~Stuck~

The shoot was done, we went home. Evermean was not really speaking to me or even looking at me. I liked it that way better. We got home and I asked again, Did you talk about your payments? Uh, yeah. I have a meeting at the office tomorrow to see about that. He said. I knew what we were into already, it’s very third world to keep people guessing about their money. Sometimes they keep you guessing forever.

The next day came, I was awakened by the classic, knock knock…madam? Tosht? Papaya? It was Bachu, asking if we wanted breakfast. I was gonna miss him when we left, I thought.

Yes Bachu! Papaya and Tosht! Which in English means toast. Later that afternoon Troy went to the office to see about his money again, but this time in person. I waited for about four hours, going out of my mind in that apartment. It felt like jail. I wonder if this is what it’s like being in jail? I thought. I watched TV, old Bollywood movies. Well, actually I couldn’t tell when they were from, even the new ones look old. It’s like a time warp in that place. It’s unbelievable to me that one of the oldest civilizations on earth can be so far behind on everything, everything. As they say. Wouldn’t it have to be the opposite? Wouldn’t the older civilizations have to be more advanced due to the fact that they have had longer to work on their societies and technology? Anyway, Troy came home finally around 5 pm. I was asleep by then watching Oprah and longing for a return ticket home. He walked in the door and looked happy.

I was excited to hear the good news. Which went something like this:

T: Hi Bear…

SH: Hi. So what happened?

T: Oh it’s all good… It was all a big misunderstanding. I told them you are helping me, they are very grateful for that. They are even paying for your plane ticket. They were really happy to hear that we’re almost done with the first cut.

SH: That’s cool. So what about the deposit?

T: Well, yeah I mean they’re gonna pay. It’s just been hard since 9/11 for them.

My face started turning a light shade of red….

T: I mean, they are having such a hard time making transfers.

SH: Yeah I noticed, its been 5 weeks….

T: Yeah, and they also said we do owe them money…so That’ s also why they haven’t deposited. They need the receipts you were supposed to bring to the office so they can figure out how much we owe them.

SH: We owe them? WE OWE THEM??? I can’t believe these people. I have been paying for the food for this apartment and it’s entire 6 people crew for weeks now!!! How do I owe them money? They have never paid the per diem they were supposed to! I have brought them receipts each week! They lose them…Troy, can’t you see what they’re doing?

T: Calm down. It’s gonna be fine. They offered me a Directing gig next year. If everything goes well, I will be Directing for them in a few months.

My stomach flipped upside down. Was he serious? He wanted to stay in India for another year? I looked at him. And my own personal Evermean came out.

SH: Yei, you get to direct a movie for free!!! How exciting!

T: You don’t have to be a bitch about it. It’ a great opportunity.

SH: Yeah, I know. To Direct an Indian film for free sounds amazing.

Troy looked at me and left the room. I sat in bed wondering what the fuck I was doing on the other side of the world broke and trapped. How did I get myself to this place? I wanted to leave. I left the room and went to the office. I sat down and said: I want to go home. I’m not happy here. I don’t want to live here for another year. But I don’t want to leave you. I thought you said you were going to quit? We can go home and start over.

How, he asked. We have no money, no job. At least here I have this job and the chance that they will pay me the 30,000 pounds they owe me. We don’t even have money for the return tickets.

True. We didn’t have enough money for our ride home. Fuck. We were stuck.

~Evermean~

I even felt nostalgic over leaving, but in reality we were never gonna make any money being there. If they decided to pay, it would be over the thought of having to start over. So they left us no choice really.

That afternoon Troy and I were summoned to the set to partake in the shooting of this film. I was gonna play, guess what? A waitress…and he was gonna play the antagonists lover in a jacuzzy scene. Great.

As we arrived to the set we met the Producer in the lobby, a young 20 something, single, Indian female we will call, Evermean, as in the wicked witch of the East….

My first impression was that she looked like she was gayer than a 2 dollar Hello Kitty bill. Gay is not a very accepted thing to be in indian society, although it is hard to tell as everyone is same sex friendly. But, I thought, wow, how modern of her. She must be cool. Always dressed in men in black suits.

And so she greeted us and her first question to me was; So, are you ok with the fact that your boyfriend is going to be in a jacuzzy naked making love to another woman? Arent you uncomfortable with this? And all this said with a big fat grin on her face…ejem, actually Evermean, I trust Troy so much he could lick the girls asshole and I would still feel ok about it. I trust our love that much.

