A Random Few Weeks

It's been a while! There are so many people reading this blog now, and I feel like I should write mostly about the documentary. But oh well!

(rhodadendrons)

These past few weeks have had sprinklings of events here and there. Above are the blooming rhodedendron trees, that are not exactly like the small bushes that we had in our front yard growing up. It's been so long, I think all the flowers have fallen off now.

Two weekends ago, we did some interviewing of students for the "Making Of" section of the documentary. We can't decide whether it's the students that are more interesting or the story of vilagers. So we're filming both!

(My student aka "Neighbor" interviewing the boyz)

One weekend ago, some students needed a chaperone for their CARE trip. CARE is a program that does "charity" work. This trip involved playing with some blind children. What's interesting is that these kids move in gentle packs, putting their hands on each other's shoulders and sensing corners and steps almost as an organism. Sorry, sounding a little sci-fi here. They were great!!!

(playing with clay)

(Woodstocker with children making playdoh chipati's)

(migrating to the drum)

(my buddy who was making objects for me to guess)

Finally, this past weekend, we got to go to Sarab Talla again! This was the first weekend, that I felt truly productive in terms of the documentary. We made some strides both forwards and backwards. The interview with Grandpa, our contemporary visionary, was slightly disappointing as he changed all his answers from when he had originally spoken with us. But the "sleeper" interviews were with his son Nagendra and Nagendra's wife Gusum who were both eloquent and revealing.

Here are some random pictures:

(Rageni)

(Iggly the co-producer)

We had a minor crisis with the microphone a few hours before Grandpa's interview, which we thought was the one most important footage we would capture for the documentary. Well, things change. But before we knew that, the sound just crapped out. We had no idea what was going on. I sat with the camera for about 45 minutes, brainstorming whether we needed to call Woodstock to ask for help or what. Grandpa was only going to be here this one weekend. But instead of full-out panic, I kept dabbling with the different parts until I figured out it was the cable (that I got from the USA), near the mic jack. Um, how were we going to get a new mic cable from the States in 2 hours? As a last resort, I took the whole thing apart and asked Nagendra for a small screw driver.

(Jeanne watching Nagendra fix the mic cable)

He opened up the mic jack and low and behold, it was a clean break between one of the wires and a metal prong. Even though Nagendra had probably never seen a boom mic in his life before that one, he was a jack of all trades and understood the properties of wires and stuff, that even an MIT grad was slightly confused about. He got it to partially work, and stuck a matchstick in it for extra support. Yay! Nagendra saved the day! We could interview as long as no one touched or moved the cable! Now that we've brought it back to Woodstock, student "Bumblebee" has soldered it back together again.

Anyways, on to other news, my age is no longer a prime number. Some buddies and I celebrated my birthday at the Four Seasons in the bazaar this week. It was great! Thanks, guys!