new favorite place, Dreamland. I woke up smiling, who knows what I was dreaming about but it was pleasant.....until I woke up to Indian women screaming and pulling each other's hair in a fight. Oh yeah man. My first jail fight, live! Suddenly, in the midst of the fighting the guard came up to the cell door and banged her bamboo stick on the bars making an unbearable sound that broke the monkey fighting that was going on. It was weird. I felt like I was in a movie or a zoo. Anyway, up to the gate came my savior, I didn't know her but Smile, my beautiful African friend had told my new African friend "Fatima" about my whereabouts. Apparently Fatima knew about the monkey cell and their weird obsession with toltec idols so she decided to come get me out of there and put me in a safer place.
That same day I was put ina smaller cell with 2 Chinese roommates. I call them Roommates, Hui and Wei.
One of them barely spoke English and the other one barely spoke Mandarin. We were in for quite a ride.
Hui was from China and was studying college in Paris, she was arrested in new Delhi for traveling with a person who had a fake visa and passport, Wei. They were kind of like Fuckme and Fuckyou from the Austin Powers movies.
Wei, whom had gotten a fake visa so she could get to her cousin in Paris who was a cook, had no idea how grave of a siuation she had gotten herself into. She was confident they’d be out in a jiffy. Not the case. Convicton for fake paperwork was easy three years and she had a fake visa AND passport. They were fucked, and so was I.
I had no proof of what I was arguing being true. It was all digital talk in an analog world. The file, the numeric list, the cut list…they were all lost causes. I had been put in jail beause some Indian assholes with too much money and power had nothing better to do with their lives, that was the truth.
Once inside the holding cell I met an African girl named Smile. And so she did. She smiled about everything. She was the first one to sit beside me and ask my name. Hi, I’m Smile. Your name? Shaula, I said. I couldn’t stand myself right then. I felt so sorry for myself, if I saw myself on the street, I’d kick my own ass.
Smile was kind and pretty, she looked like she just came from the salon, she was so well dressed. I asked her if she had just been arrested, No, she said smiling. Of course. I have been here 6 months. Wow. Jail does a body good girl. You look fantastic. She smiled again. I look like shit and I’ve just been to the holding cells so far. She sported a red pachmina and some slender jeans. Her nails were done, her eyebrows waxed and she smelled like jasmin.
What was going on? Was I being taken to a resort of sorts?
Anyway, Smile asked me what I was arrested for. I said, nothing. I’m innocent. It’s complicated. I wasn’t about to get into the whole numeric list bullshit. Only I get arrested half way around the world for a bunch of virtual numbers. Bullshit.
Shit. Anyway, she went on and smiled again and said; Oh you’re innocent too? Welcome. We’re all innocent in here!
I’m not sure if she was being sarcastic, as her smile was so fucking genuine, I couldn’t tell. I was being serious. I didn’t fucking do anything. That bitter bitch Evergreen, and her cronies, did me in. Bitch.
But you can’t really trust anyone in jail. I mean, they’re in jail. You know what I mean? So I opted for the easy answer, It’s complicated Smile, it’s just complicated.
She went on and believed me with no reservations. How else could a person called Smile possibily react?
Anyway, I walked into the prison area and innocently asked what seemed to be a fat Indian man, “Whats in there?”
He replied in a strikingly femenin sweet voice, Prisoners.
Oh. Yeah. I’m in prison aren’t I? I realized I was inside now.
Dr. Bhavna with her manly looks and femenin ways took one look at me and came closer, she was fat, kind and innocent.
“Hi.” She said warmly. “And you are here for stealing right?” How the hell did she know what I was accused of?
I honestly had no idea what I was there for exactly, as my "charges" were never read to me or discussed entirely.
I was confused and astonished, I was actually in an indian jail and I was in for stealing?
The following hours were spent figuring out where I was gonna spend my next 12 hours at, was I gonna be locked up with 80 Indian inmates, or was I gonna be put ina smaller cell in a safer enrvironment? I asked Bhavna, "Where is the "Foreigner" area. It was supposed to be like a VIP room or something. Separated from general population, this is what I was told. And there's a phone so I can make phone calls yes? " She stared at me kindly and suddenly burst out in laughter and started rambling on in Hindi. Aaaaaajajajajahahaha Tike tike,, mukty jonji nutty wahtsa...blah blah....
Everyone around me started laughing and pointing. I mean, I knew I was funny but I didn't think I had said anything funny in a long while. Yes, Cantina they're laughing at you. Gen pop it is baby. get used to it. So I was thrown in to a cell with about 79 Indian women. We all were given a space on the floor defined by the width of our blankets. I was given an aluminum plate and a cup. A blanket that smelled like dust and a plastic spoon. No forks or knives, not even a spork.
I spent almost the entire night trying to understand why all my "cellmates" were surrounding me touching my hair, caressing my hand, hugging me. It got weird. Like I was some weird Toltec idol. Until toltec idol could hold no more her eyes open. I fell asleep and went into my new favorite place, Dreamland. I woke up smiling, who knows what I was dreaming about but it was pleasant.....until I woke up to Indian women screaming and pulling each other's hair in a fight. Oh yeah man. My first jail fight, live! Suddenly, in the midst of the fighting the guard came up to the cell door and banged her bamboo stick on the bars making an unbearable sound that broke the monkey fighting that was going on. It was weird. I felt like I was in a movie or a zoo. Anyway, up to the gate came my savior, I didn't know her but Smile, my beautiful African friend had told my new African friend "Fatima" about my whereabouts. Apparently Fatima knew about the monkey cell and their weird obsession with toltec idols so she decided to come get me out of there and put me in a safer place.
That same day I was put ina smaller cell with 2 Chinese roommates. I call them Roommates, Hui and Wei.
One of them barely spoke English and the other one barely spoke Mandarin. We were in for quite a ride.
Hui was from China and was studying college in Paris, she was arrested in new Delhi for traveling with a person who had a fake visa and passport, Wei. They were kind of like Fuckme and Fuckyou from the Austin Powers movies.
Wei, whom had gotten a fake visa so she could get to her cousin in Paris who was a cook, had no idea how grave of a siuation she had gotten herself into. She was confident they’d be out in a jiffy. Not the case. Convicton for fake paperwork was easy three years and she had a fake visa AND passport. They were fucked, and so was I.
I had no proof of what I was arguing being true. It was all digital talk in an analog world. The file, the numeric list, the cut list…they were all lost causes. I had been put in jail beause some Indian assholes with too much money and power had nothing better to do with their lives, that was the truth.
3/13/11
Alone
The ant trail crossed through the dining room into the living room and went up the couches leg crossing over to the wall behind Judge Sandeep's head. I'm guessing his name was Sandeep something or other, everyone in India is named Sandeep.
So judge Sandeep, wearing his white Gepeto pajama sat on his red velvet and gold Louis XV couch and stared profoundly at my eyes. He looked me up and down and took a deep breath as he grabbed his pen and signed the arrest order.
"Tomorrow at 600 hours the accused will be remanded to Tihar Prison until further action can be taken on their case. I am not the appropriate judge to form an opinion on this matter." "Here you go", he said, as he handed over the folder to the arresting police officer.
"Hijole mija...." Were the famous last words I heard from the Mexican consul. I was dragged out of what I now refer to as "The Ant palace" by two police officers. I was put in the back of a police car. Firecrackers were going off like it was the fourth of July. The police car dodged every single explosion on the road to the holding cells at Defence Colony police station.
I was in a dream, I couldn't tell the difference between reality and imagination. My mind was confused, was this really happening to me? I was going to jail. Shit.
When we finally arrived at the holding cells, a police woman wearing a nice pink dress, came up to me and held my hand.
She guided me this way up to a military truck which then took us both to another station far and away. It seemed like and old abandoned jail in the middle of nowhere. My lips were swelling like Angelina for no apparent reason. I think I was so nervous I ate the top layer of my mouth without noticing. By the time they locked me up in my stinky cement jail cell my lips had started bleeding. Mosquitoes swarmed all around my head like that character in the peanuts cartoon. As a welcome gift I got a blanket just like his too, all peed on and stiff from old vomit and junk. It was a freezing cold night I spent there wondering what my life was gonna be like in that Indian prison. I tried to sleep but the blood dripping from my lips kept waking me up. The smell coming from the hole in the ground they call toilet, was more than I could bare. I threw up in it and then proceeded to vomit again from smelling the mix of my own puke and the old crap that floated in the hole.