Her jaw dropped to the floor, her face turned form that lovely Indian witchy green, to a tomato red. Troy was flabbergasted. I was….enjoying my best bitch back ever…..bitch.

From then on I knew she had a thing for me, I was not sure in which way though. I didnt know if she wanted to fuck me or fuck Troy or maybe both, but boy did she hate me. I became her Dorothy. I could feel it, every time she came over to our place, as soon as she left, I puked. I was unsure if she dropped arcenic in my food and drinks or if her mere energy and presence provoked my gag reflex, but something was terribly wrong about that woman. I could see she really liked Troy, and obviously wanted to make me jealous. I think she relized the impossibility of her fantasy and that made her hate me even more. Karan told me she nicknamed me the Mexican whore at the production office. Indian women are special in that way, I think they are bitter creatures. I once had a weird experience at a salon. I personally went there to get my Pancho Villas removed from my upper lip. I only remember entering the salon and feeling a group stare. I guess I confuse people from that part of the world, I look Indian or Irani or Italian, depending on where youa re from I look it. So as I walked in every woman in the joint turned and looked at me. Looked me up and down, not an unfamiliar thing, in Mexico I get those looks all the time. Not particularly me, anyone entering a restaurant or salon or store is stared at, judged, scanned and released. It is normal. As it is in India as well. I guess it is a classification process, what class do you belong to? Once people figure you out you are free to continue about your business. Anyway, enough about this jealous bitch and back to my story.

~New Delhi~

We arrived in New Delhi at the Hotel Royal. Finally met the Director and the music supervisor. They were very friendly and excited about the film. Roger, the Director, a British man in his 50’s seemed very fond of Troy and was very happy I came along. We only stayed at the hotel for the first few days with them and then again moved into an apartment in “Defence Colony”, a gated community in New Delhi.

The apartment came equipped with Bachu, a little man that served us day and night. Bachu was about 5’3” and the skinniest man I had ever met. He spoke no English except for Tosht, (which in English is toast) madam, papaya, coke, coffee and chai. All useful words when that’s pretty much all we ate.

Defence colony became our hood. We had running hot water, a shower that was not on top of the toilet, a shower curtain and a phone with tone!!! We were back in business.

The film started shooting and Troy started editing the film. He got a couple of assistants to come work with him but he had to train them. Days would go by and surely the assistants would stop coming to work as they were getting paid a whooping $200 dollars and an old samsung cell phone for the whole movie, meaning for 4 montrhs of work. About a week later Troy got tired of training people and asked me to jump in and help him. I had assisted him in another film that spring, so I already knew the system and how he worked. I was also glad he asked as I was growing tired of New Delhi, the city of rape.

Rick, the musical director moved into the apartment about week 3, so did Karan, Roger’s assistant. Then a few days later, came another British friend Dave. We were all one big happy family.

The problem was, Dave, didn’t really have a room. He slept like Karan in the living room on a cot. Karan on the other hand, slept on the floor. It was strange. Everyone wanted to be part of this film for some odd reason even if they had to sleep on the floor.

One day I asked Karan why didn’t he ask the office to bring him another cot. He said, “No, I’m ok on floor. In India it’s different. People don’t care to sleep on bed.” As long as he was allowed to the film set he was ok on the floor.

I had little to do those days so I spent a lot of time with Karan teaching me about India and their social scheme and nursing my never going away cough from hell. Karan brought me an ayurvedic cure for cough, it still took about another 3 weeks to get over it. Anyway I found out India has about 1,652 languages, out of which 400 are the most spoken ones.

It’s mostly Hindu 80% about 13% Muslim and 2.3 % Christian. Men and women can’t hold hands on the street, but men and men can and so can women vs. Women. But non of them are “gay”, just same sex friendly. It’s better to wear long sleeves. Not sure what arms do. And they use mothballs in all their cleaners to keep the insects at bay. My God that place smeels like mothballs!

Every week Karan and I took a trip down to the market to get fresh fruits and vegetables for Bachu (which means little one) to cook for all of us. Rick would give me his part of the market money and we would do the shopping. We were told by the production to keep all the reciepts as we would be reimbursed for our food expenses. Every week we would try to make an appointment with the office accountant to turn in reciepts and get reimbursed but he was never there. We dropped off reciepts for weeks. I thought it was weird. But then again what isn’t weird in India as compared to what I’m used to.

While I got my Indian culture clash course with Karan and tried to keep our home economy balanced, Troy was editing no stop, transferring tapes and converting media to get the job done on time. He hardly slept. The pressure started building as they wanted to make the Sundance Festival deadline. We had been in New Delhi almost 2 months now and the film was nearing it’s final stages of post production.

