Good afternoon,
I realize that I have been in India for almost two weeks now, and have not written a word about it. My apologies. They will not be enough, but I will try to offer a complementary summary of my activities.
My first week in Delhi was spent getting over a head cold. Not too exciting. I have thoroughly enjoyed living with my brother, Nathan, and two other employees in his startup company. Of all my trips to India, I finally feel as though I am staying in Delhi. I'm living in a grounded community and not traveling from place to place every other week. I anticipate that this will only help my ability to focus on my screenplay research and writing. Although, to be honest, I have not done much writing since my arrival, I suspect that that is about to change rather rapidly, due mostly to the fact that I finally feel somewhat at home here. I have made some new friends, have reconnected with old ones, and even found a small group of fellow writers/poets with which to relate my progress on my script.
Of course, I'm not simply working on a movie script. In my initial description of my project on this blog, I failed to mention that there is a subplot to my film that involves the main character, Samir, writing a children's book for his 9-year-old sister, Padinni. For the sake of the film, I am in fact writing & illustrating this short children's book. I hope to draw meaningful and deep parallels between the children's story and the main arc of the film story, as both deal with themes of adventure, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption. If you think this is too deep for a children's story, then go re-read Shel Silverstein's “The Giving Tree.” Or, since your on the Internet anyway, you can watch the animated version here (narrated by the author himself): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6OqRlE.
I'm still writing the children's story, so I really don't want to discuss it in great detail here until I am finished.
I'm meeting up with the director of a local children's dance institute here in Delhi today or tomorrow in order to find out more about children's dance opportunities in the city. Padinni is interested in dancing and so Samir is helping to pay for some extracurricular activities. This becomes a key point in the story when Samir falls in love with Amrita, a paralyzed dancer, at his work in the hospital. Amrita is able to pass on her former dancing expertise to the younger sister, who is inspired by Amrita despite her recent paralysis.
The topic of alcoholism has been a little more difficult for me to solidify. There are questions as to whether or not an alcoholic father who was a drunk driver is the best scenario for this story (though for this first draft, I will stick with the father). A much more culturally relevant situation would be for two siblings to be in conflict, one having committed the accident, and the other having to struggle with the consequences/hide the fact from the parents/etc. contemporary discussions of drunk driving surround the foolish actions of young adult children of well-known businessmen and politicians much more so than those of disreputable family figures. As one can imagine, it's not very easy to get access to individuals involved in drug driving accidents, whether perpetrators or victims. One thought is to research Indian films and books that deal with individual accounts. This is what I will try next.
Cheers!
-Jon