This was me, staring into a hole full of shit, crying, bleeding and puking. Wondering what the fuck I had gotten myself into.
Wondering if It was real or if it would all be over in the morning like a bad dream. I fell asleep crying curled up in the cold concrete, covered by a filthy blanket and the mosquito swarm. I have to thank them for keeping me warm that night. Morning came around, the sound of crows woke me up. As I woke and looked around in disbelief I thought; shit, I'm still here. It's real. I'm in jail in India. The nice woman in the pink dress, came into my cell and gently held my hand, helped me get up and walked me back to the military truck in the parking lot. The truck took off and took me to my final stop before the real deal. At this stop I met another Sandeep that offered me some chai. Things started looking up. I got warm chai for breakfast! I sat down in his office and tried to talk to him, he suggested that in India, things could be done a different way. If I knew what he meant. Bells went off, this sounded awfully familiar. I was from Mexico, land of the bribe. I had bribed my first cop at the age of 14. I knew exactly what he meant. But did he mean what I thought he meant? If not I could be in deeper shit than I already was. I had to be careful. I had to wait until he asked and until he told me how to go about it without telling me straight on. I had to wait. I knew we hadn't done anything that broke any laws. I knew we were innocent of their accusations. But I also knew the third world, and the fact that we looked like and ATM machine to most people in that country didn't help our case. The fact that we lived in Los Angeles and were working on a film, made us look like walking dollar signs to everyone. Nobody understood we were broke. My Gucci leather bag didn't help my "I'm broke" argument either. The west is strange like that, someone can be flat broke and still be sporting a Gucci bag with no money in it. That's just how we roll. How do I explain this to an indian that makes maybe 3 dollars a day salary?
I started to understand I was in for the ride of my life. I was entering a whole new dimension where the things that mattered to me didn't matter to anybody. I was entering the dimension of being human. I was leaving behind my name, my parents, my education, my knowledge. I was leaving me behind to go find myself again. I was alone, truly alone for the first time in my life.
So judge Sandeep, wearing his white Gepeto pajama sat on his red velvet and gold Louis XV couch and stared profoundly at my eyes. He looked me up and down and took a deep breath as he grabbed his pen and signed the arrest order.
"Tomorrow at 600 hours the accused will be remanded to Tihar Prison until further action can be taken on their case. I am not the appropriate judge to form an opinion on this matter." "Here you go", he said, as he handed over the folder to the arresting police officer.
"Hijole mija...." Were the famous last words I heard from the Mexican consul. I was dragged out of what I now refer to as "The Ant palace" by two police officers. I was put in the back of a police car. Firecrackers were going off like it was the fourth of July. The police car dodged every single explosion on the road to the holding cells at Defence Colony police station.
I was in a dream, I couldn't tell the difference between reality and imagination. My mind was confused, was this really happening to me? I was going to jail. Shit.
When we finally arrived at the holding cells, a police woman wearing a nice pink dress, came up to me and held my hand.
She guided me this way up to a military truck which then took us both to another station far and away. It seemed like and old abandoned jail in the middle of nowhere. My lips were swelling like Angelina for no apparent reason. I think I was so nervous I ate the top layer of my mouth without noticing. By the time they locked me up in my stinky cement jail cell my lips had started bleeding. Mosquitoes swarmed all around my head like that character in the peanuts cartoon. As a welcome gift I got a blanket just like his too, all peed on and stiff from old vomit and junk. It was a freezing cold night I spent there wondering what my life was gonna be like in that Indian prison. I tried to sleep but the blood dripping from my lips kept waking me up. The smell coming from the hole in the ground they call toilet, was more than I could bare. I threw up in it and then proceeded to vomit again from smelling the mix of my own puke and the old crap that floated in the hole.
This was me, staring into a hole full of shit, crying, bleeding and puking. Wondering what the fuck I had gotten myself into.
Wondering if It was real or if it would all be over in the morning like a bad dream. I fell asleep crying curled up in the cold concrete, covered by a filthy blanket and the mosquito swarm. I have to thank them for keeping me warm that night. Morning came around, the sound of crows woke me up. As I woke and looked around in disbelief I thought; shit, I'm still here. It's real. I'm in jail in India. The nice woman in the pink dress, came into my cell and gently held my hand, helped me get up and walked me back to the military truck in the parking lot. The truck took off and took me to my final stop before the real deal. At this stop I met another Sandeep that offered me some chai. Things started looking up. I got warm chai for breakfast! I sat down in his office and tried to talk to him, he suggested that in India, things could be done a different way. If I knew what he meant. Bells went off, this sounded awfully familiar. I was from Mexico, land of the bribe. I had bribed my first cop at the age of 14. I knew exactly what he meant. But did he mean what I thought he meant? If not I could be in deeper shit than I already was. I had to be careful. I had to wait until he asked and until he told me how to go about it without telling me straight on. I had to wait. I knew we hadn't done anything that broke any laws. I knew we were innocent of their accusations. But I also knew the third world, and the fact that we looked like and ATM machine to most people in that country didn't help our case. The fact that we lived in Los Angeles and were working on a film, made us look like walking dollar signs to everyone. Nobody understood we were broke. My Gucci leather bag didn't help my "I'm broke" argument either. The west is strange like that, someone can be flat broke and still be sporting a Gucci bag with no money in it. That's just how we roll. How do I explain this to an indian that makes maybe 3 dollars a day salary?
I started to understand I was in for the ride of my life. I was entering a whole new dimension where the things that mattered to me didn't matter to anybody. I was entering the dimension of being human. I was leaving behind my name, my parents, my education, my knowledge. I was leaving me behind to go find myself again. I was alone, truly alone for the first time in my life.
2/15/11
Arrested development
At the airport eating a sandwich and waiting for our flight, I though to myself. How exaggerated am I! I thought we were gonna get killed in India or kidnapped. I actually feared for my life and It's not a good feeling let me tell you. I was imagining those crazy Indians running after us through dark stinky New Delhi alleyways. It was a nightmare I was creating every minute, as we waited for this moment in that stinky hotel room downtown. Oh that must have been the longest wait I have ever had. Counting the minutes until we had to leave for the airport. Wondering if someone was going to be waiting for us outside out hotel with guns in hand. Oh I don't know. All I can say is it was torture. I was happy to be watching Alley McBeal and on my way back to my superficial life in Los Angeles. I was looking forward to going to the Santa Monica pier and walking around with my 5 dollar frapuccino looking like the hot Latina I am. Little did I know. As I took the last bite of my sandwich I saw T's face turning beet red. "What's wrong?" I said to him. He then turned a pale shade of Canadian (if you can imagine how pale that is) and pointed to the cafeteria entrance. "They're here" He muttered. NO! They can't be, they are not allowed in the airport unless they have a plane ticket!
That last bite of sandwich spat out of my mouth as I said to him, "Oh shit!"
The crazy Indians were here. And they were walking towards us. It was that traitor Gorov and a military police man, they charged at us like bulls to a red cape. I stood up in a rage and got all that was Mexican out of me. As they drew close to us, Gorov, pointed his dirty finger at me and said in Hindi: "They stole our equipment!!"
What did you say?. I actually had no idea what he'd said, but I yelled at him as if i did. It was the only thing I could think of at that moment. No!!! He's lying! The policeman looked at me confused and started dragging my ass out of the cafe. T was right behind me. Gorov looked at me and had the nerve to say to me: "Sorry, I am just doing my job. You understand?" Then he went back to badmouthing me and yelling in Hindi. It was an unbelievable transformation that happened right in front of my eyes. I was astounded. Dumbfounded. I had never ever seen someone so vile and backstabbing convert in plain sight. And there I was being dragged by airport soldiers, all wearing red berets and military uniforms. I was a criminal to everyone watching.
And my only crime was trying to return to my superficial meaningless life in L.A.
Little did I know.
That last bite of sandwich spat out of my mouth as I said to him, "Oh shit!"
The crazy Indians were here. And they were walking towards us. It was that traitor Gorov and a military police man, they charged at us like bulls to a red cape. I stood up in a rage and got all that was Mexican out of me. As they drew close to us, Gorov, pointed his dirty finger at me and said in Hindi: "They stole our equipment!!"