My cough was finally gone. The fall had begun, so we got a care package from Troy’s mother full of candy and Canadian things. Paper napkins with a maple leaf on them, little Canadian flags and Canadian candy bars. Canadian bears holding Canadian flags a plethora of Canadian parafernalia came in a little envelope that when opened shot out a cloud of tiny Canadian maple leaves Bachu had to clean.... Sheesh.

My parents on the other hand were Mom in Miami shooting a novela and my Dad still shocked from my trip in Mexico City.

I can’t imagine my parents sending me a package full of Mexican flags, tejocotes, duvalines, tamales, pelon pelo ricos and what not... I can’t imagine it because they’ve never done it. No matter how far I have been, they just don’t do that kind of thing.

See, my parents are divorced, my Father left my Mother when I was one year old. Wait, according to my Mother she left him when I was one....? Those are my parents. Competitive, famous 70s Mexican Movie stars of the biggest kind. Still acting. Still competing. So to keep things cool lets say they just left eachother and in the end, it ended up working out that I stayed with my Dad.

It was an unusual arrangement for those days but I think it worked out for the best. My Mom was at the top of her game and decided she would try out for the good old Hollywood game, so she left for Los Angeles with film director Sam Pekinpah. My dad was also at the top of his game, but stayed in Mexico City as it was easier to have my Grandma take care of me when he was working.

And so it was. That letter I told you about at the beggining, it was asking my Mother why she left. And most importantly, why she left me behind!? All my crazy abandonment issues were spilled all over that 10 page letter I never sent. I was really frustrated at my mother because it seemed like I could never make her proud of me no matter what I did or how much I accomplished. I simply wasnt her. My acting carreer was in shambles, I was a broke struggling actress-waitress in every sense of the word. I was a hostess, dancer, power ranger, assistant for 120 a day kind of actress and I was exhausted! All I got from my Mother was negative feedback on how my life was going. And to top it off one fine day at her place she had the balls to say to me; Dont ever have kids, they ruin your life. Just like that. That is where that letter came from. But then again I never sent the damned letter…

So, back to India, when we got the gift from Troys Mom, we were so excited, it gave us that Christmas feeling. And it helped me remember I should have sent that damned letter!

Sorry....outburst.

So, days went by and Troy started feeling ill. So did I. At first I thought it was all that Canadian candy we ate in a very short time but I came to learn on the news there was a Dengue outbreak in all of Delhi due to the recent rain season called Monsoon. Apparently drains are so poorly kept, the water gets stuck and stagnant thus creating zest pools for mosquitoes and diverse diseases to be born.

Alas, something got us. We had stopped taking our malaria pills because they tasted so nasty. So our first thought was that, Malaria. Karan kept feeding us his ayurvedic tea good for –everything, everything- as he put it. Troy kept at editing. I kept at helping Troy meet his deadline.

But wait, let me rewind the book a little bit. Before all this happened one strange night Rick, the musical Director came into the editing office in a rage. He was mumbling about how the Producers owed him 60,000 pounds and had not paid him a penny yet. We had just gotten a $4,000 dollar payment as an advance so we thought everything was ok with us. He also informed us the whole movie was going to be shot, edited and finished in New Delhi, so we actually had 8 more weeks of being in this city. Apparently the London segment of Post had been cancelled. What!? I was shocked and dissapointed and frustrated instantly. I waited until Rick left the room which he did, after he ranted for about 45 minutes about how these fucksticks werent going to get away with it. It sounded bad. As he left the room Troy came close to me and started whispering, I said,

I dont know Troy. Hes been here longer and knows them better. What if we dont get paid, we will lose everything back home. Cant pay rent next month as it is, we have to get paid. Troy looked worried but he was trying to be positive about the situation. Our payments were on schedule so far. A week was left before the next payment was due. We waited. So another 2 weeks went by after that odd discussion about payment. And law and behold, the payment was late. They were having transfer problems due to 9/11. The money which came from a British account was being held by the FBI as protocol. What? What does that mean?

The food ran out at the apartment again. Of course we were feeding a crew of 6 people 3 meals a day 7 days a week. So Karan and I went to the office yet again to turn in reciepts and see if we could get any money reimbursed as my checking account was extremely low and I wasnt getting any reimbursements 6 weeks in. So we got to the office and again the accountant had no money to reimburse us with. So we headed back to the apartment to talk to Troy.

