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Marigold
I spent last night watching Water, the last of Deepa Mehta's element-inspired films. I still think Earth is my favorite. All three were visually stunning films. I love the color of them... flashes of brilliant orange, washes of cool blue, velvety mossy greens. I like movies that I can almost smell and taste; hers definitely have that quality to them. So I enjoyed this one almost as much as the others. The only thing that sort of soured it for me was the whole "give her to Ghandi" scene at the end. It left me rolling my eyes a bit, but the rest of the movie was good enough to make up for that. It was certainly the most Bollywood of the three films; not due in particular part to the ending, but the structure of the story and the use of the music certainly was reminiscent of some of the great hopeless Bollywood love stories I've seen.
My children have now picked up my love of Indian cinema. I can't even say how secretly thrilled I am when my two boys who will barely sit still for ten minutes sit, mesmerized, feverishly reading subtitles, completely involved until the credits roll. It seems a silly thing, doesn't it? But it has an importance to me that is hard to explain. You see, I love India. Now, of course, I realize that my India is not a real place; it is a version of a real place that exists in my head, made up of everything I have imagined about it since I was a girl. The truly ironic thing about my imaginary India? The one that is pieced together from everything I have been able to see from my distant perspective? What I love about it most is that it seems to be one of the most real places in the world. It seems so full of everything that I think of it as being a place where life is concentrated in ways that it may not be in other geographies. There is poverty, wealth, hope, despair, clang and clatter of too much and too many, still places where one might hear water slide off a blade of grass. This is what I imagine India to be. I don't know if that's how it truly is, and I may not ever find out. But when I sit with my sons and see them falling in love with this same imaginary place, it gives me hope that they might someday see the real India. It makes me think that maybe there is a reason why a girl from West Texas fell in love with a place that is on the other side of the world. I used to think that maybe I had business there, but perhaps it is one of my sons who will have business there one day. Perhaps it is one of them that will make sense of the connection.
Who knows? I still plan to go there one day. I am sure that the real India is more spectacular and amazing than even the one I carry in my head. This has always been the case with any place I have visited. In the meantime, I will continue to make the imaginary journey with my boys on weekend mornings with breakfast and a movie, all of us dreaming together of different places that are the same.
My children have now picked up my love of Indian cinema. I can't even say how secretly thrilled I am when my two boys who will barely sit still for ten minutes sit, mesmerized, feverishly reading subtitles, completely involved until the credits roll. It seems a silly thing, doesn't it? But it has an importance to me that is hard to explain. You see, I love India. Now, of course, I realize that my India is not a real place; it is a version of a real place that exists in my head, made up of everything I have imagined about it since I was a girl. The truly ironic thing about my imaginary India? The one that is pieced together from everything I have been able to see from my distant perspective? What I love about it most is that it seems to be one of the most real places in the world. It seems so full of everything that I think of it as being a place where life is concentrated in ways that it may not be in other geographies. There is poverty, wealth, hope, despair, clang and clatter of too much and too many, still places where one might hear water slide off a blade of grass. This is what I imagine India to be. I don't know if that's how it truly is, and I may not ever find out. But when I sit with my sons and see them falling in love with this same imaginary place, it gives me hope that they might someday see the real India. It makes me think that maybe there is a reason why a girl from West Texas fell in love with a place that is on the other side of the world. I used to think that maybe I had business there, but perhaps it is one of my sons who will have business there one day. Perhaps it is one of them that will make sense of the connection.
Who knows? I still plan to go there one day. I am sure that the real India is more spectacular and amazing than even the one I carry in my head. This has always been the case with any place I have visited. In the meantime, I will continue to make the imaginary journey with my boys on weekend mornings with breakfast and a movie, all of us dreaming together of different places that are the same.