Last night I had two nightmares. In the first I was on a ship with someone close to me who I don't know in waking life. The people who ran the ship were hunting passengers to take over our minds. We were trying to hide from them and the increasing numbers of people with stolen minds who became part of the plan to trap and remove who you are. Eventually we were sequestered in our basement room with no windows and black walls, unable to go out for fear of being seen and caught. It seemed a matter of time before we'd be trapped and lost.

At a young age I cultivated the ability to bring myself into consciousness as a nightmare gets too fearful to bear. I woke up.



In my next dream I was visiting the office of a used car lot or a used car rental agency. As I left and walked in the grass strip by the street curb I noticed movement at my feet and was shocked to see a mangled dark cat lying on its side. I guessed it was hit by a car . It was almost unrecognizable at my feet, its face a pulp. As I looked closer I realized I was surrounded by movement below and I saw tiny mangled and bloody kittens and with horror I realized she had given birth after being hit. I tried to shield her from the sun and began phoning for help, not sure if I'd arrived too late.

Columbus set out commissioned to look for Indians, which pretty much guaranteed that's what he would find. Our rice, our corn, our spices, these small pieces connect us more than gold in the ground or in our skin.

Tonight, tired from so much night wakefulness, I lay in a lavender oil bath and rubbed calcium bentonite clay, the Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay into my itchy triceps. I put a quarter inch all over my face, becoming unrecognizable, and read a paper with a creeping wet edge. I'm hoping this will keep an encroaching cold at bay. Tomorrow I'll get up and, like today, do ordinary things one after the other.

Tags: Irene

Last night my friend asked me "Why do you like Hindi films so much?" I get this question relatively regularly, especially from people who grew up watching them, which I didn't, and/or who grew up in India (which I didn't). One of these days I'll have to ask why they ask.

I replied to him that my answer depends on which film we're talking about. I think if pressed I could come up with categories of films I tend to like (naming them could be fun - watch out for an update) and why.

His question has been ringing in my ears. Today I realized one reason.

Let's take, for example, Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). If that movie were made in Hollywood, the cast would have included probably no brown actors. All the characters running around in their Polo clothes would have flashed me right back to 8th grade, the year I made a bad decision to go to private school because I thought there I would get less stick for actually liking to learn (which is not the same thing as liking school, I should add). I figured if you were paying for school, it must be because you really wanted to go. The school was on the edge of town and every day I had to ride the school bus with all the kids sporting their Jordache, Polo, Izod etc. gear who would tell jokes like "Mexicans are proof the Indians f***ed the buffalo" and blow spit bubbles on me. Even my blue-eyed, blonde "best friend" would laugh. Not happy times.

I begged my parents to let me go back to public school after the first half of the year, but they refused. I realized other people pay for school so their kids can avoid the kids who don't pay - education has little to do with the equation.

Now, until today I've never connected KKHH's costuming with those memories of mine, and even after imagining a Hollywood version (which would no doubt be a poor imitation for many reasons to do with the differences in storytelling sensibilities), the Indian original doesn't hold any bad connections for me. The Indian version isn't connected to America at all, and I can enjoy those characters without the sense that I would be not only outside the story, but likely unwelcome if it were of American origin.

Tags: Irene, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Karan Johar

My recent stint crewing on a Hindi film by a local filmmaker netted me a small role. I was working on set, being my usual chatty self, talking to people about films and actors. When he found out I knew about Indian films, one actor's first bon mot was that Shah Rukh Khan is "much darker" in real life than he appears on films. He said they use makeup to make him lighter, and had a bunch to say about how he's not really a light-skinned person.

I think this info was supposed to scandalize me, and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I too have noticed SRK getting lighter over time, and wondered why. Maybe he's so rich he can hire an umbrella-holder! Shoot, I wear SPF 30 myself, so I'm not as dark as I used to be.

To be honest, I'd welcome more darker people in films, Indian or otherwise, unless of course they are playing all the bad guys or stupid people.

That's why I like commercial Indian cinema over American - I wanna see brown people as doctors, lawyers, teachers, truck drivers, sub kuch. Good people and bad, funny people and sad, the gamut. Not just as the occasional salsa dancer or hooker with a heart of gold. Yes, I know it's lighter people featured in Indian films too, but at least it's in the brown range. Having grown up watching American films where even the indies are relatively monochromatic in culture, I'm ready for something new.

One day on set the director asked in Hindi where an actor was. I answered him in Hindi, and he replied incredulously "You speak Hindi?" Uh, well, a little. I've been teaching myself for a few months.

I play a mean money lender. This bumbling guy is trying to shoot the TV pilot that will make him rich, and all he needs is the money. He's tried everything else, and I'll give it to him at 15% for the first couple months, then the rate goes up.

You can find me at: http://balaxfilms.com/htm/kyutension/kgallery.htm .

Tags: Irene