Troy was in a daze editing non stop as he wanted to meet his deadline but I on the other hand was frustrated he was not noticing all the discrepancies going on with the production. I went into the office and sat beside him, he looked tired. As I walked in he looked at me and knew. He picked up the phone....

He called. I waited.

T: Aha...Hi just calling about that deposit, sorry to be such a pain man I just really need the money.

I see. Ok, so Monday then....ok thank you please.

He hung up.

Has the deposit gone in yet? I asked.

Nope...Monday they said. Just be patient. It will go in.

That night we went out for dinner at a fancy place (fancy for New Delhi Defence Colony)

We decided to try their wine. Nice red wine, just what my body was asking for to cure all the money troubles, to get it all out. So we drank a bottle of red wine. The wine was Indian. I did learn one thing about Indian wine, you should not drink it unless you want to die. Our bedroom was a puke fest! It was awesome, it defenitely worked as far as getting it all out… both ways.

The next morning it was back to the grind, except as I woke up I got this strange feeling. I turned to Troy and said, point blank. Quit, You Should Quit. we should leave. They’re not gonna pay you. I have a really bad feeling about this, Rick hasn’t gotten paid, they’ve lost our receipts. Quit.

He stared at the ceiling and took a deep breath. He said in a low thoughtful voice: I was thinking the same thing Bear.

I was relieved to hear those words come out of his mouth. I hopped out of bed and jumped in the shower with a renewed sense of energy. We are finally going home...

~The phone call~

So the phone is ringing, the time was 8 am in Mexico City - 8 pm in Mumbai.

Dad: Hi darling! I miss you! Where have you been? I called you at home but no answer for the last few days.

Me: Hi Daddy! I’m great….guess where I am?

Dad: Where cookie…

Me: In Bombay, India.

Dad: what?! Say it again…

Me: Bombay, India….

Silence.

Silence.

Dad: But....................what?

Silence.

Dad: I don’t understand?

Me: Well, Troy got that editing job. He’s editing a movie in India. And I came with him.

It’s great!

Silence…

Dad: Jesus...you’re insane baby.....Indiaa.......I see.......well........

Silence.

Me: I’m fine. It’s great here! You should see, there are cows on the streets.............blah blah blah............

Silence…….Sigh.............

Well, that went a lot better than I had imagined. I made light of it and told him it was like Mexico City, only dirty and poor. He started laughing.

I left home at the ripe old age of 17 and moved away from my single father household in Catholic Mexico City to perverted Los Angeles to pursue my acting career. Growing up it was just he and I, so he’s always been overprotective. He’s always had a map to know exactly where I am at all times. When I moved to New York City he made me buy him a city map and send it home so he could mark my exact location.

Anyway, it was not as bad as I thought. I felt relieved. A huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt free for the first time. I made a choice and didn’t ask anyone their opinion.

The next morning my cough had gotten a lot worse, I could hardly breathe. We had a few free days before flying out to New Delhi so we took a tour of the city and then took a ferry to a place called Elephanta. An Island off the coast of Mumbai in the Arabic sea.

In Elephanta there is peace compared to Mumbai. There’s monkeys all around and of course cows. There’s a small village in the Island, it’s probably the prettiest village I’ve ever seen. They repaint every season so the place looks impeccable. The buildings are painted in bright pastel colors, green, blue, pink, salmon. It’s beautiful and peaceful. No cars are allowed on the island so there is no pollution and no noise. As soon as we stepped off the ferry a guide approached us, his name was Sandeep, like most Indian men. I guess it’s the equivalent of Juan in Mexico.

So Sandeep offered to be our personal guide through the Island. He took us to eat something first, we were starved. On the way up the trail we stopped at a tea and curry house, it had a beautiful view of the ocean and was surrounded by enormous trees. We ate some curry had some chai and treated Sandeep our new friend to lunch, he could hardly believe we invited him to eat at the same table with us. He explained the cast system to us, which to this day confuses me. So we all sat together and told stories, he spoke English quite well actually.

After lunch we walked all over the island, he took us to the village and we met all the schoolgirls that were coming out of class. They were beautiful and all wore red ribbons and all had the same hair do and gravitated to me like flies to sugar, played with my hair and smiled non-stop. I was amazed at the happy spirit these kids have in spite of having very little in western terms. Their homes are the size of our bedrooms and their living conditions extremely rustic yet their spirits are bright and calm. They don’t seem overly worried with “accomplishing” much of anything except but to live in peace and have food to eat. There is no television on that Island, no magazines to let them know what to compare themselves to. It’s just life, day in day out. Troy and I decided to buy all these kids some cookies and candies at the local store. We took pictures with them and gave them all their candies, they were in awe. It was beautiful. I loved how innocent and honest they were.

