Fulbright-mtvU Fellows

Be The Change

It wasn’t easy, but I’ve finally managed to set up a relatively normal life here. Although Mumbai represents craziness at its best, I am surprised by the level of organization and structure of the Akanksha Foundation, the main youth foundation I will be working with during my time here in India. With 33 after school centers and 2 full time schools, Akanksha has developed a specific curriculum and manual with which they want to instruct every child. They have programs that range from the basics of Math and English to social leadership and music. They help slum kids apply to universities, market their artwork to generate income for their families, and even teach them basic computer skills in partnership with SchoolNet. The soul of Akanksha is in Mahatma Ghandi’s mantra: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Akanksha changes the lives of children by showing them how to believe again through the art of imagination. They help the kids escape from their harsh realities in the slums, even for just a few hours a day or a week, to let them be children again. I visited with the centers and met with the children, volunteers and professors. It was assessment day, and the children were being tested on their progress through oral and written exams. I sat in on multiple assessments where the children were asked about current events and about what they had read or seen recently in the news. What was going on in their Mumbai? And you know the first thing the children spoke of? Music. They knew the latest Bollywood release, they spoke of Michael Jackson’s death, they quoted lyrics romanticizing their favorite songs. One little boy even broke out in dance and serenaded me with a Bollywood love song (it took all I had not to blush!).
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Tags: Akanksha Foundation, Bollywood, Katerina Kaif, Michael Jackson, Mumbai

Kommikal and Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

This is a bit of an overdue post, but at the end of July I flew to Christchurch, in the South Island of New Zealand, to meet and film one of my participants, Kommikal. I happened to catch him during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, or Māori Language Week. This annual celebration of the Māori language started in 1975, and each year encompasses events all over New Zealand that support the use of Te Reo Māori. Even mainstream media outlets participate, as statements like “What’s next on TV2” were delivered solely in Māori, and New Zealand-made programming like the daily serial Shortland Street featured Māori language content. It’s an amazing achievement for proponents of the Māori language that the week has grown to such prominence, particularly when some older New Zealand residents can remember a time (the early 1900’s) when the Māori language was banned on playgrounds at schools and corporal punishment could be administered to children who disobeyed.
Below are some clips from Kommikal’s performance at the Māori Film and Music Festival held at the University of Canterbury as part of their week of classes, workshops, and celebrations held in the Māori language.
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Tags: Māori Film and Music Festival, Māori Language Week, University of Canterbury

Mumbai Meri Jaan

Namaste from India, and welcome to my Fulbright mtvU-blog! For the next 9 months, I will live in Mumbai and use this site to post videos, soundbites, photos, interviews, and updates on my project exploring Bollywood culture and its impacts and influences on underprivileged youth in Mumbai. As part of my project, I aim to coordinate with entertainment professionals at Rohit Roy Productions and the youth of the Akanksha Foundation to develop the theatre and drama program of the foundation and to create a Bollywood performance by the youth. My ultimate goal is to produce a documentary of the children’s journey, which will be screened at a fundraising gala that marks the 20^th anniversary of the Akanksha foundation’s efforts.

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Tags: Akanksha Foundation, Bollywood, Mumbai, Rohit Roy Productions

in media res

In 10th grade Lit, Mr. Carson taught us that the best way to sleep covertly while standing upright is to lean stomach-first against a cabinet in the back of the classroom, and place a chalkboard eraser between your chin and chest. This technique is best employed when your students are giving 15-minute oral presentations on Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In his waking hours Mr. Carson rewrote the example sentences in our vocabulary books so that they provided context within the scope of 70’s pop culture. I learned that the word “avarice” is a synonym for “greed”, and that many consider Avarice Films Inc.’s undisputed masterpiece to be Debbie Does Dallas. I thought it was a Western, and my dad worshiped John Wayne, so I asked him if he’d heard of it. He had, but to the best of his knowledge it was not a John Wayne movie. We then had a father-son moment.
Mr. Carson also taught me that all epics begin in media res and that the adventures that shape our lives are no exception.

Tags: Debbie Does Dallas, John Wayne, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Karate Champions Get Special Massages

Before heading to a Synagogue in the New City of Fez for Rosh Hashanah services, Andrew and I visited the public bathhouse for a serious scrub down. My father and grandfather always described the hamam in Iran with smiles, sighs, and nostalgia. Now I can relate. I also now understand why they always frowned upon loofas as inferior scrubbing devices.

In the States, you soap, lather, and then rinse off under a shower. In the hamam you sit cross-legged on a tile floor as a mustachioed gentlemen in his 50’s pours scalding buckets of water on you and then proceeds to rub you down with saboon beldi (traditional old-fashioned soap that looks like black petroleum jelly). After a second rinse, he then slips his hand into a kis, which I would describe as an abrasive mitten that you would only use to clean the rust off of an old bike chain. While the purpose of the loofa is to lather soap all over your body, the kis is meant to remove your first (and sometimes second) layer of skin. As I held back tears, the man peeling off my summer tan asked if I was a student of karate. Apparently anyone in Morocco with well-defined pectorals is considered a fighter. I laughed. He then rocked my world.
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Tags: hamam