I was held hostage by terrorists.

Yes.

And the main terrorist had breasts the size of Pamela Anderson's, muscles too big for walking. My two co-hostages were quivering, crying, while I sat on the couch with defiant anger, mixed with a healthy dose of fear.

The terrorist, his greasy long hair combed back, munched on three cashews, dialed a 10-digit number, and then proceeded to announce to an unknown interlocutor:

"Heeeey India TV! Muahahahahahhaaaaaaaa! "

Yes, I am now oficially part of the actors guild. Bollywood called, and I roared an answer: "Total Ten", a movie which takes quite a lot of liberties with the terrorist attack on the Taj Mahal Hotel, will forever be recorded in the history books as the first appearance of ME, the D., on the big screen.

Tomorrow will be another day, another performance, and perhaps a bit more dancing. I hope for a more challenging role than lying on the ground with blood on my head and a sobbing New Zealandette next to me.

The profit ratios my agent gets are not bad: Apparently, the studios pay around 2,000 rupees per white guy or gal, and the agents dish out a meagre 500 rps to the tourists in question.

But hey, you get food, chai, conversation, and an insight in the world's biggest and fastest film industry. Yes, the fastest: The movie I mentioned before is being produced in three months, A-Z. In Austria, you wouldn't even produce a short in that time, let alone a feature.

This is Bollywood, so the terrorists can hide behind glass windows, and be born evil, and look ugly, while the heroic commandos are the image of bravery and goodness. Every story here has basically an intrinsic moral and mythical context, where the cheesieness is NOT optional. Having an overweight baddy with eyebrows the size of shrubbery is just what you need to captivate an Indian audience, apparently.

But hey, who knows, a new breed of actors, directors and producers might be just around the corner. In order to get around that, however, they need to break with these age-old traditions, and perhaps even change the society as a whole.

Jai Ho!
el dji.

Mumbai > Opposites attract. Or do they?

Hello again, World.

Mumbai greets the weary eyes of the train-borne traveller with the images we all know now. The slums.

Imagine a city in which every space that is not explicitly walled in, fenced off or protected by automatic weapons is used as living quarters. Or farmland.

The camps of blue plastic (even cheaper than the tin, apparently) crop up wherever space exists and the people haven't been beaten away yet. Just 5 minutes from the Taj Mahal Hotel, the monument to luxury erected by the Parsi industrialist Jamseti Tata, you can find seafront housing of the basic kind.

The "beaches" consist entirely of plastic, and the blue roofs behind it fit in perfectly. I guess at a high development value of this peculiar abandoned wharf.

Back to the trains: Travel in second class sleeper cars is absolutely up to european standards, if not a bit further up the scale. The friendly (tip-coveting) wallas pamper one with free food that's ages away from the fare airlines serve, and the air-con is a good reason to bring a fleece jacket to India. All in all: Quite an enjoyable experience.

Even more enjoyable when, looking out the window, the normal kind of train passes your island of comfort, commuters literally clinging to whatever surface they can find. (The roof is no longer used, probably because of the high casualty rate)

so long,
the d.

Dehli. Thanks, bye.

Dearest Readers!

After a long time of scarce (if not totally absent) posts, now commences a time of many words, of interesting observations.

And no, my camera was not yet stolen, but I simply decided I could write a bit more often. Not a bad notion, I hope.

SO, here I am, in Dehli. New Dehli, to be exact. The temperature outside is about 10 degrees above the workable limit, so the only option I have to bridge the gap between my successful ticket purchase for the train to Mumbai (I still admire myself a bit for that achievement, explanations will materialise soon.. )is to write.

The Yellow House in Kathmandu was Paradise, with a capital P put there for a reason. Wonderful food, cheap, clean rooms and really nice staff top off the groovy, sometimes a bit freaky, crowd hanging loose there and savouring the vibes of Nepal.

Indeed, I have to say it might have been a bit too good, and contributed thus to my long absence from the keyboard. Blogposts entitled *it's wonderful here and I'm loving it* are not the kind of message I would want to read. Thus, writing them is even less of an option.

But yes, as I am now in New Dehli, that moloch breeding with heat and hustlers, there are far more interesting phrases to be formed.

This society demands a basic distrust of everyone, especially of those who happen to earn less than you do. Trickery is abundant, a spanish girl I met while trying to purchase my ticket managed to be conned 5 times in the short time she had been here (since today in the morning, three o'clock).

So, the following week will be interesting: In which traps will I fall? Will I manage to get to Singapore with my pants still on? And, perhaps, upload a video while doing it?

It's understandable why Hinduism is polytheist: A single god could never cope with such a seething mass of humanity.

cheers,
the d, alive as can be.

Life in the Camps - Part two of the Bhutanese Refugee Series

"have fun" is not an appropriate greeting in this context.

"have thought" perhaps.

el d.

Dos pandara minut pashli - ready huncha tarkari.

Here's the first ever cooking vid made in a one-room appartment.

Have fun, enjoy the curry,
the d.

bhutan - what have you done? Part one of the Bhutanese Refugee series

Refugees in the Himalayas. Bhuddists driving out an ethnic minority.

A series of interviews taken in the camps in southeastern Nepal, where about 108.000 people still live without any citizenship.



This is explicitly not "dave's away" but something else entirely, as yet nameless. Any suggestions?

cheers,
the d.

Return from the Non-Blogosphere

I'm back. Haven't been anywhere in particular, but I managed to collect humongous ammounts of video in the last few weeks and have since been fighting with my urge to let it be and just enjoy life. But my good old spartan won, thanks to some motivational techiques I will leave undescribed as of yet.

Here's the first vid of a whole new series, something completely different and yet same same. Hopefully, you will enjoy these more mundane productions in the same way you did the first chaotic pieces..

Have fun,
the d.