What did you say?. I actually had no idea what he'd said, but I yelled at him as if i did. It was the only thing I could think of at that moment. No!!! He's lying! The policeman looked at me confused and started dragging my ass out of the cafe. T was right behind me. Gorov looked at me and had the nerve to say to me: "Sorry, I am just doing my job. You understand?" Then he went back to badmouthing me and yelling in Hindi. It was an unbelievable transformation that happened right in front of my eyes. I was astounded. Dumbfounded. I had never ever seen someone so vile and backstabbing convert in plain sight. And there I was being dragged by airport soldiers, all wearing red berets and military uniforms. I was a criminal to everyone watching.
And my only crime was trying to return to my superficial meaningless life in L.A.
Little did I know.
1/23/11
Little did we know.
Suddenly at around 3 in the morning a miracle on Defence Colony occured. They got tired and finally got up to leave! I couldn’t believe it. I was beside myself, I think I farted I was so relieved. My body just let go and let out a gigantic tikka masala fart. Karan walked them to the door, as soon as the door closed I ran into the bedroom to alert T. He was fast asleep but got up right away and called his family. He announced to them we were on our way home. They were a little alarmed at the news of our homecoming. T’s father insisted we talk to them. But the decisión was made. We wanted out of India. We could wait no more. We knew they were not willing to negotiate. And we knew they needed their cut list to finish their film but now it was going to be in our terms. And here comes the part where I say, “Little did we know…” – It’ll make sense in a few pages.
We finished packing and waited for a little bit of light to shine through. Karan insisted, “Get out of Delhi as soon as you can…” Bopping his head in that uncertain way all Indians do. Yes, we will. Trust bitch, we will. As dawn peeked it’s grey colors we jumped in a cab, destination: Canadian High Comission. As we got in the cab and I said the words, “To the Canadian Embassy please” I knew right away we had jumped on a non-stop trip down the rabbit hole.
I looked over at T and said: “You know there’s no turning back now…” - “I know” he replied with certainty in his eye.
I thought to myself, It’s on now.
All the what if’s I had ever thought of started flashing in my head like a slideshow. In big bright bold letters. What if they find us? What if they kill us? What if they’re following us?
I kept looking back at the cars that were around us, it all started to seem like a Kubrik film with a touch of Irreversible added to it. As we arrived at the embassy, which was highly protected by armed guards, I felt safer. We crossed the threshold of the door and were greeted by a very amicable indian woman in a long exotic saree. Her sweet voice was soothing music to my ears. She handed us a form to fill out with our grievance and said in her sweet unalterable voice: “Please fill out the form with the whole story, thank you pleese, and I shall give it to the proper person tomorrow to see about your case.”
In her consular universe nothing ever went wrong. Of course, they fail to communicate to you they have full immunity all over the planet. Reason why they walk around the world with the look of serenity that can only be altered by gas perhaps.
TOMORROW!!??? Bitch, we wanna get out of this hell hole TO-DAY! I thought to myself. Yet the words that came out of my trembling pie hole were a lot tamer.
“We were thinking we would leave the country tonight and if possible get an escort from the embassy to take us to the airport in case we run into any trouble”
She looked at me with the same unalterable expression of serenity she had before, and bopped her head side to side front to back endlessly. One second I thought she was saying yes, the next second it was no and that shit went on for about 2 minutes. Yes, no, yes no, yes, no….Until finally: “This will not be possible madam...but you may call this 800 number in case anything might happen to you.”
Great, call 1800 save my ass from crazy Indians that wanna kill me. Oh thank you! I said. I guess sarcasm is not in their vocabulary as she stared at me blankly and smiled back. I took the 800 number and we walked out of there calmly. We got in cab and waved goodbye to the smiling diplomat and her worldwide immunity. Little did we know.
We finished packing and waited for a little bit of light to shine through. Karan insisted, “Get out of Delhi as soon as you can…” Bopping his head in that uncertain way all Indians do. Yes, we will. Trust bitch, we will. As dawn peeked it’s grey colors we jumped in a cab, destination: Canadian High Comission. As we got in the cab and I said the words, “To the Canadian Embassy please” I knew right away we had jumped on a non-stop trip down the rabbit hole.
I looked over at T and said: “You know there’s no turning back now…” - “I know” he replied with certainty in his eye.
I thought to myself, It’s on now.
All the what if’s I had ever thought of started flashing in my head like a slideshow. In big bright bold letters. What if they find us? What if they kill us? What if they’re following us?
I kept looking back at the cars that were around us, it all started to seem like a Kubrik film with a touch of Irreversible added to it. As we arrived at the embassy, which was highly protected by armed guards, I felt safer. We crossed the threshold of the door and were greeted by a very amicable indian woman in a long exotic saree. Her sweet voice was soothing music to my ears. She handed us a form to fill out with our grievance and said in her sweet unalterable voice: “Please fill out the form with the whole story, thank you pleese, and I shall give it to the proper person tomorrow to see about your case.”
In her consular universe nothing ever went wrong. Of course, they fail to communicate to you they have full immunity all over the planet. Reason why they walk around the world with the look of serenity that can only be altered by gas perhaps.
TOMORROW!!??? Bitch, we wanna get out of this hell hole TO-DAY! I thought to myself. Yet the words that came out of my trembling pie hole were a lot tamer.
“We were thinking we would leave the country tonight and if possible get an escort from the embassy to take us to the airport in case we run into any trouble”
She looked at me with the same unalterable expression of serenity she had before, and bopped her head side to side front to back endlessly. One second I thought she was saying yes, the next second it was no and that shit went on for about 2 minutes. Yes, no, yes no, yes, no….Until finally: “This will not be possible madam...but you may call this 800 number in case anything might happen to you.”
Great, call 1800 save my ass from crazy Indians that wanna kill me. Oh thank you! I said. I guess sarcasm is not in their vocabulary as she stared at me blankly and smiled back. I took the 800 number and we walked out of there calmly. We got in cab and waved goodbye to the smiling diplomat and her worldwide immunity. Little did we know.
12/9/10
Editing suite 2:30 am
The tension could be felt in the oxigen we were breathing, every breath expelled was thickening the atmosphere. I sat at Karan’s computer looking for a way out of this rabbit hole. Indiatraveltours.net seemed to be the gateway to freedom. Air Canada. Check, October 24th, check, midnight flight outta dodge, check! I did it, While the air thickened I managed to book two airline tickets out of New Delhi into Toronto, Canada. For tomorrow. Roger, whom I will now call Mr. Pathetic, was sitting in front of me at a different desk and kept fidgeting around and looking at me every now and then. Smiling with that fake crooked tooth ridden fly trap of his. I smiled back in agony knowing that things were falling apart and nobody wanted to say anything. It’s like knowing you’re leaving someone that is lying to you yet still sitting in the same room pretending everything is fine. Humans do the strangest things. Why do we lie? Why do we cheat? Why do we try to get away with things? This was an awful cat and mouse game. We refused to get bamboozled by Mr. Pathetic and his evil witch Evermean. Our egos were so large we couldn’t possibly get cheated. We knew what they were up to and we were not gonna take it. We were not stupid you know! I booked the tickets, walked out of the room to breathe a little and dove back into the molases atmosphere in the editing suite. Karan had written in his notebook: I help you. And showed it to me as I walked by his chair near the door. I smiled back at him. I had to sit in that stinky office waiting for Pathetic and his assistant to give up on trying to figure out Mr. T’s MAC. I guess they wanted to steal the project but couldn’t figure out how to do it. Their faces were comical, they were sweating and kept looking at eachother pretending to edit when I could clearly see they had no idea what they were doing. I sat there googling all kinds of options.
Tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc….
The clock kept ticking it was now 3 am.
I was so pumped up on adrenaline I wasn’t even tired or felt sick anymore. I had a plan. We were leaving before the sun came out. They were coming back around 11 in the morning so by that time we would already be hiding at the Canadian embassy waiting for our flight time to come around. There would be no getting rid of us. That sounded terrifying. In India getting rid of someone is cheap. $100 dollars can get it done. They owed us 30,000 pounds. It sounded worth it. I guess we’ll never know what they meant by that statement. But I wasn’t about to stick around and ask Evermean: “What did you mean get rid of us?” No bitch, I was outta there. My fingers started tapping the desk nervously. I was starting to get desperate for them to leave. I needed to scream, walk around in circles and say: This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening, compulsively. I needed to binge on nutella and bread while I laughed. I needed to look in the mirror and say FUCK THIS! Out loud. And those nincompoops were still there and all I could do was sit and wait. Wait Cantina, wait…..
Tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc….
The clock kept ticking it was now 3 am.
I was so pumped up on adrenaline I wasn’t even tired or felt sick anymore. I had a plan. We were leaving before the sun came out. They were coming back around 11 in the morning so by that time we would already be hiding at the Canadian embassy waiting for our flight time to come around. There would be no getting rid of us. That sounded terrifying. In India getting rid of someone is cheap. $100 dollars can get it done. They owed us 30,000 pounds. It sounded worth it. I guess we’ll never know what they meant by that statement. But I wasn’t about to stick around and ask Evermean: “What did you mean get rid of us?” No bitch, I was outta there. My fingers started tapping the desk nervously. I was starting to get desperate for them to leave. I needed to scream, walk around in circles and say: This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening, compulsively. I needed to binge on nutella and bread while I laughed. I needed to look in the mirror and say FUCK THIS! Out loud. And those nincompoops were still there and all I could do was sit and wait. Wait Cantina, wait…..
10/24/10
October 24th The doorway to the rabbithole....
The Game was on
And so the days went by and the work kept coming with the promise of that deposit that never came. 9 weeks into this adventure and we were broke in India and by Indian terms. Which in Western terms means in deep shit. After 24 hours of non-stop editing to hit a deadline Mr. T, as I will call him from now on, was exhausted and sick. As was I.
After a vomit-diarrhea-fever-cold sweat extravaganza we decided it was time to go to the hospital.
Yes honey, we were in the hospital in New Delhi, it is like nothing you have ever seen. It looks like a combination vintage store on La Brea Av. and a soup kitchen down on San Pedro Street.
I have never seen poor or sick like I saw in this place. As we walked into the Dr.s office Mr. T started to look faint and ran out of the office into the bathroom, barely making his run, he projectile vomited all over the bathroom door. The Dr. was taking my pulses, because in India they do 2 pulses, your veins and your arteries. He took one look at me, heard the vomiting down the hall, and said in a firm voice, You must be admitted at once!!! This is dengue fever. Very very dangerous. You do not have much time and you will need a blood transfusion.
WHAT!? OK, that was the scariest news I had gotten since my Mom came out of the closet in 95.
Next thing I knew, we were rushed from the Dr's office to the emergency room to a private room and before I knew it we were laying in a bed with an IV up our arm. The room had no windows; it was like a 1942 mid war hospital room, something right out of a movie. Karan, my dear friend, came in. He was worried about us but had some awkward news to share. He said; be very careful with what they put in your IV, these people are very good friends with hospital. They want to steal your stuff! I heard them talking in the office! Don't say I told you, but be very careful, they want to get rid of you and not pay. Mr. T was half gone but his eyes widened with disbelief. For a split second. I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the dengue fever. Now we were broke ass, sick and persecuted foreigners lying in a hospital room with no windows to escape from.
All right, I thought, this has gone far enough I think? I looked at Mr. T and said; we are not sleeping in this place, so you better work and get all the fluids you can because we are going home honey. He looked at me and fell right back to sleep. The door opened slowly, the nurse walked in with a big smile on her face, it was right out of a David Lynch film; she was carrying a tray full of needles. She lifted my arm, made sure the IV was in place and started to prepare a needle. I looked at her and gasped, what is that? I said. All she said in her broken English was, Dr. say this good for you, thank you please. Thank you please.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
~Instincts~
I took one look at her face and knew I should leave the hospital right away. She was oblivious to the whole situation and just followed orders. I looked at the needle, as it was about to enter my IV and said to her. I am allergic to everything, everything. No, no, no. You cannot give to me. I need to talk to the Dr. Please. Allergy very, very bad. Just as the needle was to enter my tube she stopped and looked at me scared. She said. I bring you Dr. OK? Thank you please. As she exited the room I woke Mr. T up. T! T! Wake up babe, we have to go. How you feeling? He could barely articulate, OK I guess, He replied in a tired voice. I saw his saline bag and it was almost empty, as was mine. I pulled out my IV, started to get up and felt faint. But the option of staying in that room much longer started to seem perilous. I helped T get dressed and off the IV tube. The Dr. took so long we had time to get out without any intervention. In fact he probably never came to our room or showed up when we were gone. We exited the hospital and took a rickshaw home. Defense Colony please, I told the 13-year-old boy driving. The rickshaw ripped through New Delhi like a thunderbolt. I felt safe in the rickshaw, something was definitely not right, but we were away from the hospital room and free to move about the world onto safety. My mind was made up; we were leaving India that same night if possible. Mi mind was racing a 1,000 miles a minute making a plan. I was already saying goodbye to all the cows lying on the road, to that strange stench of cow dung and fire, to the scary marketplace by the park where a man sold his wife as skewers. Ah, I sighed in relief just thinking about that 17 hour plane ride back home. Nobody sighs in relief at the site of a 17-hour flight. But I did just that. It’s amazing how perspective is relative to circumstance. As we passed each spot familiar I said my goodbyes. This was supposed to be a trip into self-discovery land, but I guess I shall have to come back for that. We arrived at Defense Colony, got out the rick, went up the dark stairs. It was already past midnight. T was weak but felt a bit better, enough to get on a plane and sleep his way over to a safe hospital in America. As we opened the door we saw an unexpected site. Roger, the Director of the fiasco, was sitting in the living room with 4 other guys. They were waiting for us. They looked at us and acted surprised. Roger came close and said, Oh My God I am so glad you are finally home. We were worried about you! Apparently someone warned them we had left the hospital. Think they got a bit paranoid? Anyway, Rogers’s speech went from bad to worse. Mr. T as usual was trying to make everything ok by ignoring all the information that had been given to us by Karan at the hospital. He kept apologizing for being sick. I was in awe at the level of obliviousness. I mean was I the only one seeing we were in danger? All four assistants and Roger followed us to our bedroom, which was locked. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to keep T from falling and being helpful, or they were going to gangbang us? We opened the door and Roger started telling us a cockamamie story about when he had some dangerous stomach virus that nearly killed his ass, and how he HAD to keep working. See, my problem with these people was they were so round about to say everything. You didn’t know whom you could trust anymore. Could we trust Karan and everything he said? Did he also have an agenda? Everyone else did. Roger finished his pathetic -The show must go on- story to which T replied. I cant help you man. Not today. Roger was flabbergasted at the denied request. He stared blankly at us for a moment and then asked in the slimiest of voices. Well, could you at least lend us your computer so we can keep working? That would be wicked man. Sure, said T. We both walked into our bedroom closing the door behind us. You’re going to give him the computer? I asked. Yes. But wait let me disable the burner. That way they can’t take the cut-list. There was no Wi-FI at the apartment so they couldn’t email the list to themselves. USB’s were not around yet either. So we were pretty safe only disabling the computer’s burner. I walked out and handed them the computer, they seemed so grateful. Karan was sitting at the dining room table seeing all the action and giving me looks I couldn’t understand. I went back into the bedroom and after a moment I walked back out and into the editing office. I sat at the other computer, which had the Internet connected to it and started looking for flights home leaving that night. Roger nervously looked back at me every few minutes. I knew something was up. The silence in the office could be cut by a knife. The editor could barely figure out how to use the program. He was just buying time. Suddenly Roger got a phone call and left the office to go out to the balcony. T came out of the bedroom and followed Roger. A minute later he came to get me at the office. I followed him in silence. We stood beside the darkened balcony listening to the plan these people had in mind.
ROGER: Don’t worry about them. They are here now. They left the hospital. I know. But, We'll steal everything tonight and get rid of them in the morning. Don’t worry about the money.
T looked at me in disbelief. We silently walked back to our bedroom while Roger begged for time and mercy from, whom else? Evermean! She was having a ball screaming at the pathetic so called Director, and come to find out, her lover as well. Wow. The thick plottened.
