Blog 33 (looking for Faisel)

Bang Bang Galore!

A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg

I am still very attached to the coming of age story that has unfolded. I refer to Faisel and Gowri as characters rather than people, usurping their real identities by projecting on them an imagined life- affirming ending.

I miss Faisel and wonder if I may have contributed in some way to his disappearance. Mio tells me that Faisal’s that the Jaynagar central bus station is Faisel’s home turf. I meander through the corrugated steel fence surrounding the courtyard of the station and watch a fragile, sari- clad woman balancing four bricks on her head. She and her family are part of a small cluster of workers hired to demolish and rebuild the station. None of them have heard or seen Faisel.

I head to the railway station in downtown Bangalore and after pacing the tracks and surrounding areas, I stumble upon an adolescent junkie. He has white ink spots on both sides of his nostrils and is seated with his back against the wall of the motorcycle parking lot. He is sketchy and incoherant and doesn’t wish to be filmed. As we chat, the kid punctures a tiny hole in a foam disc and twirls it in circles. My translator asks him about the other children in the train station and he explains: “The police chased them away.” Faisel’s predicament is a story tangent that makes me wonder if I am on the wrong track.

For all of the discussions of children liberating other children, I never witness a single rescue. I heard Gowri and her friend Kiren rescued a boy in the fruit market one month prior to my arrival here. They invited Vankatesh, an eleven- year old young orphan boy who suffers from epilepsy to follow them to their school and he complied. It was a simple process that happened over the course of a few casual conversations. Yesterday, at the end of music class, John makes a brief announcement on my behalf, suggesting a student rescue for the purposes of the documentary. The request had the bite of a take home assignment issued by a substitute teacher.

That evening, I had plans to take a few Born Free students to MG Road, to invite child street musicians and street hawkers to join their school.
MG Road is the most notable high- end shopping and club district in Bangalore, an area that draws big crowds every night of the week. For several hours, I watched three young girls from Nepal girls selling roses to mostly disinterested customers who pretend not to see them. Each child all under the age of ten speak three or four languages including English and they mostly targeted young couples and single women. I wanted the Born Free Children to invite them to school, but I believe I was stood up.

Either the Born Free students forgot about their appointment with me or they are involved in other activities. Either way, it didn’t happen and probably for good reason. The role of a true documentary filmmaker is to observe events, not create them.