~LAX to MUMBAI~

That morning the air was fresh and the sun was shining, Troy was very excited, he loves to travel and what could be better than to travel, get paid and do what you love while in the company of your one and only soul mate? Wow. This was it. We were in heaven. Our friendly German scientist neighbors came out to bid us farewell and promised to keep an eye on our apartment. So we hopped in the cab and head out to LAX.

We boarded our flight to Amsterdam which was our only stop-over on our way to Bombay. On the way we met a lovely man that instantly became our friend. We shared our dinner with him, our life stories and exchanged emails. We even took pictures with him. Of course it was your typical one flight stand, we never talked to him again but we surely fell for his charming smile and irresistible personality. It made the endless hours more bearable. The line to board our Air India flight was long so we decided to purchase some Dutch products and honor Troy’s heritage, a few T-shits that read Amsterdam and a handmade heart shaped key chain I carry with me to this day. After a tedious search by the airport security we finally boarded our long awaited flight to reinvention land.

The entrance to the plane was a bit shocking, the smell was really strong already. A friend had warned me about the curry smell and I was finally getting a taste of things to come. We sat right behind an emergency exit which was perfect as Troy is a tall man and needs his legroom. We sat next to a man from Detroit that was headed to an oil rig in the middle of the Arabic sea, he spent 9 months out of the year away from his family at the oil rig, living in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere. The money was too good to turn down. So he flew once every three months for a week to see his family. He was going to be transported by helicopter to the oil rig in the middle of nowhere that same night.

We also talked to the air hostess who assured us our trip was going to change our lives, she was so excited and could not believe we were going to Bollywood to work on a film. Us filmmakers have an aura that seems to be irresistible to others. It would seem life behind that red curtain is nothing short of magic and glamorous. If they only knew.

Night had fallen so pretty soon we fell asleep. As we landed in Bombay our eyes opened and we realized the sun had been running away from us for over 20 hours now. It was the longest night of my life so far.

The airport actually reminded me of Mexico City right away, the people are similar physically and stare at you all the same. I guess the anonymous part is not going to work very well here. They especially stared at us because I look Indian and Troy is tall and white. I don’t cover my arms, I wear low rise jeans and tank tops. We hold hands and kiss in public and I don’t wear a sari or a bindi on my forehead which means I’m not yet married to him.

There is never a second chance to make a first impression they say, so I wanted a photograph of my first view of India. We exited the airport, I pulled out my camera and as soon as the door to the outside opened I snapped a shot. It was so humid outside the lens got instantly fogged up and in the blurry of all that fog you can faintly see the sign that reads, “Welcome to Mumbai”.

Down the rabbit hole part one....~The gate to the labyrinth~

After writing the letter that liberated me from all my childhood monsters,

I proceeded to delete it because I was too chickenshit to email it to my Mother.

I started packing for my trip to India that same night. I was motivated by the frustration daughters feel when they can’t make their mothers happy no matter what they do.

I had only gone that far once, to dance in China. But this was a trip to the mother ship. And this time I was going down the rabbit hole with the love of my life, Troy. Nothing mattered as long as we were together. We got engaged just a few months earlier and this job overseas was going to afford us the wedding of our dreams.

I was traveling to the other side of the world with the intention of reinventing myself, so I packed light. I wanted to find out what my true mission was on this earth. I wanted to redefine mi idea of what life was. I wanted to release any resentment I had towards my Mother and change my perspective on the world. I wanted to stop being under my parents shadow and find honesty in everything I did, no matter what the cost.

I was brought up in Mexico City, a place that is home to 25 million people and for some reason there is no chance of ever being anonymous there. I moved to Los Angeles looking for some space to become me. But somehow I carried with me all that luggage from my growing years, all the expectations were still sitting around waiting for me to go their way, but I couldn't. There had to be more to life than that. So I left them waiting. And I went on my trip. For this trip, for the first time ever, I did not tell my parents I was going. No call to say “Dad, I’m going to India.” I knew I’d only receive warnings and accusations like; “you’re crazy..” “what for?” and big sighs of disappointment, so I packed in silence, staring at the phone but still resisting it’s evil stare.

Troy and I finally got the email we’d been waiting for, it had our flight information. We were flying into Mumbai, formerly Bombay, India’s New York City we were told. I felt a very special kind of freedom, like all the ghosts from my troubled past would be released and recycled as soon as I touched Indian soil. We were flying to Mumbai, the entertainment capitol of India, where over a thousand films are produced each year. The perfect place for fate to take over and lead me to find “happiness”. That elusive article that’s free and not sold in stores yet hard as a pin in a haystack to find.

We lived in Venice, California exactly one block from the beach. In fact every morning as I walked to get my coffee at the “Cow’s end”, I took the path that was next to the ocean. It was my little moment of joy before I faced the big bad city and the reality of being a struggling filmmaker in Los Angeles which plain SUCKS.

This was the chance of a lifetime, we thought, how amazing if we present a project and they love it and decide we’re what they had been waiting for. We couldn't sleep the night before the trip. We started fantasizing about how I would be discovered and would become the most coveted actress in all of India, I could dance, sing and act and I looked like I was born there. It was the perfect fantasy, Troy would direct all my films and we would both become rock stars in the Indian film world. Then of course, Hollywood would come knocking, but we would be so happy there we would probably turn them down. (yeah right…)

We were about to go find our freedom and give ourselves a second chance at things. A fresh start in a new world where we would probably meet the most interesting people of our lives. Things had obviously been hard in the last couple of years and we were really tired of the struggle. So we had high hopes for this new adventure.