We walked into our bedroom and T was flabbergasted. He looked at me and said; everything you said is true. Them not paying us, stealing our work. Wow. I can’t believe it. I hate to say it but I told you so. I didn’t say that. It would have been a kick in the nuts. We needed a plan. And fast. The phone conversation was nearly over. What were we going to do? Confront him? Run? I voted for the second choice. Run cantina, RUN!!!!!
And so the days went by and the work kept coming with the promise of that deposit that never came. 9 weeks into this adventure and we were broke in India and by Indian terms. Which in Western terms means in deep shit. After 24 hours of non-stop editing to hit a deadline Mr. T, as I will call him from now on, was exhausted and sick. As was I.
After a vomit-diarrhea-fever-cold sweat extravaganza we decided it was time to go to the hospital.
Yes honey, we were in the hospital in New Delhi, it is like nothing you have ever seen. It looks like a combination vintage store on La Brea Av. and a soup kitchen down on San Pedro Street.
I have never seen poor or sick like I saw in this place. As we walked into the Dr.s office Mr. T started to look faint and ran out of the office into the bathroom, barely making his run, he projectile vomited all over the bathroom door. The Dr. was taking my pulses, because in India they do 2 pulses, your veins and your arteries. He took one look at me, heard the vomiting down the hall, and said in a firm voice, You must be admitted at once!!! This is dengue fever. Very very dangerous. You do not have much time and you will need a blood transfusion.
WHAT!? OK, that was the scariest news I had gotten since my Mom came out of the closet in 95.
Next thing I knew, we were rushed from the Dr's office to the emergency room to a private room and before I knew it we were laying in a bed with an IV up our arm. The room had no windows; it was like a 1942 mid war hospital room, something right out of a movie. Karan, my dear friend, came in. He was worried about us but had some awkward news to share. He said; be very careful with what they put in your IV, these people are very good friends with hospital. They want to steal your stuff! I heard them talking in the office! Don't say I told you, but be very careful, they want to get rid of you and not pay. Mr. T was half gone but his eyes widened with disbelief. For a split second. I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the dengue fever. Now we were broke ass, sick and persecuted foreigners lying in a hospital room with no windows to escape from.
All right, I thought, this has gone far enough I think? I looked at Mr. T and said; we are not sleeping in this place, so you better work and get all the fluids you can because we are going home honey. He looked at me and fell right back to sleep. The door opened slowly, the nurse walked in with a big smile on her face, it was right out of a David Lynch film; she was carrying a tray full of needles. She lifted my arm, made sure the IV was in place and started to prepare a needle. I looked at her and gasped, what is that? I said. All she said in her broken English was, Dr. say this good for you, thank you please. Thank you please.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
~Instincts~
I took one look at her face and knew I should leave the hospital right away. She was oblivious to the whole situation and just followed orders. I looked at the needle, as it was about to enter my IV and said to her. I am allergic to everything, everything. No, no, no. You cannot give to me. I need to talk to the Dr. Please. Allergy very, very bad. Just as the needle was to enter my tube she stopped and looked at me scared. She said. I bring you Dr. OK? Thank you please. As she exited the room I woke Mr. T up. T! T! Wake up babe, we have to go. How you feeling? He could barely articulate, OK I guess, He replied in a tired voice. I saw his saline bag and it was almost empty, as was mine. I pulled out my IV, started to get up and felt faint. But the option of staying in that room much longer started to seem perilous. I helped T get dressed and off the IV tube. The Dr. took so long we had time to get out without any intervention. In fact he probably never came to our room or showed up when we were gone. We exited the hospital and took a rickshaw home. Defense Colony please, I told the 13-year-old boy driving. The rickshaw ripped through New Delhi like a thunderbolt. I felt safe in the rickshaw, something was definitely not right, but we were away from the hospital room and free to move about the world onto safety. My mind was made up; we were leaving India that same night if possible. Mi mind was racing a 1,000 miles a minute making a plan. I was already saying goodbye to all the cows lying on the road, to that strange stench of cow dung and fire, to the scary marketplace by the park where a man sold his wife as skewers. Ah, I sighed in relief just thinking about that 17 hour plane ride back home. Nobody sighs in relief at the site of a 17-hour flight. But I did just that. It’s amazing how perspective is relative to circumstance. As we passed each spot familiar I said my goodbyes. This was supposed to be a trip into self-discovery land, but I guess I shall have to come back for that. We arrived at Defense Colony, got out the rick, went up the dark stairs. It was already past midnight. T was weak but felt a bit better, enough to get on a plane and sleep his way over to a safe hospital in America. As we opened the door we saw an unexpected site. Roger, the Director of the fiasco, was sitting in the living room with 4 other guys. They were waiting for us. They looked at us and acted surprised. Roger came close and said, Oh My God I am so glad you are finally home. We were worried about you! Apparently someone warned them we had left the hospital. Think they got a bit paranoid? Anyway, Rogers’s speech went from bad to worse. Mr. T as usual was trying to make everything ok by ignoring all the information that had been given to us by Karan at the hospital. He kept apologizing for being sick. I was in awe at the level of obliviousness. I mean was I the only one seeing we were in danger? All four assistants and Roger followed us to our bedroom, which was locked. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to keep T from falling and being helpful, or they were going to gangbang us? We opened the door and Roger started telling us a cockamamie story about when he had some dangerous stomach virus that nearly killed his ass, and how he HAD to keep working. See, my problem with these people was they were so round about to say everything. You didn’t know whom you could trust anymore. Could we trust Karan and everything he said? Did he also have an agenda? Everyone else did. Roger finished his pathetic -The show must go on- story to which T replied. I cant help you man. Not today. Roger was flabbergasted at the denied request. He stared blankly at us for a moment and then asked in the slimiest of voices. Well, could you at least lend us your computer so we can keep working? That would be wicked man. Sure, said T. We both walked into our bedroom closing the door behind us. You’re going to give him the computer? I asked. Yes. But wait let me disable the burner. That way they can’t take the cut-list. There was no Wi-FI at the apartment so they couldn’t email the list to themselves. USB’s were not around yet either. So we were pretty safe only disabling the computer’s burner. I walked out and handed them the computer, they seemed so grateful. Karan was sitting at the dining room table seeing all the action and giving me looks I couldn’t understand. I went back into the bedroom and after a moment I walked back out and into the editing office. I sat at the other computer, which had the Internet connected to it and started looking for flights home leaving that night. Roger nervously looked back at me every few minutes. I knew something was up. The silence in the office could be cut by a knife. The editor could barely figure out how to use the program. He was just buying time. Suddenly Roger got a phone call and left the office to go out to the balcony. T came out of the bedroom and followed Roger. A minute later he came to get me at the office. I followed him in silence. We stood beside the darkened balcony listening to the plan these people had in mind.
ROGER: Don’t worry about them. They are here now. They left the hospital. I know. But, We'll steal everything tonight and get rid of them in the morning. Don’t worry about the money.
T looked at me in disbelief. We silently walked back to our bedroom while Roger begged for time and mercy from, whom else? Evermean! She was having a ball screaming at the pathetic so called Director, and come to find out, her lover as well. Wow. The thick plottened.
We walked into our bedroom and T was flabbergasted. He looked at me and said; everything you said is true. Them not paying us, stealing our work. Wow. I can’t believe it. I hate to say it but I told you so. I didn’t say that. It would have been a kick in the nuts. We needed a plan. And fast. The phone conversation was nearly over. What were we going to do? Confront him? Run? I voted for the second choice. Run cantina, RUN!!!!!
9/7/10
Keep walking...
I keep walking
My life is a constant going, moving, inhaling, exhaling.
Inhaling….here I go again, exhale and it hurts.
Letting go, moving on.
But it’s impossible to only inhale.
Maybe impossible to stay.
I’m always leaving to go to the next place
To go somewhere else
To go find, go seek
I’m a seeker, sometimes lost in the search but still seeking
To return to the place I’ve left
To the people I left and loved and found and left with strain
But I keep walking and I leave and I leave again and again
Not knowing when or if I’ll return
And it hurts but I can’t help it
My feet, they have these wings that won’t stop flapping with the wind
And they take me places I’ve never been
But only flying keeps me keen
My feet they keep on dancing making wind
My hands are shaking, I have to go
To a place I’ve never been before
I keep walking, dancing, flying and seeking strangers to love
Loving and then letting go
My chest gets tight, I leave my soul, the pain takes over and I let go
It’s in my nature, I just can’t help it
I keep on walking along
I keep on leaving I keep on coming I keep on going, Just go...
