Bang Bang Galore!
A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg
Blog 11 (Breakfast with Mio and Anthony]
Mio’s schedule is so erratic that I am often feeling like I am disturbing her sleep when I rap at the door in the morning. I have a simple request: I need to use the shower. If I feel like an intruder, Mio wipes away that sentiment when she insists that I join her for breakfast. Anthony is in the kitchen, cooking up a batch of spicy eggs while John taps away on the computer and Mio is organizing appointments on her cell phone. When breakfast is ready, Anthony arrives with an iron wok filled with scrambled eggs and places it at the centre of a long mahogany table. The food smells delicious, but there always seems to be something missing; cutlery. I just can’t get the feel of eating eggs with my hands, so I request a fork and knife.
Some mornings, I rise early to take advantage of the beautiful dawn light. When I return home at 9:00 am, the door is locked and it appears Mio has left home for the day. It is not a catastrophe, but in a city as grimy as Bangalore where the grit sticks to my sunscreen moisturizer, I am always longing that three- minute trickle of cold water, but I don’t always manage to succeed.
It is a few hours later and I am forced to stalk Mio in the schoolyard and ask for her key. She is scattered and disorganized and while she fumbles through her worn out school leather worn out school bag, I ask her about the possibility of getting a key. She says it’s not a huge problem to share a key. I am starting to resent not having my own key to the apartment, if only for the sake of using the shower at my discretion.
Later that evening, John and Mio roll through the front door and are brimming with new ideas and future plans for their fledgling school. We talk briefly about the upcoming school events; the are always generating new plans and discarding others. They are overloaded with work and are experiencing the growing pains of success. It is easy to get swept up in their excitement, because they make big things happen.
John and Mio are modern day missionaries, doing wonderful work and are worthy of a documentary, but my gut tells me they if the final product is anything less than spotless they will feel betrayed.
They see my documentary as international media exposure for their school and fail to understand that if everything unfolds without conflict, it will be a mighty boring film.
In the meantime, I am thrilled to learn that Anthony has just been accepted to the St. Josephs, a highly touted private school and will soon join other students of the same age in the eighth standard. This is very exciting news and I am duly impressed. I am happy to hear them brag about Anthony’s success and see no reason not to join in the familiar chorus of “That’s amazing! You’ve done terrific work.” Now, if I could bottle that in a fragrance that doesn’t smell like an infomercial for donors.
