10 Mar India Day 4: Epic Morning, Epic Sunrise, Epic History

Day 4 (Epic Morning, Epic Sunrise, Epic History)

Let’s start things off with a short treatment of my morning:

Christine’s Epic Morning

INT. ShangriLa Hotel Room – Morning 5:19 AM

The room, clothed in darkness, echoes the DEEP SLUMBERING SOUNDS of two women, CAROLINE KOLB and CHRISTINE CHEN, peacefully sleeping in their hotel beds. Suddenly a KNOCK.

CHRISTINE
Uhhhh…. Did someone knock?

MYSTERY PERSON
Umm… it’s Paul.

CHRISTINE
SHITTTTT!!!!!!! CAROLINE!!!! SHITTT!! DID THE ALARM NOT GO OFF?

CAROLINE
Huh?

CHRISTINE
THE ALARM!! We’re supposed to be down at 5:30 AM or we’re going to miss the train!!!!

CAROLINE
F&%*! My alarm didn’t go off !!! OMG I know what happened!

Caroline and Christine frantically roll out of bed shoving clothes and items into suit cases while dressing and brushing their teeth. Pejoratives spew forth from Christine.

CAROLINE
OMG… my alarm is going to ring at 5:30 PM. I can’t believe I did that. I am so sorry.

A phone RINGS.

CHRISTINE
Shit, they’re calling us.

Christine answers the phone.

ROHIT
Hey… are you coming down?

CHRISTINE
Yes, we’re on our way.

Christine continues to express her feelings in verbal unpleasantness as she hangs up the phone. The phone RINGS again.

AMIT
Hey… ummm, where are you?

CHRISTINE
We’re on our way right now! Bye!

CAROLINE
OMG, I can’t believe I did that. I am sooo sorry.

Christine and Caroline scramble downstairs, well beyond late.

Basically my morning in a nutshell (shaped like a script), and it gets much better. The entire class rolled into the train station half-asleep only to find it packed full of too many wide-awake people who were unable to find a hotel room the night before. Apparently, if you can’t find a hotel, the train station becomes the next best place. We boarded the train without incident, and I prepared to sleep for the next three hours as our train traveled from New Delhi to Agra.

Except, that never happened.

As the train left the station, the picturesque scenery interrupted my sleeping plans, entrancing me in its cultural beauty. So, I ended up spending the entire three hour trip moving from train side to train side capturing it all on camera.

One moment outshone the rest: the sunrise over the open Indian fields. In the moment, with the exception of the pollution haze, it did not look like the India I had already seen.

We greeted our bus, which had left the night before, and took it to Fatepur Sikri (Fun Fact: It was the Mughal capital for 14 years) Varieties of sandstone structures filled the immense place.

While walking around a guy offered (semi-forced) to show me the best spots to photograph the city. (He actually grabbed my hand and told me to go with him, and I stupidly did not do a good job of refusing.) For about ten minutes, he showed me several spots, some of which had potential, but after each location, he would insist on taking me somewhere else. I became more and more hesitant and reluctant until I finally told him no. He then asked for money, “Give me dollars. American dollars. As much as you like. Maybe a few thousand rupees.” After giving him 50 rupees and a dollar bill, he became a bit forceful. “No! More money!” I don’t normally openly reveal my anger, but at this point, I lost my patience. I expressed to him that I would report him to the authorities if he didn’t stop asking for money. I can be quite intimidating. He stopped.

I left to find the group, but of course, due to the size of the city, I quickly got lost. Following some terrifying “oh crap” moments, I spotted extremely tall Paul from afar. Thank everything in existence that Paul has super duper height, because I can spot him from anywhere. After “asking” my group to perform a myriad of movie moments (mostly dancing) and hundreds of pictures later, we enjoyed a luxurious ten course meal. Ridiculously ridiculous. Back at the hotel, we chilled (meaning I spent my time responding to SXSW emails for the Moth to Flame party on March 11th, a party that I cannot attend).

Tangent Alert: My Moth to Flame team rules, and I love them to death. Hands down, the best. They go well out of their way to make MTF better, and they help out despite my neurotic and crazy requests. They are the reason why MTF will succeed and I cannot thank them enough. Hopefully one day I can repay everyone in some form or fashion.

Another Tangent Alert: The amount of support I receive outside of my core MTF team constantly amazes me. Everyone on this trip has bent backwards and forwards on multiple occasion to help me film. They have carried my bag, my tripod, my whatever and I have felt so very loved. I only wish that they all can know how much I appreciate their support and how it drives me to become a better filmmaker. For now, all I can say is thank you. It’s not enough because the support they give to me, drives me. It’s the fuel that keeps me working hard and helps me not give up.

Next – The Taj Mahal!!! After waiting a long time for this moment (seriously, for years my credit card displayed the Taj Mahal), I came prepared. My gear: my velometer to create a time lapse, a GoPro, my camera, and enough SD cards to hold millions of pictures and several GBs of video. I nearly cried when I saw the Taj Mahal, and now I understand why it is one of the Wonders of the World. The architecture had impressively perfect symmetry with everything aligned considering that construction began hundreds of years before what most consider modern building technology.

How is this possible? The things humans can do constantly amazes me. The Taj Mahal also has incredible levels of detail; the magnificence only increased the closer I came. Let’s not forget the story behind its construction. The Taj Mahal was built by a king for the love of his wife, who died after bearing him their 14th child. As I stood before the Taj Mahal, I could almost sense the king’s sadness. Could you imagine the magnitude of grief the king experienced to create a structure so grand? And then having to come across it every day, completely alone, and missing the person buried within it? Sad, yet romantic. I also seem to create my most inspired work when sad.

I can always judge the epicness of a production by how many things go wrong. True to form and at the most important moment, the batteries for both my camera and GoPro died. Although our nice tour guide went back to the bus to retrieve my spare battery, I truly never recovered emotionally from this misfortune. Fortunately, we will return tomorrow for the sunrise.

At 8 pm, the guards gently shooed off the tourists so that the Taj Mahal could sleep as well. I felt extremely lucky that Rohit and I were in the final tour of the inside of the Taj Mahal (just the two of us) because, for that day, we were the last two tourists standing on the Taj Mahal! In that moment, I felt super special.

All in all, a nice day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.