Let go
Breathe...
Inhale...
Exhale...
Let go....
Keep on walking girl...
Go.
My life is a constant going, moving, inhaling, exhaling.
Inhaling….here I go again, exhale and it hurts.
Letting go, moving on.
But it’s impossible to only inhale.
Maybe impossible to stay.
I’m always leaving to go to the next place
To go somewhere else
To go find, go seek
I’m a seeker, sometimes lost in the search but still seeking
To return to the place I’ve left
To the people I left and loved and found and left with strain
But I keep walking and I leave and I leave again and again
Not knowing when or if I’ll return
And it hurts but I can’t help it
My feet, they have these wings that won’t stop flapping with the wind
And they take me places I’ve never been
But only flying keeps me keen
My feet they keep on dancing making wind
My hands are shaking, I have to go
To a place I’ve never been before
I keep walking, dancing, flying and seeking strangers to love
Loving and then letting go
My chest gets tight, I leave my soul, the pain takes over and I let go
It’s in my nature, I just can’t help it
I keep on walking along
I keep on leaving I keep on coming I keep on going, Just go...
Let go
Breathe...
Inhale...
Exhale...
Let go....
Keep on walking girl...
Go.
6/11/10
Blind trust....
It seems to me the older I get, the less relationships are what I once dreamed of or what we see in movies, and the more I long for them to be that way. Wouldn't it make sense that the older you get the more baggage you get rid of and the lighter you travel making you more available to be intimate and less conflicted about commitment. But it's exactly the opposite in many cases. I am not understanding why I have a harder time saying what I think and feel lately. I used to be more open and less afraid the less I knew. And of course the younger I was and felt. Not that I feel old or anything but I am older. And today I wonder if wisdom is a gift of youth and not a skill acquired with age. I am however thankful for all the things I can clearly see about myself now that I didn't see then. I am thankful I can see my mistakes with a lot more humility and actually work on them with a conscious mind. I am thankful I understand what's important to me. I had no idea a few years back, not like now anyway. I can say certainly that at least I know what I don't want and what I won't put up with. And that in itself is a blessing. They say the more assertive we are with our thoughts and intentions the more accurately we'll be able to create our reality. So whenever you see yourself at a moment in a place you really don't wanna be in, take a moment and ask yourself, why is this in my movie? What roads did I take that led me to be here now? If this is not where I want to be what can I do to change it? Now that I read my own words I realize that this here is the wisdom acquired with age. And that all my youth provided was blind trust. Which I miss. I can't deny that. Blind trust in life is what I hope to acquire again through the wisdom of getting to know myself. Because when I do I'll trust that any decision I make is with the full knowledge that I have come full circle and I trust myself because I now know myself and I will only feel blind trust because I know....Whew......
1/12/10
~October 23rd~
My birthday was in a week, suddenly it seemed like a great present to myself to get my ass home. It was about 3 in the morning. Our computer was still with us, I guess I out-waited them. They ended up leaving after a while of me sitting watching the fake-edit job they were trying to pull off.
T was in bed with a fever that made him shake like jello. I was packing frantically trying to beat the sunlight. Karan was meditating in the living room in silence. The night was cold. As I packed I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, I started throwing things inside the luggage to relieve my stress. I just thought this was bullshit. We were running away like we did something, this was just weird and why was it happening to me? Why was I in this stupid situation losing my dignity every step of the way? T finally got up, he couldn’t handle the stuff throwing anymore. He got up from bed and gave me a huge hug. Its gonna be all right little bear, he said. By that time the tension in my body was such I just burst into tears. I was pissed honey. He took the phone and called Canada. His father picked up.
Dad: Hello?
T: Dad.
Dad: hi T, how are you?
T: We are coming home tomorrow dad.
Dad: Oh? Why, is everything all right.
T: No, nothing is all right. We just heard a phone conversation and we feel its better to come home now.
Dad: Well, I guess. You know better. Just be safe. Do they know you are leaving?
T: No.
Dad: Oh….well maybe you should let them know son.
T: They dont deserve it. Let them figure it out.
Dad: Not a good idea son. Its better to say what you need to say.
T: Well. I dont know. Well see how it goes but we are coming home tomorrow. I love you dad.
Dad: I love you son.
T hung up the phone and went back to bed. I continued packing in frustration but at the same time I felt relieved. I was taking my ass home. I wasn’t about to spend my birthday with these people around me. I was done.
The sun was creeping up, the light was starting to make weird shadows in the room. I could see the crows flying around outside our window. Bachu was in the kitchen making tea. Exotic birds were flapping their wings and calling out to the new day. The new beginning. The ritualistic Indian Honking of car horns was about to begin. It was time to leave. I went out to the kitchen and got some chai for T. Came back into the bedroom and woke him up. Time to go baby. Its time to go home. The sound of those words was like taking a Klonopim with a shot of mezcal. All you junkies out there know what I’m talking about.
Home…..echoed inside my head, the sound of that word was like breathing underwater. Click those heels Dorothy, there’s no place like home. Karan knocked on the door and woke me from my fantasy drug daydream. Back to life Dorothy, and Evermean is still out there trying to get you. Better get your ass up on out of this town before the sun hits noon! We got up, grabbed our bags and stated out the door and down the dark stairway unto the street. Bachu followed. At the bottom of the stairs, I hugged Bachu for the last time. Thank you my friend. The man looked very confused, very, very confused. Karan was hiding inside the doorway seeing us part. We started loading the luggage into the small car like it was second nature. Get out of Delhi, Karan insisted. Ok, ok Karan my friend . We will. The last bag was loaded, a small bag of work tapes we didn’t know what to do with lay on the floor beside the cab. I looked at it for a moment, hesitated but then put it in along with my hand bag. We were packed and ready to go home. First stop, Canadian embassy. Thank you please. The cab started on its way, I looked out the window at Defence Colony, in all its decadent spelnder I was leaving it behind. Cows rummaging on bushes, the gated park we had down the street. I looked at Troy and said to him, there’s no turning back. I know, he said. I don’t care.
We made our way through to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi 7 am traffic. The cab waited at the gate for them to authorize our entry. Big men with bigger guns guarded the gate. We hauled our bags inside the embassy, we walked through endless green gardens into a beautiful waiting hall. An Indian woman stood inside a glass security booth and called us to the window.
Yes, please. Sit. What is your trouble? Well, T said, I was working for a Production company and well....hum?, how should I say this....Suddenly, I interrupted; We are being chased by evil Bollywood producers!!! They wanted to steal everything from us and get rid of us today. So we ran away. Madam, calm down. She said to me. I will give you a piece of paper and you can write down your troubles. Then you can go about your business and someone will contact you later. But, we wanted to see if you could escort us to the airport, we want to go home and we feel our lives are in danger. I said in anguish. Yes, thank you please, you may write all this on the piece of paper and the appropriate person will look into your case. We will get back to you in a few days. We are just so busy, with Chrétien visiting and all. You know, the Prime minister. Well, everyone is out of the office today. But we wanted to leave today for Canada, I said.
Well, in that case you should be fine then. No, I don’t think so lady. These people are capable of anything. Look, we are scared, is there anything we can do? Oh, I am so sorry madam. Here, there is an 800 number here. You may call that if you should need anything. 1-800-save my ass. Ok then, I guess we should go then. Thank you so much. Here is the report we filled out. Oh yes, I will take that and start a file for you. She said. Then as she walked away she said: And don’t forget to call us if you need us! As she disappeared into the back of her glass protection, I could see our protection fading away. We headed out to look for a hotel where we could leave our things until we had to leave. Our paranoia was such we switched cabs three times before we found a hotel downtown. We walked in and all I saw was green berets walking around. Oh shit. I said out loud. T was so dazed and confused he barely noticed all the berets. We walked casually towards the front desk where the clerk asked us for our passports. There was no way of checking in without a passport. But we are only here for a few hours sir. No matter madam. I need passport. Thank you please. I am not sure how many hotels are in New Delhi, but if they wanted to they could eventually find us. We had no time to waste. We walked up to our room and left our luggage, the small bag of work-tapes was bothering me. I should have left it behind. But what if they wanted to destroy them and blame me for it? I guess I made the right choice. Lets go to the post office, I said to T. I need to send these tapes to the office. I am not getting on a plane with these things. Ok, he said. We walked out and carried the bag to the post office around the corner. The place was like an old James Bond movie set. Large rustic wooden tables staked up with Indian mail. Some kids on the corner sewing fabric bags together. That’s how they package things there, by sewing large packages in cotton fabric. And a bowl of glue for your postage sticking needs at the center of a marble table.