After that, Sandeep invited us to his little house to have some tea and to show us some art he made himself.

The little girls followed us all the way to Sandeep’s house. We walked in and his house was about the size of my bedroom divided into three rooms. He lived alone, no wife or kids to speak of. Just him in his small home with his art. I could not believe the austerity in which he lived and how happy he was all the time. His smile was permanently sewn to his face. He showed us some parchments he had painted, they were beautiful images of old Indian classics and of course we bought all of them. In the end he took a picture with me and gave me a necklace. He’s probably one of the cleanest spirits I’ve ever met. No malice, no agenda, just a man sharing his life with us. At the end of the day he walked us back to the dock where we could catch the ferry back to Mumbai, it was kind of sad leaving him there. Kind of sad returning to the real world. Knowing that we would probably never see the our friend Sandeep again.

So we got back to the hotel and had a message that we would be transferred to an apartment belonging to the producers, we should be more comfortable there they said. We were also charged for our room as we left. “They are very hard to track down Sir, I prefer you pay and take it up with them” The hotel manager said to Troy. So Troy pulled out his credit card and paid.

We moved yet again, a small Indonesian man greeted us outside the moldy building. The staircase was like one of those staircases in an old Mexican 18th century convent, very narrow and it’s walls plastered by the prevailing character in Mumbai, mold. I could hardly breathe as we went up those stairs, the small man carried one of our big bags on his head and went up the stairs swiftly. Once at the top of the staircase, there was a large dog that greeted us and barked non stop from the moment we arrived.

The apartment was nice, but the mold problem was really bad. I could hardly be in there and not cough and nearly choke. I’m guessing I had an allergic reaction to the mold spores?

Our bedroom was small and had a large bookcase that was stuck to the wall in front of the bed. I went to the bathroom and when I tried to get some water to splash on my face and flush down the bloody green gunk that came out of my esophagus, I noticed there was no running water!

I turned around and the tub was filled to the top with stagnant water that had probably been sitting there for a little too long, since the place was uninhabited. A cloud of mosquitoes was enjoying the full bathtub. The dog was barking non stop driving Troy mad, and suddenly, a large crash came from our bedroom. I ran in there to find, the large bookcase had collapsed from the wall that held it, onto our bed. Troy picked up the phone to call the office but to his surprise the line was dead. It was already too late to call the office anyway and that was the only number we had. We looked at each other and started laughing. I started coughing again and ran as always to the bathroom to choke on my own phlegm.

That night, trying to sleep was hell for both of us. The mold spores literally were invading my throat and I could not STOP COUGHING. It was insane! I moved out to the living room and tried to sleep on the couch. I coughed until the sun came out. I went into the other bathroom to get showered and ready, as Troy was using the one with the tub. I discovered the shower. It was a long hose connected to the wall over the toilet. You could take a shit and shower at the same time if you needed to, it was a novel idea. There was no curtain or retaining wall on the floor to contain the soapy water so when you finished showering, anything and everything in the small bathroom was soaked and the water was spilling out into the bedroom through the bottom of the door. It was awesome. Oh yeah, and there was no hot water. I showered standing on the toilet as fast as I could coughing and freezing my ass of! Laughing and coughing my way through; “It’s all good” I thought, just an experience. I guess we’re spoiled in the west with our shower curtains and our hot water.

I also noticed there was always a bucket in the shower. I was never sure how to use it. Later I found out it was so that a helpy helper could bring you hot water and you could mix it with the cold water coming from the shower head, thus creating warm water with which you could shower.

I ended up in a Bombay hospital that same day.

Dr Atul felt my two pulses and determined I had a full blown upper respiratory infection or something close to death by choking in my own mucus, in my words. He gave me a variety of home remedies like a vaporizer and a mint solution, which I had to use every three hours and a few pills that smelled like vitamins of the worst kind. URI’s are viral so there is not much they can do for them. You just go through it and take it like a man, woman.

A day after the hospital visit we realized we couldn’t stay in that apartment, the dog barking, the mold and the broken telephone proved to be more than we could take. Sadly we said goodbye to our Indonesian friend. He bowed endlessly holding back the barking insane dog as we left the apartment.

Back at the hotel we were received with joy. The nice foreign couple that pays their bill was back! I was relieved to be in a room I where I could finally breathe. We were there for the remainder of the trip in Mumbai. One whole week!