I walk in and put the bag of tapes on the counter, they ask me: Address? Oh yes, here. I hand them the piece of paper where I had the office address written. Mumbai, he mumbled. Yes I said. That’s where the main production office is. Very well, you want fast delivery or slow delivery. I thought for a moment, slow. Ok. Done thank you please, here is receipt for shipment. Keep it safe, In case of any misunderstanding. I took a mental note of that warning. We head back to the hotel. Police cars swooshed by us causing my heart to race. I knew by now they would be looking for us no doubt. The sun said noon and we were still at large. Back inside our bedroom there was a little bit of peace but I knew we still had to go buy the plane tickets. I left T to rest and went to another hotel nearby to an Air Canada office. I had Ts credit card and was ready to buy our tickets to freedom.
Hello madam, can I help you? Yes I said. Two tickets to Calgary on the next flight you got. Well, lets see. He said, I have a 12:45 am flight direct to Toronto and then switch planes to Calgary there arriving at 12 noon the next day. Ill take them, I said. Would that be all right? Yes that would be all right, very all right. You have no idea how all right that sounds!
T was in bed with a fever that made him shake like jello. I was packing frantically trying to beat the sunlight. Karan was meditating in the living room in silence. The night was cold. As I packed I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, I started throwing things inside the luggage to relieve my stress. I just thought this was bullshit. We were running away like we did something, this was just weird and why was it happening to me? Why was I in this stupid situation losing my dignity every step of the way? T finally got up, he couldn’t handle the stuff throwing anymore. He got up from bed and gave me a huge hug. Its gonna be all right little bear, he said. By that time the tension in my body was such I just burst into tears. I was pissed honey. He took the phone and called Canada. His father picked up.
Dad: Hello?
T: Dad.
Dad: hi T, how are you?
T: We are coming home tomorrow dad.
Dad: Oh? Why, is everything all right.
T: No, nothing is all right. We just heard a phone conversation and we feel its better to come home now.
Dad: Well, I guess. You know better. Just be safe. Do they know you are leaving?
T: No.
Dad: Oh….well maybe you should let them know son.
T: They dont deserve it. Let them figure it out.
Dad: Not a good idea son. Its better to say what you need to say.
T: Well. I dont know. Well see how it goes but we are coming home tomorrow. I love you dad.
Dad: I love you son.
T hung up the phone and went back to bed. I continued packing in frustration but at the same time I felt relieved. I was taking my ass home. I wasn’t about to spend my birthday with these people around me. I was done.
The sun was creeping up, the light was starting to make weird shadows in the room. I could see the crows flying around outside our window. Bachu was in the kitchen making tea. Exotic birds were flapping their wings and calling out to the new day. The new beginning. The ritualistic Indian Honking of car horns was about to begin. It was time to leave. I went out to the kitchen and got some chai for T. Came back into the bedroom and woke him up. Time to go baby. Its time to go home. The sound of those words was like taking a Klonopim with a shot of mezcal. All you junkies out there know what I’m talking about.
Home…..echoed inside my head, the sound of that word was like breathing underwater. Click those heels Dorothy, there’s no place like home. Karan knocked on the door and woke me from my fantasy drug daydream. Back to life Dorothy, and Evermean is still out there trying to get you. Better get your ass up on out of this town before the sun hits noon! We got up, grabbed our bags and stated out the door and down the dark stairway unto the street. Bachu followed. At the bottom of the stairs, I hugged Bachu for the last time. Thank you my friend. The man looked very confused, very, very confused. Karan was hiding inside the doorway seeing us part. We started loading the luggage into the small car like it was second nature. Get out of Delhi, Karan insisted. Ok, ok Karan my friend . We will. The last bag was loaded, a small bag of work tapes we didn’t know what to do with lay on the floor beside the cab. I looked at it for a moment, hesitated but then put it in along with my hand bag. We were packed and ready to go home. First stop, Canadian embassy. Thank you please. The cab started on its way, I looked out the window at Defence Colony, in all its decadent spelnder I was leaving it behind. Cows rummaging on bushes, the gated park we had down the street. I looked at Troy and said to him, there’s no turning back. I know, he said. I don’t care.
We made our way through to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi 7 am traffic. The cab waited at the gate for them to authorize our entry. Big men with bigger guns guarded the gate. We hauled our bags inside the embassy, we walked through endless green gardens into a beautiful waiting hall. An Indian woman stood inside a glass security booth and called us to the window.
Yes, please. Sit. What is your trouble? Well, T said, I was working for a Production company and well....hum?, how should I say this....Suddenly, I interrupted; We are being chased by evil Bollywood producers!!! They wanted to steal everything from us and get rid of us today. So we ran away. Madam, calm down. She said to me. I will give you a piece of paper and you can write down your troubles. Then you can go about your business and someone will contact you later. But, we wanted to see if you could escort us to the airport, we want to go home and we feel our lives are in danger. I said in anguish. Yes, thank you please, you may write all this on the piece of paper and the appropriate person will look into your case. We will get back to you in a few days. We are just so busy, with Chrétien visiting and all. You know, the Prime minister. Well, everyone is out of the office today. But we wanted to leave today for Canada, I said.
Well, in that case you should be fine then. No, I don’t think so lady. These people are capable of anything. Look, we are scared, is there anything we can do? Oh, I am so sorry madam. Here, there is an 800 number here. You may call that if you should need anything. 1-800-save my ass. Ok then, I guess we should go then. Thank you so much. Here is the report we filled out. Oh yes, I will take that and start a file for you. She said. Then as she walked away she said: And don’t forget to call us if you need us! As she disappeared into the back of her glass protection, I could see our protection fading away. We headed out to look for a hotel where we could leave our things until we had to leave. Our paranoia was such we switched cabs three times before we found a hotel downtown. We walked in and all I saw was green berets walking around. Oh shit. I said out loud. T was so dazed and confused he barely noticed all the berets. We walked casually towards the front desk where the clerk asked us for our passports. There was no way of checking in without a passport. But we are only here for a few hours sir. No matter madam. I need passport. Thank you please. I am not sure how many hotels are in New Delhi, but if they wanted to they could eventually find us. We had no time to waste. We walked up to our room and left our luggage, the small bag of work-tapes was bothering me. I should have left it behind. But what if they wanted to destroy them and blame me for it? I guess I made the right choice. Lets go to the post office, I said to T. I need to send these tapes to the office. I am not getting on a plane with these things. Ok, he said. We walked out and carried the bag to the post office around the corner. The place was like an old James Bond movie set. Large rustic wooden tables staked up with Indian mail. Some kids on the corner sewing fabric bags together. That’s how they package things there, by sewing large packages in cotton fabric. And a bowl of glue for your postage sticking needs at the center of a marble table.
I walk in and put the bag of tapes on the counter, they ask me: Address? Oh yes, here. I hand them the piece of paper where I had the office address written. Mumbai, he mumbled. Yes I said. That’s where the main production office is. Very well, you want fast delivery or slow delivery. I thought for a moment, slow. Ok. Done thank you please, here is receipt for shipment. Keep it safe, In case of any misunderstanding. I took a mental note of that warning. We head back to the hotel. Police cars swooshed by us causing my heart to race. I knew by now they would be looking for us no doubt. The sun said noon and we were still at large. Back inside our bedroom there was a little bit of peace but I knew we still had to go buy the plane tickets. I left T to rest and went to another hotel nearby to an Air Canada office. I had Ts credit card and was ready to buy our tickets to freedom.
Hello madam, can I help you? Yes I said. Two tickets to Calgary on the next flight you got. Well, lets see. He said, I have a 12:45 am flight direct to Toronto and then switch planes to Calgary there arriving at 12 noon the next day. Ill take them, I said. Would that be all right? Yes that would be all right, very all right. You have no idea how all right that sounds!
10/31/09
~The Game was on~
And so the days went by and the work kept coming with the promise of that deposit that never came. 9 weeks into this adventure and we were broke in India and by Indian terms. Which in Western terms is really in deep shit. After 24 hours of non stop editing to hit a deadline Mr T, as I will call him from now on, was exhausted and sick. As was I. After a vomit-diarrea-fever-cold sweat extravaganza we decided it was time to go to the hospital.
Yes honey, we were in the hospital in New Delhi, it is like nothing you have ever seen. It looks like a combination vintage store on La Brea Av. and a soup kitchen down on San Pedro street.
I have never seen poor or sick like I saw in this place. As we walked into the Dr.s office Mr. T started to look faint and ran out of the office into the bathroom, barely making his run, he projectile vomited all over the bathroom door. The Dr. was taking my pulses, because in India they do 2 pulses, your veins and your arteries. He took one look at me, heard the vomiting down the hall, and said in a firm voice, You must be admitted at once!!! This is dengue fever. Very very dangerous. You do not have much time and you will need a blood transfusion.
WHAT!? OK, that was the scariest news I had gotten since my Mom came out of the closet in 95.
Next thing I knew, we were rushed from the Dr's office to the emergency room to a private room and before I knew it we were laying in a bed with an iv up our arm. The room had no windows, it was like a 1942 mid war hospital room, something right out of a movie. Karan , my dear friend, came in. He was worried about us but had some awkward news to share. He said; Be very careful with what they put in your iv, these people are very good friends with hospital. they want to steal your stuff! I heard them talking in the office! Don't say I told you, but be very careful, they want to get rid of you and not pay. Mr T was half gone but his eyes widened with disbelief. for a split second. I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the dengue fever. Now we were broke ass, sick and persecuted foreigners laying in a hospital room with no windows to escape from.
All right, I thought, this has gone far enough I think? I looked at Mr. T and said; We are not sleeping in this place, so you better work and get all the fluids you can because we are going home honey. He looked at me and fell right back to sleep. The door opened slowly, the nurse walked in with a big smile on her face, it was right out of a David Lynch film, she was carrying a tray full of needles. She lifted my arm, made sure the iv was in place and started to prepare a needle. I looked at her and gasped, what is that? I said. All she said in her broken English was, Dr. say this good for you, thank you please. Thank you please.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
Yes honey, we were in the hospital in New Delhi, it is like nothing you have ever seen. It looks like a combination vintage store on La Brea Av. and a soup kitchen down on San Pedro street.
I have never seen poor or sick like I saw in this place. As we walked into the Dr.s office Mr. T started to look faint and ran out of the office into the bathroom, barely making his run, he projectile vomited all over the bathroom door. The Dr. was taking my pulses, because in India they do 2 pulses, your veins and your arteries. He took one look at me, heard the vomiting down the hall, and said in a firm voice, You must be admitted at once!!! This is dengue fever. Very very dangerous. You do not have much time and you will need a blood transfusion.
WHAT!? OK, that was the scariest news I had gotten since my Mom came out of the closet in 95.
Next thing I knew, we were rushed from the Dr's office to the emergency room to a private room and before I knew it we were laying in a bed with an iv up our arm. The room had no windows, it was like a 1942 mid war hospital room, something right out of a movie. Karan , my dear friend, came in. He was worried about us but had some awkward news to share. He said; Be very careful with what they put in your iv, these people are very good friends with hospital. they want to steal your stuff! I heard them talking in the office! Don't say I told you, but be very careful, they want to get rid of you and not pay. Mr T was half gone but his eyes widened with disbelief. for a split second. I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the dengue fever. Now we were broke ass, sick and persecuted foreigners laying in a hospital room with no windows to escape from.
All right, I thought, this has gone far enough I think? I looked at Mr. T and said; We are not sleeping in this place, so you better work and get all the fluids you can because we are going home honey. He looked at me and fell right back to sleep. The door opened slowly, the nurse walked in with a big smile on her face, it was right out of a David Lynch film, she was carrying a tray full of needles. She lifted my arm, made sure the iv was in place and started to prepare a needle. I looked at her and gasped, what is that? I said. All she said in her broken English was, Dr. say this good for you, thank you please. Thank you please.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
10/2/09
~Leverage~
Its funny how being stuck half way across the globe in a third world country can make you do the strangest things. At that moment out of pure desperation, I started bartering with God.
God, if you help me get home I will never ever, ever complain about L.A. again. I will give up sugar for a year, help the homeless, volunteer downtown on Christmas eve, anything you want!!! Please take me home!!!! I will do anything, anything!
Night came, we talked. He understood my desperation. I understood his position. We slept hoping the sun would come out tomorrow as Annie had always promised.
The sun came out as promised by Annie, and new ideas came to mind about how to handle this situation. Me, being the brains in the family, started planning how to not get screwed by Evermean and her Indian posse. I woke up and headed straight to the computer Karan loaned me to check emails and do my editing chores. I opened word and started typing away a memo. When I was done I woke him up with a bright smile that spelled, I got it! He looked at me and immediately said; what now? Nothing honey, I just figured out how not to get screwed. Here is my plan. I wrote a memo for them which, if you agree, you can sign. It says you wont be able to deliver the CUT LIST to them until you get paid the full amount owed. Without the CUT LIST, they have no film. They will have to comply.
· The cut list is a numerical list, which tells the computer the order the shots in the movie have to be in, so that it all actually makes sense. It’s a file. Very Mission Impossible*
He thought about it for a moment then said, great. You are right. I have their movie in my hands. If they don’t pay I’ll just delete it. Exactly. I said! Or email it to them when they do pay. Now we have leverage. Now we’re talking. Nighttime came and the producers, including Evermean, were coming over to see the trailer T had worked on for Sundance. They were desperate to get in the festival, which happens every January in Utah. This was their chance. They were coming with one of the judges from the festival, so he could guide them with their submission. They came, they saw, they loved it. Good for us.
I went to my computer and kept on editing scenes, while I watched them in awe of their film. T is a very talented editor, far beyond their expectations. As soon as they were done I handed over several copies of the memo signed by Troy. Their faces turned from joy to confusion. Evermean started reading. Her uncle, the man that gave her the job and expected the world of his unmarried old maid of a niece, was flabbergasted and embarrassed and also started turning a certain shade of green. I should have known! He looked at her and said, -What is this about?- bobbing his head like a little dashboard toy.
You should know that Sikh people, such as they are, are not fond of being embarrassed or ridiculed. They are, by Indian standards, the fools of India. (Kind of like Gallegos in Spain) So to them, dignity and pride are of the utmost importance. And right at that moment, their whole discourse about changing the reputation of Indian Cinema being corrupt, was exploding like the Challenger. Unexpectedly and fiercely right in their face, and in front of the Sundance representative. Evermean could not handle it and walked quickly into the bathroom. I think she puked, she must have, as the bathroom stench after she came out was unbearable. But then again, I think witches stink up when they get angry? I read that somewhere....
As soon as she came out she looked at me, kind of knowing this was all my idea. I looked back proudly. The game was on. We both knew it. She was ready to explode but couldn’t do it in front of Sundance man so she looked at me and yelled -You need to bring us an invoice!- I did, I replied. -Well, it was the wrong address!!!! It has to be made out with the London office address!- And she fiercely walked out of the apartment bobbing her head. Her uncle looked at Troy and said in a quiet held back voice, don’t worry, this’ll be handled immediately. And walked out behind his niece mumbling in Hindi. Troy and I looked at each other wondering what would happen. Suddenly I had to run off to the bathroom. Yes. I puked.
And so proudly I had my evening Tosht and papaya as I hummed my fave Winnie the pooh song....
Deep in the hundred acre wood
where Christopher Robin plays ...
A donkey named Eeyore is his friend...
and Kanga and little Roo.
There's Rabbit and Piglet and
there's Owl, but most of all.
Winnie the Pooh...
Winnie the Pooh...
Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.
He's Winnie the Pooh...
Winnie the Pooh...
Willy nilly silly old bear.
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About Me
- VIDA-OM
- Entender el llamado de tu Corazón significa saber lo que añoras y escoger no hacer esas cosas que drenan tu espíritu.